Reorganization

1 files changed, 0 insertions, 1896 deletions

diff --git a/books/historia/ibm-holocaust.md b/books/historia/ibm-holocaust.md
deleted file mode 100644
index d210856..0000000
--- a/books/historia/ibm-holocaust.md
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,1896 +0,0 @@
-[[!meta title="IBM and the Holocaust"]]
-
-"See everything with Hollerith punchcards":
-
-[[!img dehomag.png link="no"]]
-
-## About
-
-* [IBM and the Holocaust](http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/).
-* Author: [Edwin Black](http://edwinblack.com/).
-
-It's worth read on it's entirety.
-
-## Impressum
-
-Impressions not to be held in punch cards.
-
-So we have this huge corporation, an empire built around monopolist practices
-and information technology. It's pure capitalistic in the sense that it's not
-bound any specific foreign government political affiliations providing that
-it buys that information machinery.
-
-Watson's micromanagment style of "the most infinitesimal details" (page 241)
-is symmetric with IBM's own technologies of control. Shape and being shapen
-by a technology, as a mutual reflection with infinesimal consequences
-as multiple mirror-images.
-
-Was Watson before NCR -- and hence before IBM -- a mere seller? An the experience
-with Patterson's salles manual what changed everything in Watson's mind?
-
-    Patterson had created a sales manual designed to rigidly standardize all
-    pitches and practices, and even mold the thought processes of selling. No
-    deviation was allowed.
-
-    -- 39
-
-Watson sounds like the Steve Jobs equivalent at that era of
-techno-totalitarianism.
-
-Similarly to that inclination to control and domination, a government like nazi
-Germany was an _automatic_  customer/partner that exponentiated all
-potentialities for _efficiency_ -- in the limited, rationalized as an
-unidimensional sense of efficiency.  Note that I'm not using _natural_ to
-denote, as nature is just the automatic qualities of something.
-
-Total control freaks meet at the dawn of large-scale information technology --
-as we cannot say that informational practices did not exist before.
-
-A technology that was designed to operate no matter whats the nature of the
-"business". Be it commodities, manufacturing, people or war-making management.
-War-time or logistic-time. Does not matter.
-
-The joint venture of IBM and the Nazis created International Business-As-Usual
-with Machines of hateful domination.
-
-Even with the noise in the relation as when Watson broke with Hitler, some
-"unstoppable force" of automation was there to stay and groe -- in the sense
-that it was already being summoned and the force to stop it would be
-tremendous.
-
-The unusual of war was converted to the usual of business. No matter is war is
-being waged, the corporate-form now was immune to it using a complex set-up os
-nominated trustees, plausible deniability and levels of indirection. It can
-"dissolve" itself in parts split inside beligerant nations and regroup after
-the war -- keeping activities mostly unaffected and the profit guaranteed.
-That is a even higher level of transnationality. It survives beyond localized
-humours of mankind.
-
-THINK must be put in perspective. Not only in the ink in the printed punch card.
-Not only as a corporation as a Think Tank and efectivelly an acting tank.
-
-A technology based on the operation of counting and sorting limits thinking to
-only those two operations. In fact counting enables arithmetic and sorting
-stablish the decision-making needed by proper computing, putting the whole
-thought inside a box. Further restriction of thought is installed by allowing
-it just for the purpose of profit: how to better exploit resources? By selling
-that junk massivelly, this type of machinic "phylum" spread like cancer and
-gangraned many brains. Copy is memory; punch card destruction is amnesia.
-War is peace. Freedom is slavery. The Big Brother, or Big Blue, was an
-information/disinformation machine.
-
-Punch cards: holes punched in holes distributed in a plane-section. How that
-confines or enables thought?
-
-The nazi war machine was also an information machine, with an important
-vulnerability of being too dependent in foreign technology. Hollerith himself
-was a German descendent. Was that machinery only possible with this combination
-of "traits" (page 31)? Germanic war-and-blood ideology with american capitalist
-pragmatism?
-
-Nazism was not only land and blood, but had also a strict and extreme dose of
-ratiolaism. Not only megalomania, but also extreme obsession.
-
-Impressum ironically punched on a ThinkPad.
-
-## An image comparison
-
-At [IBM Schoolhouse and Engineering Laboratory Building](https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1933.html)
-entrance one could read the "Five Steps to Knowledge" [carved _at the
-footsteps_](http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/think_culture/transform/)
-(THINK / OBSERVE / DISCUSS / LISTEN / READ):
-
-![5 steps](https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/images/5steps_to_knowledge.jpg)
-
-![THINK](http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/images/icp/Y812281R29443C55/us__en_us__ibm100__cult_think__five_steps__620x350.jpg)
-
-While, at Auschwitz, it was written "Work sets you free" in the entrance gate, above people's head:
-
-![Auschwitz Gate](auschwitz.jpg)
-
-One-dimensional Rationalization as a monotonic misconception of the thought process used for mass extermination.
