Not only did I read the article, but I'm pretty sure that I actually read the book when it first came out, or at least lots of discussion about it, from several angles. This isn't exactly "new" news, after all. It might behoove you to track down some of the discussions from the time. I don't recall IBM coming out smelling like a rose, though, even if you gave them some benefit of the doubt.
But I was referring specifically to the census. IBM was in the census business at the time, after all, and Germany had a legitimate need for their services, which they provided at least until the war broke out. IIRC, some years passed between when Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany, and when they came to be considered "evil incarnate". Which was plenty of time for folks to do business with them which they might later come to regret.
I find it curious to selectively focus both your comments so far on the census services and ignore the rest. Certainly, when taken out of context those census services are easy to defend.
For the record, the context is that of a fascist regime invading its neighbours (enemies, neutrals and allies alike) and rounding up their undesirables.
>I don't recall IBM coming out smelling like a rose
After building the census systems to identify targets, IBM built a train scheduling system for transporting those people to work and concentration camps. Then, they built a punch card system for optimizing the exploitation of that slave labour and exterminating the rest.
But yes, "IBM was in the census business at the time, after all."
But wasn't the later stuff done by Dehomag, the German subsidiary started by IBM? IBM's direct involvement in Germany apparently ended when the war started in 1941, although Dehomag kept using their equipment. Just because they used "IBM technology" doesn't mean that IBM still had a hand in it. I mean, if you want to go down that route, shouldn't we be pointing a finger of blame at the train manufacturing folks, too, for example, since their trains were being used for transport?
Perhaps you should actually read the book, read the contemporary discussions of it, and maybe IBM's response to the whole affair before, you know, just jumping to conclusions based on this one article.
The article makes a point that the books length is largely due to establishing extensive proof that IMB's direct involvement and management over Dehomag throughout the war means they would have known exactly what the various uses of their systems were...
If an American company was making and selling trains to Germany during the war specifically tailored for transporting people in large quantities knowing what they were using it for, then I imagine most people would see multiple issues with that.
I admit I've only read the article, not the book but it seems hard to match your statements and "I think i've read the book" with the articles description of it.
Having read the original book, it made a reasonable (perhaps even convincing) case that IBM knew, or should have known what their tabulators would be used for - it also made a reasonably convincing case that IBM America had little control over its German subsidiary after 1936-7. The only thing IBM could have done was to declined to sell to the German government, which would have resulted in a prompt nationalization.
I'm not sure how much of this was detailed in the original book (I haven't read it) but the 2012 update claims to have revealed new material:
>Among the newly-released documents and archival materials are secret 1941 correspondence setting up the Dutch subsidiary of IBM to work in tandem with the Nazis, company President Thomas Watson’s personal approval for the 1939 release of special IBM alphabetizing machines to help organize the rape of Poland and the deportation of Polish Jews, as well as the IBM Concentration Camp Codes including IBM’s code for death by Gas Chamber.
Separately:
>... a newly released copy of a subsequent letter dated June 10, 1941, drafted by IBM’s New York office, confirms that IBM headquarters personally directed the activities of its Dutch subsidiary set up in 1940 to identify and liquidate the Jews of Holland.
It seems to me that there is evidence of direct involvement at least up until the US declared war in December 1941.
A quick read of the linked article suggests that maybe the author is somewhat confused about the difference between writing "computer code(s)" (software), which often requires extensive skill, and the assignment of simple numerical codes to various things for tracking purposes within the computer system, which is as straightforward as it sounds. The former is more of an engineering function while the latter is more clerical. Also, it is not at all surprising that the equipment and cards and whatever that the Nazis were using might bear the names/logos of IBM and Dehomag and such, even if those folks were completely out of the loop by then.
That said, the author also makes mention of new documents in order to back up his claims. I would have to review such documents for myself (and I may do this when I get the chance), because it's been my experience that when the press or whoever claims to have "smoking gun" documents, those documents often don't necessarily say what they're being claimed to say.
>A quick read of the linked article suggests that maybe the author is somewhat confused
Not likely. From Wikipedia:
In the early 1990s Black served as the editor-in-chief for OS/2 Professional magazine and OS/2 Week and reported on OS/2 users and technology.
>the author also makes mention of new documents in order to back up his claims. I would have to review such documents for myself (and I may do this when I get the chance), because it's been my experience that when the press or whoever claims to have "smoking gun" documents, those documents often don't necessarily say what they're being claimed to say.
> In the early 1990s Black served as the editor-in-chief for OS/2 Professional magazine and OS/2 Week and reported on OS/2 users and technology.
He's a journalist, not a techie. Just because he did some tech reporting and such back in the day doesn't necessarily mean that he has a clue, especially given the vintage of the tech that we're discussing here.
> Ah yes, the old "fake news" defence.
Yeah, you should maybe get a clue about that yourself! :)
And you should know that if and when various "smoking gun" documents turn up in court, as has been happening quite a bit lately, judges tend to react rather harshly if they don't actually say what they're claimed to say. This has also been happening quite a bit lately.
> If an American company was making and selling trains to Germany during the war specifically tailored for transporting people in large quantities knowing what they were using it for, then I imagine most people would see multiple issues with that.
The trains were just pretty much standard cattle and freight cars, AFAIK, just like the IBM equipment was standard tabulating fair. And I doubt pretty seriously that any real direct corporate communication was going on between Dehomag and the folks back at IBM HQ during the war; maybe indirectly though.
