Context: Before the US joined the war, IBM had a business deal with the Nazi regime to supply their machines. Their tabulation machines were used for everything from census and logistics to concentration camp administration. IBMs punch card systems along with numbers tattooed on prisoners were used to track their relocations, labour schedules and executions.
IBM claims that they lost control of their German division after the US entered the war but some historians claim that they still continued to profit from their partnership knowingly and despite the fact.
The way I’ve come to terms with it is this: if it hadn’t been for the IBM computers in use, we wouldn’t have the records that we do. We wouldn’t have had the same level of hard proof at Nuremberg. IBM didn’t commit the atrocities. But in a sense, they created accountability.
They may have not committed the atrocities but they enabled the industrialization of it. Those punch card computers needed very specific desgins to do what the Nazis wanted. To the point that IBM knew about the camps and what was happening in the early ones.
Wtf? This take is insane. And probably untrue as the Nazis did accurate paperwork and administration in all their activities regardless.
The holocaust would not have been logistically possible and therefor would not have happened without IBM’s help
True but that is simply an outcome of something they enabled. Perhaps without IBMs influence, the holocaust wouldn’t be so streamlined and wouldn’t be as atrocious as it turned out to be.
The real question would be which is worse:
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A holocaust where IBM enabled Nazi atrocities but with an incriminating paper trail
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A holocaust without IBMs involvement, less efficient and with lesser evidence
Both scenarios are so bad that its akin to asking whether killing someone with a gun is better than killing them with a knife. You could argue that one is better than the other but the subject matter itself is so bad that it doesn’t even matter whether one is better than the other.
I’d prefer to be murdered with a gun that’s easy.
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Well, without the Nazis we also wouldn’t have the records that we do.
The way I’ve come to terms with it is this: if it hadn’t been for the IBM computers in use, we wouldn’t have the records that we do. We wouldn’t have had the same level of hard proof at Nuremberg. IBM didn’t commit the atrocities. But in a sense, they created accountability.
That’s… not really a justification.
Fuck, man, we have reams of video evidence just because Ike said “Someone will try to deny this” when he saw the camps and had to have fucking thousands of emaciated and tortured bodies buried. I don’t think a handful of extra records is really relevant.
Yeah I am calling bullshit on this. The only thing IBM had pre WW2 was tabulating machines operated with punchcards. Computers did not exist until mid-war, and certainly none that IBM could make a “business deal” with.
Edit: to be clear, I am not disputing that they had a deal on tabulating systems. But the first real computer - Z3 - was only invented around 1941. By a German, no less…
Yeah, I misremembered the actual type of machine and computers was the first thing that came to my mind. I’ll edit the context to make this more clear.
Thanks for acknowledging the mistake. You must be younger, to me it was an immediate "WTF - computers weren’t invented before that war (to be fair I had to look it up because I also thought they were invented in the 50s. But I guess it is a longer window of constant improvement until they could be marketed at least to companies with a huge room and power to spare.
You must be younger
If I am younger then you must be in your 40s. ;)
I just wrote this from the top of my head from what I remembered reading a long time ago. I remember IBM had a deal with Nazi Germany and then my brain associated them with computers immediately afterwards.
If I am younger then you must be in your 40s. ;)
Or even older… But yes.
[…] and then my brain associated them with computers immediately afterwards.
Understandable mistake to make for the youth of today ^^
I said that because I’m 37.
IBM : Nazi Party :: Google : IDF
https://www.techwontsave.us/episode/235_no_tech_for_apartheid_w_mohammad_khatami__gabi_schubiner
Or why they hired Daniel Speck back in 2009 after he got fired from BluSoft for refusing to write unit tests.