-Slave work, death by starvation which would set extermination camp inmates free from work and from data processing.
-
-A strange opposition of what is written in the ground -- for the head look something from above and at the same time
-leaving the head low while the THINK-good stays above -- and what's written above to be seeing from below, diminished.
-
-That Auschwitz photo also has an iconic "HALT" sign at the entry blockade, which is evocative about the
-last destination of an information processing in the extermination complex.
-
-## Workflow
-
-The International Holocaust Machines operated through the following stages:
-
-* Census/identification: initial data aquisition on population, assets and commodities, even livestock.
-* Confiscation: seized goods, assets, etc.
-* Ghettoization and Deportation, through:
-  * Sorting punch-card data to pinpoint residency location of undesirables to
-    subsequenttly kidnap them.
-  * Efficient management of railway using Holleriths to dispatch undesirables.
-* Concentration and Extermination, by using punch-card technology to manage how each person would
-  die and where it will take place, as well as management of slave work.
-* Internal management of the punch card business, which would include inventory
-  tracking and spoil recovering after the war.
-
-Besides the well known relation between death and money-making during wars,
-that was a Death Factory: if life could be stated as a long "detour to death", a
-Death Factory is exactly it's opposite: and acceleration instead of a delay,
-the acumen of the industrial process at the massive scale.
-
-## Ideas
-
-Somebody ought to sort out the data -- not using punch cards! -- presenting in
-the book: production inputs, outputs and what's known about profits, royalties
-and tax avoidance; how money was transfered and invested. Or maybe somebody
-already did that? Lot's interesting stuff might be discovered by doing a
-quantitative analysis.
-
-It also might be important to search through patent offices for Hollerith
-applications.
-
-And creation of organograms and relational charts/maps.
-
-## Questions
-
-How Holleriths were made? Which were manual and with were automaded procedures?
-Was an assembly lines and time-controlled manufacturing processes involved?
-Does Holleriths were involved in management of it's own production?
-
-## Excerpts
-
-### Hollerith
-
-Machine characteristics:
-
-* Closed, pattented design.
-* Commercialized only through leasing.
-* Compatible cards between Hollerith machines, "no other machine that might ever be produced" (how?).
-
-Hollerith characteristics:
-
-    Just nineteen years old, Hollerith moved to Washington, D.C., to join
-    the Census bureau. Over dinner one night at the posh Potomac Boat Club,
-    Director of Vital Statistics, John Billings, quipped to Hollerith, "There ought
-    to be a machine for doing the purely mechanical work of tabulating popula-
-    tion and similar statistics." Inventive Hollerith began to think about a solu-
-    tion. French looms, simple music boxes, and player pianos used punched
-    holes on rolls or cards to automate rote activity. About a year later, Hollerith
-    was struck with his idea. He saw a train conductor punch tickets in a special
-    pattern to record physical characteristics such as height, hair color, size of
-    nose, and clothing—a sort of "punched photograph." Other conductors
-    could read the code and then catch anyone re-using the ticket of the original
-    passenger. 5
-
-    Hollerith's idea was a card with standardized holes, each representing a
-    different trait: gender, nationality, occupation, and so forth. The card would
-    then be fed into a "reader." By virtue of easily adjustable spring mechanisms
-    and brief electrical brush contacts sensing for the holes, the cards could be
-    "read" as they raced through a mechanical feeder. The processed cards could
-    then be sorted into stacks based on a specified series of punched holes. 6
-
-    Millions of cards could be sorted and resorted. Any desired trait
-    could be isolated—general or specific—by simply sorting and resorting for
-    data-specific holes. The machines could render the portrait of an entire
-    population—or could pick out any group within that population. Indeed, one
-    man could be identified from among millions if enough holes could be
-    punched into a card and sorted enough times. Every punch card would
-    become an informational storehouse limited only by the number of holes. It
-    was nothing less than a nineteenth-century bar code for human beings. 7
-
-    -- 31
-
-    Since the Census Bureau only needed most of the tabulators once every
-    decade, and because the defensive inventor always suspected some electri-
-    cian or mechanic would steal his design, Hollerith decided that the systems
-    would be leased by the government, not purchased. This important decision
-    to lease machines, not sell them, would dominate all major IBM business
-    transactions for the next century. Washington paid Hollerith about $750,000
-    to rent his machines for the project. Now the inventor's challenge was to find
-
-    -- 32
-
-    Italy, England, France, Austria, and Germany all submitted orders. Hollerith's
-    new technology was vi r t ual l y unrivaled. His machines made advanced census
-    taking possible everywhere in the world. He and he alone would control the
-    technology because the punchers, sorters, and tabulators were all designed
-    to be compatible with each other—and with no other machine that might
-    ever be produced. 12
-
-    [...]
