80 Years Ago... Government Using "Computing Power", Did NOT End Well For Millions And Millions...

[WillyT]

IBM And The Holocaust

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Holocaust implications[edit source | editbeta]

The 1933 census, with design help and tabulation services provided by IBM through its German subsidiary, proved to be pivotal to the Nazis in their efforts to identify, isolate, and ultimately destroy the country's Jewish minority. Black describes the situation faced by German Jews:

"Since the advent of the Third Reich, thousands of Jews nervously assumed they could hide from the Aryan clause.

"But Jews could not hide from millions of punch cards thudding through Hollerith machines, comparing names across generations, address changes across regions, family trees and personal data across unending registries. It did not matter that the required forms or questionnaires were filled in by leaking pens and barely sharpened pencils, only that they were later tabulated and sorted by IBM's precision technology."[20]

On September 13, 1935, Hitler demanded the immediate implementation of a "Law for the Protection of German Blood" which deprived Jews of German citizenship and prohibited them from having sexual relations with or from marrying Aryans.[21] Machine-tabulated census data greatly expanded the estimated number of Jews in Germany by identifying individuals with only one or a few Jewish ancestors. Previous estimates of 400,000 to 600,000 were abandoned for a new estimate of 2 million Jews in the nation of 65 million.[22]

Another German census was conducted on May 17, 1939, when 750,000 census takers conducted interviews with the country's 22 million households, and also millions of factories.[23] The purpose of the census was to identify the number of Jews in Germany and its newly expanded territories and to precisely locate each individual so that the Jewish population could be effectively ghettoized.[24] Ancestral lines had to be documented by each head of household as part of the national census, which dwarfed in size and detail the 1933 Prussian census.[25]

As the Nazi war machine occupied successive nations of Europe, capitulation was followed by a census of the population of each subjugated nation, with an eye to the identification and isolation of Jews and Gypsies. For example, the September 1, 1939 invasion of Poland was followed by an October 14 order of the Special Operations unit of the German Secret Police for a full census of the Jewish population, information which supplemented published information from the 1931 general Polish census.[26] These census operations were intimately intertwined with technology and cards supplied by IBM's German and new Polish subsidiaries, which were awarded specific sales territories in Poland by decision of the New York office following Germany's successful Blitzkrieg invasion.[27]

In the case of Poland, the ordered census took place over several days, from December 17 to December 23, 1939.[28] The census was both meticulous and cold-blooded, as Black notes:

"Each person over the age of twelve was required to fill out census and registration in duplicate, and then was fingerprinted. Part of the form was stamped and returned as the person's new identification form. Without it, they would be shot. With it, they would be deported."[28]

Data generated by means of counting and alphabetization equipment supplied by IBM through its German and other national subsidiaries was instrumental in the efforts of the German government to concentrate and ultimately destroy ethnic Jewish populations across Europe, Black demonstrates. He also notes, in an understated aside, that fully half of IBM's German subsidiary's annual profit — RM 1.8 million — was suddenly generated in December 1939.[29]

IBM technology in the camps[edit source | editbeta]

Black also reports that every Nazi concentration camp maintained its own Hollerith-Abteilung (Hollerith Department), assigned with keeping tabs on inmates through use of IBM's punchcard technology.[30] In his book, Black charges that "without IBM's machinery, continuing upkeep and service, as well as the supply of punch cards, whether located on-site or off-site, Hitler's camps could have never managed the numbers they did.[31]

Each of the major concentration camps was assigned a Hollerith code number for paperwork purposes: Auschwitz — 001; Buchenwald — 002; Dachau — 003; Flossenbürg — 004; Gross-Rosen — 005; Herzogenbusch — 006; Mauthausen — 007; Natzweiler — 008; Neuengamme — 009; Ravensbrück — 010; Sachsenhausen — 011; and Stutthoff — 012.[31]

Upon arrival at the camps in 1943, incoming prisoners would be examined for fitness to work, physical information would be recorded on a medical record, names would be cross-checked with data from the Political Section to determine whether the prisoner was additionally wanted for political offenses.

<snip>

More (Creative Commons): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

The Book: http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

[indepat]

1. Never forget IBM, Preston Bush, Joe Kennedy, Edward the VII, and any number of

fellow-travelers.

[Bay Boy]

2. Is this article saying that IBM was complicit

with the Nazis? That they purposefully designed their machines to exterminate the Jews in Germany?
Or should we also blame Kodak for manufacturing the film that was used to photograph the concentration camp victims?

[WillyT]

4. Pretty Much...

[msongs]

6. just like the wright brothers are responsible for hiroshima and dresden eh? nt

[WillyT]

7. Reading Is Essential...

These census operations were intimately intertwined with technology and cards supplied by IBM's German and new Polish subsidiaries, which were awarded specific sales territories in Poland by decision of the New York office following Germany's successful Blitzkrieg invasion.

From the OP.

[snagglepuss]

3. Grim and horrific. What never fails to shock me is that people with the advent

of the internet and social networking have disclosed personal information that the Nazis in their wildest dreams could not have imagined having.

[WillyT]

5. Yep... And Did You Catch This ???

Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-10/germans-hail-snowden-as-nsa-evokes-stasi-seizing-lives-of-others.html

[kenny blankenship]

8. Everyone fingerprinted... Their whole history compiled in exquisite detail

with family records recorded and memorized which may have even been forgotten by the current living generation...

Yes, I'd say it's safe to assume that total informational control over the citizens by the government is never a prelude to good things coming. I wouldn't say you can't have totalitarianism without it, or it can't be attempted without it, but a totalitarian government will always want total informational control. They feel they need it so their programs can be implemented without any resistance however marginal or passive. They need it for efficiency. They need it to keep track of who is good egg and who is likely to be trouble for them.

[WillyT]

9. Agreed !!!

[WillyT]

10. Morning Kick !!!

[WillyT]

11. One Last Kick...