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IIRC, the full extent of what was actually going on in Germany didn't become apparent until near the end of the war, as Allied troops started liberating the con

IIRC, the full extent of what was actually going on in Germany didn't become apparent until near the end of the war, as Allied troops started liberating the concentration camps. Even Germans who lived near those camps claimed to not know what was going on there, although nobody was in any particular mood to believe them at the time. Many of them may have been telling the truth, though. Taking a census is a perfectly normal thing, although the questions asked on that census and how the information obtained from it may ultimately be used can be controversial. (Take, for example, the current kerfuffle over the possibility of a "citizenship" question being included on the upcoming 2020 U.S. census.) For the German census, it would be useful to know whether they were asking very pointed questions like "Are you a Jew?", or was it more general questions related to ethnicity and religion and so on.

mthoms 7y ago
I feel like you maybe didn't read the post? For example: >tabulating machines were housed at the concentration camps. Each prisoner had a card that detailed their health, skills and location as prisoners of good health were transported according to labor needs. Finally, the card also indicated the way the prisoner died: by natural causes (which would include being worked or tortured to death), execution, suicide, and special treatment (including gas chamber). The first part of the post details how the cards and machines had to be coded or prepared by IBM itself (or its subsidiary). It wasn't possible to just add "fields" to a card. The machines weren't general purpose like the computers of today. Everything had to be setup specifically for the precise problem being solved by the manufacturer. The post also goes into more detail about how the Nazis wanted to know if a person was even partially Jewish by ethnicity. Regardless of whether or not they were practising Judaism.
- southern_cross 7y ago
  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.
  - mthoms 7y ago
    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." Please.
    - southern_cross 7y ago
      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.
      - azinman2 7y ago
        The article argued the opposite. I haven’t read the book. Have you?
        southern_cross 7y ago
        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.
- kens 7y ago
  > It wasn't possible to just add "fields" to a card. > Everything had to be setup specifically for the precise problem I've studied and written about tabulators a lot, and this is overstating the difficulty of using a tabulator. Adding a new field is trivial, just type the data into that field on a card. (Unless you want nice custom-printed cards.) And configuring a tabulator is a lot easier than writing a program. You plugged wires into a plugboard connecting fields on the card to columns on the printer, or to counters to compute totals. To sort cards on a field, you set the sorter to sort on that column and ran the cards through. Tabulators could do some extremely complex things (such as differential equations), but normal tasks were pretty straightforward. If you want to learn more about tabulators, there are lots of manuals on Bitsavers. This one is a good place to start: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/Training/22-6275-0_Functional_Wiring_Principles.pdf http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/Training/22-6275-0_... (Obviously I'm not supporting IBM's actions; I just want people to understand better how tabulators work.)
  - GnarfGnarf 7y ago
    As someone who has programmed tabulators, I can confirm this is correct. Once IBM delivered the machine, customer personnel were able to wire the panel to perform calculations and print reports.
  - mthoms 7y ago
    Thanks for your input. I'm not familiar with these machines so I look forward to reading that link. The researcher does say: >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 Source https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ibm-holocaust_b_1301691 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ibm-holocaust_b_1301691 Though it's not clear in this passage whether he is referring to IBM itself or its German subsidiary.