-
-    Other than his inventions, Hollerith was said to cherish three things: his
-    German heritage, his privacy, and his cat Bismarck. His link to everything
-    German was obvious to all around him.
-
-    [...]
-
-    For privacy, Hollerith built a tall fence around his home to keep out
-    neighbors and their pets. When too many cats scaled the top to jump into the
-    yard, the ever-inventive Hollerith strung electrical wire along the fence, con-
-    nected it to a battery, and then perched at his window puffing on a cigar.
-    When a neighbor cat would appear threatening Bismarck's privacy, Hollerith
-    would depress a switch, sending an electrical jolt into the animal. 16
-    Hollerith's first major overseas census was organized for the brutal
-    regime of Czar Nicholas II to launch the first-ever census of an estimated
-    120 million Russians. Nicholas was anxious to import Hollerith technology.
-
-    -- 34
-
-### IBM merger
-
-The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, or CTR:
-
-    The four lackluster firms Flint selected defied any apparent rationale
-    for merger. International Time Recording Company manufactured time
-    clocks to record worker hours. Computing Scale Company sold simple retail
-    scales with pricing charts attached as well as a line of meat and cheese slicers.
-    Bundy Manufacturing produced small key-actuated time clocks, but, more
-    importantly, it owned prime real estate in Endicott, New York. Of the four,
-    Hollerith's Tabulating Machine Company was simply the largest and most
-    dominant member of the group. 32
-
-    Moreover, Flint wanted CTR's helm to be captained by a businessman, not a
-    technocrat. For that, he chose one of America's up and coming business
-    scoundrels, Thomas J. Watson.
-
-    -- 37
-
-### Watson, "Paternalistic and authoritarian"
-
-    Watson was a conqueror. From simple merchandise inauspiciously sold
-    to farmers and townsfolk in rural west-central New York, Watson would go
-    on to command a global company consumed not with mere customers, but
-    with territories, nations, and entire populations. He would identify corporate
-    enemies to overcome and strategies to deploy. Like any conqueror, he would
-    vanquish all in his way, and then demand the spoils. Salesmanship under
-    Watson would elevate from one man's personal elixir to a veritable cult of
-    commercial conquest. By virtue of his extraordinary skills, Watson would be
-    delivered from his humble beginnings as a late-nineteenth-century horse-
-    and-buggy back road peddler, to corporate scoundrel, to legendary tycoon,
-    to international statesman, and finally to regal American icon—all in less
-    than four decades.
-
-    -- 38
-
-    Watson began the systematic annihilation of Hallwood, its sales, and its
-    customer base. Tactics included lurking near the Hallwood office to spy on its
-    salesmen and customers. Watson would report the prospective clients so
-    "intimidation squads" could pounce. The squads would threaten the prospect with
-    tall tales of patent infringement suits by NCR against Hallwood, falsely
-    claiming such suits would eventually include anyone who purchased Hallwood
-    machines. The frightened customer would then be offered an NCR machine at a
-    discount. 43
-
-    -- 40
-
-    Patterson planted him in New York City, handed him a million-dollar budget,
-    and asked him to create a fake business called Watson's Cash Register and
-    Second Hand Exchange. His mission was to join the community of second-
-    hand dealers, learn their business, set up shop nearby, dramatically undersell,
-    quietly steal their accounts, intimidate their customers, and otherwise disrupt
-    their viability. Watson's fake company never needed to make a profit—only
-    spend money to decimate unsuspecting dealers of used registers. Eventually,
-    they would either be driven out of business or sell out to Watson with a dra-
-    conian non-compete clause. Funneled money from NCR was used for opera-
-    tions since Watson had no capital of his own. 46
-
-    -- 41
-
-    NCR salesmen wore dark suits, the corporation innovated a One Hun-
-    dred Point Club for agents who met their quota, and The Cash stressed "clean
-    living" as a virtue for commercial success. One day during a pep rally to the
-    troops, Watson scrawled the word THINK on a piece of paper. Patterson saw
-    the note and ordered THINK signs distributed throughout the company.
