Re: Druglord's & AS/400

[Douglas Handy <dhandy1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Pat,

>The time period for this was 1938

Actually, the census was 1933, and the use of the card system was well known
prior to this latest book.  In fact, it was the display of a Hollerith machine
at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum which led Edwin Black (the author of the the
book) to investigate what role IBM technology may have had beyond the census.
His grandparents were both survivors -- but barely.  His grandmother was shot
and buried alive, but his grandfather supposedly found her leg sticking out and
dug her out and they hid in a forrest for a couple of years.

According to one news account:

"Historians have known for decades of Nazi use of Hollerith tabulators but the
book -- IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and
America's Most Powerful Corporation -- spotlights IBM business dealings and the
lengths to which it may have tailored its machines to meet Nazi requirements."

>Many U.S.A. companies were doing business in Germany at the time. The
>sale was done by a German subsidiary of IBM(not known as IBM then).

The company was known as Dehomag, which Black claims was IBM's second-largest
sales territory of the 1930's.  Black alledges Tom Watson Sr was personally
involved in continuing to supply technology to the Nazis even after the
international boycott was supposed to be in effect.  Black claims there was an
elaborate scheme to hide the paper trail.  But he also says Watson's motive was
"not out of Nazi sympathies but from a desire to dominate global markets for its
products".

The assertion is that "IBM knowingly supplied technology used to catalogue death
camp victims and aided in the "persecution, suffering and genocide" before and
during World War II."

"Hitler could not have so quickly and efficiently identified and rounded up Jews
and other minorities, used them as slave labourers and ultimately exterminated
them, without IBM's assistance."

Yada, yada, yada.

Doug
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