    - snotrockets 7y ago
      The discussed book provides evidence that the German subsidiary was micromanaged by Watson.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Weird I'd never thought it was about practicing Judaism, but solely about genetics/race. If there was an "Aryan", 'an upstanding German', that had turned to practicing Judaism did the Nazis treat them the same as someone with Jewish ancestry?
- chrismeller 7y ago
  Yeah, but you think there’s no businessy way to explain that? There are plenty of reasons to track prisoners and while it’s not acceptable today, tracking religion and other sensitive demographics was not at all uncommon. You also just have to remember that while you might disagree with something being done it’s a national government asking you to do it. You think there aren’t things being done today that people would disagree with? We don’t even need to look to Saudi Arabia or Syria or Indonesia to find corruption and technology being used to oppress people, there’s plenty of that in the US.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
It was bloody obvious to anyone who didn't choose to actively look away. Witold Pilecki, quite possibly the bravest man I ever read about, went under cover to Auschwitz in 1940. His Polish resistance network - ZOW - first started forwarding reports into the holocaust at Auschwitz Birchenau to the Polish government in London in March 1941. He was the main source of information on the holocaust in the early war, which was shared with all allies. His landmark report produced after escaping from several years under cover in Auschwitz as an inmate was produced in 1943[1]. He'd also organised a resistance network within the camp, and regularly smuggled information out to ZOW during his time there. Earlier? It was well known what Germany was doing well before the war (no apology for copy pasting a few snippets direct from Wikipedia): Germany passed the sterilisation and euthanasia laws in 1933, with Action T4[2] California eugenics leader returned to the US from Germany in 1934, talking of the fine program that existed in Germany, when Germany was forcibly sterilising 5,000 a month.[3] Eugenics researcher Harry H. Laughlin often bragged that his Model Eugenic Sterilization laws had been implemented in the 1935 Nuremberg racial hygiene laws[3] The forced sterilization program engineered by the Nazis was partly inspired by California's.[4] The Rockefeller Institute funded Mengele before he went to Auschwitz. Not forgetting the many refuges that found their way to British, American, Canadian and other shores in the years leading up to 1939. Many of whom would have been able to report exactly what was going on before war broke out. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold's_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold's_Report [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics [4] https://books.google.com/books?id=1lvbUy441m0C&pg=PA18 https://books.google.com/books?id=1lvbUy441m0C&pg=PA18
- southern_cross 7y ago
  And the U.S., via its isolationist policy at the time, largely chose to just stay out of a war which was being fought "way over there" and which we had no direct interest in at the time. But then the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in late 1941, which changed everything. This is when IBM's direct involvement with Germany also ended.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
mcguire 7y ago
I had a professor once who had been one of the earliest soldiers to reach the area near one of the concentration camps (I don't remember which one). Speaking to the local Germans, they said, "we had no idea what was going on." His response was that you could smell the camp from the town.
- southern_cross 7y ago
  The locals may have been pretty much oblivious to the actual inner workings of the camps, since I imagine they were kept well away from them by the soldiers. But I personally find it hard to believe that once the crematoria were fired up, that they couldn't smell that for miles around.