-    Watson embraced many of Patterson's regimenting techniques as indispens-
-    able doctrine for good sales. What he learned at NCR would stay with him
-    forever. 53
-
-    [...]
-
-    Patterson, Watson, and several dozen other Cash executives were indicted for
-    criminal conspiracy to restrain trade and construct a monopoly.
-
-    [...]
-
-    A year later, in 1913, all defendants were found guilty by an Ohio jury.
-    Damning evidence, supplied by Watson colleagues and even Watson's own
-    signed letters of instructions, were irrefutable. Most of the men, including
-    Watson, received a one-year jail sentence. Many of the convicted wept and
-    asked for leniency. But not Watson. He declared that he was proud of what
-    he had accomplished. 55
-
-    -- 42
-
-    Then came the floods.
-
-    [...]
-
-    The Cash pounced. NCR organized an immense emergency relief effort.
-
-    [...]
-
-    Patterson, Watson, and the other NCR men became national heroes over-
-
-    [...]
-
-    Petitions were sent to President Woodrow Wilson asking for a pardon.
-    Considering public sentiment, prosecutors offered consent decrees in lieu of
-    jail time. Most of the defendants eagerly signed. Watson, however, refused,
-    maintaining he saw nothing wrong in his conduct. Eventually, Watson's attorneys
-    successfully overturned the conviction on a technicality. The government
-    declined to re-prosecute. 58 But then the unpredictable and maniacal Patterson
-    rewarded Watson's
-
-    -- 42-43
-
-    Patterson had demanded starched white shirts and dark suits at NCR. Watson
-    insisted CTR employees dress in an identical uniform. And Watson borrowed his
-    own NCR innovation, the term THINK, which at CTR was impressed onto as many
-    surfaces as could be found, from the wall above Watson's desk to the bottom of
-    company stationery. These Patterson cum Watson touches were easy to implement
-    since several key Watson aides were old cronies from the NCR scandal days. 66
-
-    -- 45
-
-A "father image":
-
-    Watson embodied more than the boss. He was the Leader. He even had a song.
-    Clad in their uniforms of dark blue suits and glistening white shirts, the
-    inspirited sales warriors of CTR would sing:
-
-        Mister Watson is the man we're working for,
-        He's the Leader of the C-T-R,
-        He's the fairest, squarest man we know;
-        Sincere and true.
-        He has shown us how to play the game.
-        And how to make the dough. 70
-
-    -- 46
-
-    "IBM is more than a business—it is a great worldwide institution that is going
-    on forever." 74 More than ever. Watson f us e d himself into every facet of IBM's opera-
-    tions, injecting his style into every decision, and mesmerizing the psyche of
-    every employee. "IBM Spirit"—this was the term Watson ascribed to the all-
-    encompassing, almost tribal devotion to company that he demanded.
-
-    [...]
-
-    Children began their indoctrination early, becoming eligible at age three for
-    the kiddy rolls of the IBM Club, graduating to junior ranks at age eight. 76
-
-    [...]
-
-    Watson's own son, Tom, who inherited his father's throne at IBM,
-    admitted, "The more I worked at IBM, the more I resented Dad for the cult-
-    like atmosphere that surrounded him." 78
-
-    [...]
-
-    The ever- present equating of his name with the word THINK was more than an
-    Orwellian exercise, it was a true-life indoctrination. The Watson mystique was
-    never confined to the four walls of IBM. His aura was only magnified by
-
-    -- 47
-
-    Fortune referred to Watson as "the Leader," with a capital "L." So completely
-    con- scious was Watson of his mythic quality that he eyed even the porters on
-    trains and waiters in restaurants as potential legend busters. He tossed them
-    big tips, often as much as $10, which was largesse for the day.
-
-    [...]
-
-    By giving liberally to charities and universities, by towering as a patron
-    of the arts, by arranging scores of organizational memberships, honorary de-
-    grees and awards, he further cultivated the man-myth for himself and IBM. 81
-    Slogans were endlessly drilled into the extended IBM Family. We For-
-    give Thoughtful Mistakes. There Is No Such Thing As Standing Still. Pack Up
-    Your Troubles, Mr. Watson Is Here. 82
-    And the songs. They began the very first day a man entered the IBM
-    culture. They never ended during one's entire tenure. More than 100 songs
-    were sung at various company functions. There were several for Watson,
-    including the "IBM Anthem"
-
-    [...]
