Wednesday, January 17, 2007

IBM, and the holocaust.

(Click on the title to see more)

What was it about the Jewish people that made Hitler want to collect them all into camps?
How was he able to round them up like cattle, without even a whimper from the "rest of the West"?

Were there others involved? Has the truth been told?

Are there truths in the allegations that American business interests supported and even armed Hitler with the weapons and machines to aid in the gruesome task of subjugating Europe, and at the same time, killing off the Jews, or driving them to emigrate.
Let`s not forget that as well as the Jews, there were several other groups who were being targeted. The Gypsies, gays, the mentally ill, communists, and so many more.

How was it done? How did it become so efficient?

The answer lies, in part, with a firm, still known as IBM.

Taken from elsewhere....
Only after Jews were identified -- a massive and complex task that Hitler wanted done immediately -- could they be targeted for efficient asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, enslaved labor, and, ultimately, annihilation. It was a cross-tabulation and organizational challenge so monumental, it called for a computer. Of course, in the 1930s no computer existed.

But IBM's Hollerith punch card technology did exist. Aided by the company's custom-designed and constantly updated Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate his persecution of the Jews. Historians have always been amazed at the speed and accuracy with which the Nazis were able to identify and locate European Jewry. Until now, the pieces of this puzzle have never been fully assembled. The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor.




Apparently, the German government still keeps all of these records, along with the names of the American citizens who advised and worked with the Nazis.

Ah well, one day, a lo mejor...perhaps.

4 comments:

billie said...

ah geriatric one- what i wouldn't give for that list to do some cross referencing of my own! perhaps someday. seems the more things change- the more they don't.

landsker said...

Betmo,
When Europe moved towards fascism in the 1930`s with Franco, Hitler and Mussolini, there were many in America who supported them.
The real support came from Wall street and the military-industrials, and from these the same names and faces still remain.
Du Pont, Morgan, Bush, and almost all of the "establishment".
In 1933/4 there were several attempts and plots to kill and overthrow Roosevelt, and install a single-party government.
"1934 american fascist coup". Entering that phrase into a search engine will produse some amazing truths, which are not currently taught in the schools of America.
The plot was exposed by a General, a certain "Smedley-Butler".
As you say, someday, things might change, it`s up to the people.

Richard said...

Here's a very interesting Guardian piece on this topic from three years back.

Excerpt:

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power


Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington
Saturday September 25, 2004
The Guardian


George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.


More at Guardian link.

Anonymous said...

And it's starting again. I'm hearing people talk about the Muslims, they way they used to talk about the Jews.

I've got a father and a brother who think they should all be rounded up. Cuz doncha know the Quran teaches them to kill us all in our sleep!