mthoms 7y ago

I feel like you maybe didn't read the post? For example: >tabulating machines were housed at the concentration camps. Each prisoner had a card that detailed their health, skills and location as prisoners of good health were transported according to labor needs. Finally, the card also indicated the way the prisoner died: by natural causes (which would include being worked or tortured to death), execution, suicide, and special treatment (including gas chamber). The first part of the post details how the cards and machines had to be coded or prepared by IBM itself (or its subsidiary). It wasn't possible to just add "fields" to a card. The machines weren't general purpose like the computers of today. Everything had to be setup specifically for the precise problem being solved by the manufacturer. The post also goes into more detail about how the Nazis wanted to know if a person was even partially Jewish by ethnicity. Regardless of whether or not they were practising Judaism.

southern_cross 7y ago
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.
- mthoms 7y ago
  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." Please.
  - southern_cross 7y ago
    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.
    - azinman2 7y ago
      The article argued the opposite. I haven’t read the book. Have you?
      - southern_cross 7y ago
        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.
kens 7y ago
> It wasn't possible to just add "fields" to a card. > Everything had to be setup specifically for the precise problem I've studied and written about tabulators a lot, and this is overstating the difficulty of using a tabulator. Adding a new field is trivial, just type the data into that field on a card. (Unless you want nice custom-printed cards.) And configuring a tabulator is a lot easier than writing a program. You plugged wires into a plugboard connecting fields on the card to columns on the printer, or to counters to compute totals. To sort cards on a field, you set the sorter to sort on that column and ran the cards through. Tabulators could do some extremely complex things (such as differential equations), but normal tasks were pretty straightforward. If you want to learn more about tabulators, there are lots of manuals on Bitsavers. This one is a good place to start: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/Training/22-6275-0_Functional_Wiring_Principles.pdf http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/Training/22-6275-0_... (Obviously I'm not supporting IBM's actions; I just want people to understand better how tabulators work.)
- GnarfGnarf 7y ago
  As someone who has programmed tabulators, I can confirm this is correct. Once IBM delivered the machine, customer personnel were able to wire the panel to perform calculations and print reports.
- mthoms 7y ago
  Thanks for your input. I'm not familiar with these machines so I look forward to reading that link. The researcher does say: >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 Source https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ibm-holocaust_b_1301691 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ibm-holocaust_b_1301691 Though it's not clear in this passage whether he is referring to IBM itself or its German subsidiary.
  - snotrockets 7y ago
    The discussed book provides evidence that the German subsidiary was micromanaged by Watson.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
Weird I'd never thought it was about practicing Judaism, but solely about genetics/race. If there was an "Aryan", 'an upstanding German', that had turned to practicing Judaism did the Nazis treat them the same as someone with Jewish ancestry?
chrismeller 7y ago
Yeah, but you think there’s no businessy way to explain that? There are plenty of reasons to track prisoners and while it’s not acceptable today, tracking religion and other sensitive demographics was not at all uncommon. You also just have to remember that while you might disagree with something being done it’s a national government asking you to do it. You think there aren’t things being done today that people would disagree with? We don’t even need to look to Saudi Arabia or Syria or Indonesia to find corruption and technology being used to oppress people, there’s plenty of that in the US.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

It was bloody obvious to anyone who didn't choose to actively look away. Witold Pilecki, quite possibly the bravest man I ever read about, went under cover to Auschwitz in 1940. His Polish resistance network - ZOW - first started forwarding reports into the holocaust at Auschwitz Birchenau to the Polish government in London in March 1941. He was the main source of information on the holocaust in the early war, which was shared with all allies. His landmark report produced after escaping from several years under cover in Auschwitz as an inmate was produced in 1943[1]. He'd also organised a resistance network within the camp, and regularly smuggled information out to ZOW during his time there. Earlier? It was well known what Germany was doing well before the war (no apology for copy pasting a few snippets direct from Wikipedia): Germany passed the sterilisation and euthanasia laws in 1933, with Action T4[2] California eugenics leader returned to the US from Germany in 1934, talking of the fine program that existed in Germany, when Germany was forcibly sterilising 5,000 a month.[3] Eugenics researcher Harry H. Laughlin often bragged that his Model Eugenic Sterilization laws had been implemented in the 1935 Nuremberg racial hygiene laws[3] The forced sterilization program engineered by the Nazis was partly inspired by California's.[4] The Rockefeller Institute funded Mengele before he went to Auschwitz. Not forgetting the many refuges that found their way to British, American, Canadian and other shores in the years leading up to 1939. Many of whom would have been able to report exactly what was going on before war broke out. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold's_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold's_Report [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics [4] https://books.google.com/books?id=1lvbUy441m0C&pg=PA18 https://books.google.com/books?id=1lvbUy441m0C&pg=PA18

southern_cross 7y ago
And the U.S., via its isolationist policy at the time, largely chose to just stay out of a war which was being fought "way over there" and which we had no direct interest in at the time. But then the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in late 1941, which changed everything. This is when IBM's direct involvement with Germany also ended.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago

mcguire 7y ago

I had a professor once who had been one of the earliest soldiers to reach the area near one of the concentration camps (I don't remember which one). Speaking to the local Germans, they said, "we had no idea what was going on." His response was that you could smell the camp from the town.

southern_cross 7y ago
The locals may have been pretty much oblivious to the actual inner workings of the camps, since I imagine they were kept well away from them by the soldiers. But I personally find it hard to believe that once the crematoria were fired up, that they couldn't smell that for miles around.