-
-    Revival-style meetings enthralled the men of IBM. Swaying as they
-    chanted harmonies of adulation for the Leader, their palms brought together
-    in fervent applause in hero worship, fully accepting that their families and
-    destinies were intertwined with the family and destiny of the corporation,
-    legions of company men incessandy re-dedicated themselves to the "Ever
-    Onward" glory of IBM. All of it swirled around the irresistible magnetism,
-    t h e i nt oxi cat i n g command, the charismatic cultic control of one man,
-    Thomas J. Watson, the Leader. 84
-
-    -- 48-49
-
-### IBM and the Third Reich
-
-    The question confronting all businessmen in 1933 was whether trading
-    with Germany was worth either the economic risk or moral descent. This
-    question faced Watson at IBM as well. But IBM was in a unique commercial
-    position. While Watson and IBM were famous on the American business
-    scene, the company's overseas operations were fundamentally below the
-    public radar screen. IBM did not import German merchandise, it merely
-    exported American technology. The IBM name did not even appear on any
-    of thousands of index cards in the address files of leading New York boycott
-    organizations. Moreover, the power of punch cards as an automation tool
-    had not yet been commonly identified. So the risk that highly visible trading
-    might provoke economic retaliation seemed low, especially since Dehomag
-    did not even possess a name suggestive of IBM or Watson. 101
-    On the other hand, the anticipated reward in Germany was great.
-
-    Watson had learned early on that a government in reorganization, and
-    indeed a government tighdy monitoring its society, was good news for IBM.
-    During the Depression years, when the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration
-    created a massive bureaucracy to assist the public and control business, IBM
-    doubled its size. The National Recovery Act of 1933, for example, meant
-    "businesses all of a sudden had to supply the federal government with infor-
-    mation in huge and unprecedented amounts," recalled an IBM official. Extra
-    forms, export reports, more registrations, more statistics—IBM thrived on
-    red tape. 102
-
-    Nazi Germany offered Watson the opportunity to cater to government
-    control, supervision, surveillance, and regimentation on a plane never before
-    known in human history. The fact that Hitler planned to extend his Reich to
-    other nations only magnified the prospective profits. In business terms, that
-    was account growth. The technology was almost exclusively IBM's to purvey
-    because the firm controlled about 90 percent of the world market in punch
-    cards and sorters.
-
-    -- 52
-
-### Dehomag
-
-    To be sure, Dehomag managers were as fervently devoted to the Nazi
-    movement as any of Hitler's scientific soldiers. IBM NY understood this from
-    the outset. Heidinger, a rabid Nazi, saw Dehomag's unique ability to imbue
-    the Reich with population information as a virtual calling from God. His
-    enraptured passion for Dehomag's sudden new role was typically expressed
-    while opening a new IBM facility in Berlin. "I feel it almost a sacred action,"
-    declared Heidinger emotionally, "I pray the blessing of heaven may rest
-    upon this place." 118
-
-    That day, while standing next to the personal representative of Watson
-    and IBM, with numerous Nazi Party officials in attendance, Heidinger pub-
-    licly announced how in tune he and Dehomag were with the Nazi race scien-
-    tists who saw population statistics as the key to eradicating the unhealthy,
-    inferior segments of society.
-
-    "The physician examines the human body and determines whether . . .
-    all organs are working to the benefit of the entire organism," asserted Hei-
-    dinger to a crowd of Nazi officials. "We [Dehomag] are very much like the
-    physician, in that we dissect, cell by cell, the German cultural body. We
-    report every individual characteristic . . . on a little card. These are not dead
-    cards, quite to the contrary, they prove later on that they come to life when
-    the cards are sorted at a rate of 25,000 per hour according to certain charac-
-    teristics. These characteristics are grouped like the organs of our cultural
-    body, and they will be calculated and determined with the help of our tabu-
-    lating machine. 119
-
-    It was right about this time that Watson decided to engrave the five
-    steps leading up to the door of the IBM School in Endicott, New York, with
-    five of his favorite words. This school was the place where Watson would
-    train his valued disciples in the art of sales, engineering, and technical sup-
-    port. Those five uppermost steps, steps that each man ascended before enter-
-    ing the front door, were engraved with the following words:
-
-    READ
-    LISTEN
-    DISCUSS
-    OBSERVE
-
-    The fifth and uppermost step was chiseled with the heralded theme of
-    the company. It said THINK. 122
-    The word THINK was everywhere.