>the codes show IBM’s numerical designation for various camps. Auschwitz was 001, Buchenwald was 002; Dachau was 003, and so on. Various prisoner types were reduced to IBM numbers, with 3 signifying homosexual, 9 for anti-social, and 12 for Gypsy. The IBM number 8 designated a Jew. Inmate death was also reduced to an IBM digit: 3 represented death by natural causes, 4 by execution, 5 by suicide, and code 6 designated “special treatment” in gas chambers. IBM engineers had to create Hollerith codes to differentiate between a Jew who had been worked to death and one who had been gassed, then print the cards, configure the machines, train the staff, and continuously maintain the fragile systems every two weeks on site in the concentration camps.
Dude, as I explain in another comment, assigning such codes is mostly a clerical function, meaning that IBM or Dehomag or whoever didn't necessarily have a hand in it. I'm not saying that they didn't, but this doesn't prove that they did. (There may be IBM documents out there which suggest otherwise, though.)
And I found the following statement quite telling; emphasis mine:
"They [the punch cards] illustrate the nature of the end users [the Nazis; not IBM/Dehomag] who relied upon IBM’s information technology. "
I think I did (or maybe just parts of it), but I don't really remember because it came out back in 2001. I do recall reading a lot of discussion about the whole situation back then, and that IBM's response to it seemed rather weak. I haven't really kept up with the matter since then, though.
I hope you can take this as an honest question and not a personal attack, but if you’ve not really researched or paid attention to this issue since 2001 why are you all over the comments here defending IBM? I’m an ex-IBMer, not necessarily against them but you really seem to be going out of your way to defend them, what gives?
I don't believe I've actually "defended" IBM anywhere here. In fact, I stated that their response (their own defense) to the whole thing was quite weak, as I recall. But we're talking here about an article which came out in 2017 (written by someone who was apparently quite clueless about the whole situation), about a book which first came out in 2001, about events which happened back in the 1930s and 1940s. So plenty of time for us to have gotten a good historical view of what actually went on here - good, bad, or indifferent.
As I recall the book itself was quite one-sided and basically what we would today refer to as "clickbait", but I could be wrong about that. (My memory here is weak.) But too many folks these days want to buy into clickbaity stuff without doing any due diligence first. This is something that I've tried to instill in my college-age daughter. That is, don't get all worked up about something that you've read on the internet or seen on the news or whatever, until you've done enough due diligence on the matter to be able to say that you are quite familiar with both sides of the story. If you still want to be all worked up about it at that point, fine, but as often as not whenever my daughter actually does this she ends up calming down quite a bit.
Along those lines, the book's author claims to have uncovered new evidence here of the "smoking gun" variety. But I can tell that whenever I've looked at various "smoking gun" documents myself (in other contexts), very often these turn out to be nothing of the sort. Instead such claims are often just the product of lazy/incompetent/dishonest journalism, which is why I usually try to review documents for myself before coming to any conclusions. I wish more people would do that kind of thing.
>Among the newly-released documents and archival materials are secret 1941 correspondence setting up the Dutch subsidiary of IBM to work in tandem with the Nazis, company President Thomas Watson’s personal approval for the 1939 release of special IBM alphabetizing machines to help organize the rape of Poland and the deportation of Polish Jews, as well as the IBM Concentration Camp Codes including IBM’s code for death by Gas Chamber.
> Interesting admission considering elsewhere in this thread you've twice admonished me for not having read it.
Then you'd better freakin' get on it, huh? And remember I said to read not only the book but discussions and potential responses to it, too. Whatever I've read (or not) of this stuff myself in the past, apparently it's been far more than you have so far. I readily admit to not being up on the latest, though.
> Among the newly-released documents and archival materials are secret 1941 correspondence setting up the Dutch subsidiary of IBM to work in tandem with the Nazis, company President Thomas Watson’s personal approval for the 1939 release of special IBM alphabetizing machines to help organize the rape of Poland and the deportation of Polish Jews, as well as the IBM Concentration Camp Codes including IBM’s code for death by Gas Chamber.
>Whatever I've read (or not) of this stuff myself in the past, apparently it's been far more than you have so far
If I've said or quoted something untrue please point it out rather than relying on argument from authority and condescension. It's rude and immature.
Everything I've claimed has been sourced. All you've been able to muster is generalizations and vague recollections about a book and commentary that you may (or may not... you're really not sure) have read.
Edit: Actually never mind. I see that your comment history shows the same pattern over and over. Along with the same ideological slant as you've exposed in this thread.
> IIRC, some years passed between when Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany, and when they came to be considered "evil incarnate".
Hitler's anti-Semitism and his use of paramilitary thugs to beat up political opponents were well known before he came to power. He wrote about his plans for German conquest of Europe and racial purity in Mein Kampf in the 1920s. The only question, when he came to power, was whether he would put this extreme views into action, and whether the people who installed him in power would constrain him.
He didn't waste much time showing that he was going to pursue a radical agenda, violently suppressing almost all political and cultural institutions that opposed him (the "Gleichschaltung"), having himself "voted" dictatorial powers (the "Ermächtigungsgesetz," and I put "voted" in quotes because he had to throw the Communist parliamentarians in jail in order to get the measure passed), enacting a boycott of Jewish businesses, kicking Jews out of positions in the bureaucracy and universities, and passing strict racial separation laws (the Nuremberg race laws). There was also, before long, the overt remilitarization.
Anti-Semitism was pretty common in a lot of places at the time (it still is in some circles, you may note), and the whole idea of eugenics was kind of an "in" thing in much of the scientific community at the time, too. It wasn't until Hitler came along and started implementing this stuff in a big and brutal way that the tide of opinion turned.
But I was referring specifically to the census. IBM was in the census business at the time, after all, and Germany had a legitimate need for their services, which they provided at least until the war broke out. IIRC, some years passed between when Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany, and when they came to be considered "evil incarnate". Which was plenty of time for folks to do business with them which they might later come to regret.