-
-    -- 56-57
-
-### The Census
-
-The datacenter:
-
-    IN MID - SEPTEMBER , 1933, 6,000 brown cardboard boxes began unceremo- niously
-    arriving at the cavernous Alexanderplatz census complex in Berlin.  Each box
-    was stuffed with questionnaires manually filled out by pen and pencil, but soon
-    to be processed by an unprecedented automated praxis. As supervisors emptied
-    their precious cargo at the Prussian Statistical Office, each questionnaire—one
-    per household—was initialed by an intake clerk, stacked, and then transferred
-    downstairs. "Downstairs" led to Dehomag's massive 22,000-square-foot hall, just
-    one floor below, specifically rented for the project. 18
-
-    Messengers shuttling stacks of questionnaires from the Statistical Office to
-    Dehomag bounded down the right-hand side of an enclosed stairwell. As they
-    descended the short flight, the sound of clicking became louder and louder. At
-    the landing, they turned left and pushed through the doors. As the doors swung
-    open, they encountered an immense high-ceilinged, hangar-like facility
-    reverberating with the metallic music of Hollerith technology. Some 450 data
-    punchers deployed in narrow rows of punching stations labored behind tall
-    upright secretarial displays perfectly matched to the oversized
-    census questionnaires. 19
-
-    Turning left again, and then another right brought the messengers to a
-    long windowed wall lined with narrow tables. The forms were piled there.
-    From these first tables, the forms were methodically distributed to central-
-    ized desks scattered throughout the work areas. The census forms were then
-    loaded onto small trolleys and shutded again, this time to individual work
-    stations, each equipped with a device that resembled a disjointed typewriter
-    - actually an input engine. 20
-
-    A continuous "Speed Punching" operation ran two shifts, and three
-    when needed. Each shift spanned 7.5 hours with 60 minutes allotted for
-    "fresh air breaks" and a company-provided meal. Day and night, Dehomag
-    staffers entered the details on 41 million Prussians at a rate of 150 cards per
-    hour. Allowing for holidays and a statistical prediction of absenteeism, yet
-    ever obsessed with its four-month deadline, Dehomag decreed a quota of
-    450,000 cards per day for its workforce. Free coffee was provided to keep
-    people awake. A gymnast was brought in to demonstrate graceful aerobics
-    and other techniques to relieve fatigue. Company officials bragged that the
-    41 million processed cards, if stacked, would tower two and a half times
-    higher than the Zugspitze, Germany's 10,000-foot mountain peak. Dehomag
-    intended to reach the summit on time. 21
-
-    As company officials looked down upon a floor plan of the layout, the
-    linear rows and intersecting columns of work stations must have surely
-    resembled a grandiose punch card itself animated into a three-dimensional
-    bricks and mortar reality. Indeed, a company poster produced for the project
-    showed throngs of miniscule people scrambling over a punch card sketch. 22
-    The surreal artwork was more than symbolic.
-
-    -- 63-64
-
-And the description follows which show how was explicity the wish to target Jews.
-
-Note for error-checking procedure and the "statistical prediction of
-absenteeism" which imply on the [informate](/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine)
-aspect of the procedure.
-
-### Discretion and secrecy
-
-    Watson developed an extraordinary ability to write reserved and clev-
-    erly cautious letters. More commonly, he remained silent and let subordi-
-    nates and managers do the writing for him. But they too respected an IBM
-    code—unwritten, of course—to observe as much discretion as possible in
-    memos and correspondence. This was especially so in the case of corre-
-    sponding with or about Nazi Germany, the most controversial business part-
-    ner of the day.
-
-    -- 68
-
-    Few understood the far-reaching ramifications of punch card technology and even
-    fewer had a foreground understanding that the com- pany Dehomag was in fact
-    essentially a wholly-owned subsidiary of Interna- tional Business Machines.
-
-    Boycott and protest movements were ardently trying to crush Hitlerism by
-    stopping Germany's exports. Although a network of Jewish and non- sectarian
-    anti-Nazi leagues and bodies struggled to organize comprehensive lists of
-    companies doing business with Germany, from importers of German toys and shoes
-    to sellers of German porcelain and pharmaceuticals, yet IBM and Watson were not
-    identified. Neither the company nor its president even appeared in any of
-    thousands of hectic phone book entries or handwritten index card files of the
-    leading national and regional boycott bodies. Anti- Nazi agitators just didn't
-    understand the dynamics of corporate multi- nationalism. 64
-
-    Moreover, IBM was not importing German merchandise, it was export-
-    ing machinery. In fact, even exports dwindled as soon as the new plant in
-    Berlin was erected, leaving less of a paper trail. So a measure of invisibility
-    was assured in 1933.
-
-    -- 75
-
-### Fascism
-
-    But to a certain extent all the worries about granting Hitler the techno-
-    logic tools he needed were all subordinated to one irrepressible, ideological
-    imperative. Hitler's plans for a new Fascist order with a "Greater Germany"
-    dominating all Europe were not unacceptable to Watson. In fact, Watson
-    admired the whole concept of Fascism. He hoped he could participate as the
-    American capitalistic counterpart of the great Fascist wave sweeping the Con-
-    tinent. Most of all, Fascism was good for business.
-
-    THOMAS WATSOON and IBM had separately and jointly spent decades making
-    money any way they could. Rules were broken. Conspiracies were hatched.
-    Bloody wars became mere market opportunities. To a supranational, making
-    money is equal parts commercial Darwinism, corporate ecclesiastics, dynastic
-    chauvinism, and solipsistic greed.
-
-    Watson was no Fascist. He was a pure capitalist. But the horseshoe of
-    political economics finds little distance between extremities.
-
-    [...]
-
-    After all, his followers wore uniforms, sang songs, and were expected to
-    display unquestioned loy- alty to the company he led.
-
-    Fascism, the dictatorial state-controlled political system, was invented
-    by Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini. The term symbolically derived from the
-    Roman fasces, that is, the bundle of rods surrounding a ceremonial axe used
-    during Roman times. Indeed, Nazi symbols and ritual were in large part
-    adopted from Mussolini, including the palm-lifting Roman salute. Ironically,
-    Italian Fascism was non-racial and not anti-Semitic. National Socialism added
-    those defining elements.
-
-    Mussolini fascinated Watson. Once, at a 1937 sales convention, Watson
-    spoke out in Il Duce's defense. "I want to pay tribute ... [to the] great leader,
-    Benito Mussolini," declared Watson. "I have followed the details of his work
-    very carefully since he assumed leadership [in 1922]. Evidence of his leader-
-    ship can be seen on all sides. . . . Mussolini is a pioneer . . . Italy is going to
-    benefit gready." 65
-
-    Watson explained his personal attraction to the dictator's style and even
-    observed similarities with his own corporate, capitalistic model. "One thing
-    which has greatly impressed me in connection with his leadership," con-
-    ceded Watson, "is the loyalty displayed by the people. To have the loyalty and
-    cooperation of everyone means progress—and ultimate success for a nation
-    or an individual business ... we should pay tribute to Mussolini for estab-
-    lishing this spirit of loyal support and cooperation." 66
-
-    For years, an autographed picture of Mussolini graced the grand piano
-    in Watson's living room. 67
-
-    In defense of Fascism, Watson made clear, "Different countries require
-    different forms of government and we should be careful not to let people in
-    other countries feel that we are trying to standardize principles of govern-
-    ment throughout the world." 68
-
-    -- 75-76
-
-What an irony: Watson defending non-standardization of goverments around the world...
-
-    His access to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and more importantly to
-    President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was unparalleled. While the Hoover Justice
-    Department was at the height of its anti-trust investigation of IBM in 1932,
-    Watson donated large sums to the Roosevelt campaign. Roosevelt's election
-    over Hoover was a landslide. Watson now had entree to the White House
-    itself. 71
-
-    -- 77
-
-A statesman.
-
-    So a happy medium was found between Watson's desire to maintain
-    deniability in IBM's lucrative relations with Germany and his personal desire
-    to hobnob with Third Reich VIPs. But, the demands of the growing business
-    in Germany would not be free of Watson's famous micro-management. Too
-
-    -- 79
-
-### Technology for the "Final Sollution"
-
-    IBM did not invent Germany's anti-Semitism, but when it volunteered solutions,
-    the company virtually braided with Nazism. Like any technologic evolution, each
-    new solution powered a new level of sinister expectation and cruel capability.
-
-    When Germany wanted to identify the Jews by name, IBM showed them how. When
-    Germany wanted to use that information to launch pro- grams of social expulsion
-    and expropriation, IBM provided the technologic wherewithal. When the trains
-    needed to run on time, from city to city or between concentration camps, IBM
-    offered that solution as well. Ultimately, there was no solution IBM would not
-    devise for a Reich willing to pay for services rendered. One solution led to
-    another. No solution was out of the question.
-
-    As the clock ticked, as the punch cards clicked, as Jews in Germany saw
-    their existence vaporizing, others saw their corporate fortunes rise. Even as
-    German Jewry hid in their homes and wept in despair, even as the world
-    quietly trembled in fear, there was singing. Exhilarated, mesmerized, the
-    faithful would sing, and sing loudly to their Leaders—on both sides of the
-    Atlantic.
-
-    Some uniforms were brown. Some were blue.
-
-    -- 79-80
-
-### Corporate schizophrenia
-
-    To achieve his goals, each man had to cooperate in an international
-    campaign of corporate schizophrenia designed to achieve maximum deniability
-    for both Dehomag and IBM. The storyline depended upon the circumstance
-    and the listener. Dehomag could be portrayed as the American-controlled, al-
-    most wholly-owned subsidiary of IBM with token German shareholders and
-    on-site German managers. Or Dehomag could be a loyal German, staunchly
-    Aryan company baptized in the blood of Nazi ideology wielding the power
-    of its American investment for the greater glory of Hitler's Reich.
-
-    -- 83
-
-### The rhetoric
-
-    "The physician examines the human body and determines whether ...
-    all organs are working to the benefit of the entire organism," asserted Hei-
-    dinger to a crowd of company employees and Nazi officials. "We [Dehomag]
-    are very much like the physician, in that we dissect, cell by cell, the German
-    cultural body. We report every individual characteristic ... on a little card.
-    These are not dead cards, quite to the contrary, they prove later on that they
-    come to life when the cards are sorted at a rate of 25,000 per hour according
-    to certain characteristics. These characteristics are grouped like the organs of
-    our cultural body, and they will be calculated and determined with the help
-    of our tabulating machine. 27
-
-    "We are proud that we may assist in such a task, a task that provides our
-    nation's Physician [Adolf Hitler] with the material he needs for his examina-
-    tions. Our Physician can then determine whether the calculated values are in
-    harmony with the health of our people. It also means that if such is not the
-    case, our Physician can take corrective procedures to correct the sick circum-
-    stances. . . . Our characteristics are deeply rooted in our race. Therefore, we
-    must cherish them like a holy shrine, which we will—and must—keep pure.
-    We have the deepest trust in our Physician and will follow his instructions in
-    blind faith, because we know that he will lead our people to a great future.
-
-    -- 88
-
-### Automation and efficiency
-
-    While Hitler's rhetoric was burning the parade grounds and airwaves,
-    while Storm Troopers were marching Jews through the streets in ritual
-    humiliations, while Reich legislative decrees and a miasma of regional and
-    private policies were ousting Jews from their professions and residences,
-    while noisy, outrageous acts of persecution were appalling the world, a qui-
-    eter process was also underway. Germany was automating.
-    Hollerith systems could do more than count. They could schedule, ana-
-    lyze, and compute. They could manage.
-
-    -- 92
-
-    [...]
-
-    Hitler's Germany began achieving undreamed of efficiencies.
-
-    -- 94
-
-### Now or then?
-
-    People seated in a doctor's office or a welfare line never comprehended the
-    destiny of routine information about their personal traits and conditions.
-    Question 11 required a handwritten checkmark if the individual was a for-
-    eigner. Later, this information was punched into the correlating punch card in
-    columns 29-30 under nationality. 83
-
-    -- 101
-
-### Information as money, on paper
-
-The discourse on purity was also present on technology itself, in the form
-of punch cards produced according rigid specificiations using a paper devoid
-of "impurities":
-
-    WHEN HERMAN HOLLERITH designed his first punch card, he made it the
-    size of a dollar bill. 94 For IBM, information was money. The more Germany
-    calculated, tabulated, sorted, and analyzed, the greater the demand for
-    machines. Equally important, once a machine was leased, it required vast
-    quantities of punch cards. In many cases, a single tabulation required
-    thousands of cards. Each card was designed to be used only once, and in a
-    single operation. When Dehomag devised more in-depth data processing, the
-    improvements only bolstered card demand. How many punch cards were needed?
-    Millions - per week. 95
-
-    Punch cards sped through the huffing machines of the Third Reich like tiny
-    high-speed mechanized breaths rapidly inhaled and exhaled one time and one time
-    only. But Hollerith systems were delicate, precision-engineering instruments
-    that depended on a precision-engineered punch card manufac- tured to exacting
-    specifications under ideal conditions. Because electrical current in the
-    machines sensed the rectangular holes, even a microscopic imperfection would
-    make the card inoperable and could foul up the en-
-
-    So IBM production specifications were rigorous. Coniferous chemical
-    pulp was milled, treated, and cured to create paper stock containing no
-    more than 5 percent ash, and devoid of ground wood, calk fibers, process-
-    ing chemicals, slime carbon, or other impurities that might conduct electric-
-    ity and "therefore cause incorrect machine sensing." Residues, even in trace
-    amounts, would accumulate on gears and other mechanisms, eventually
-    causing jams and system shutdowns. Electrical testing to isolate defective
-    sheets was mandatory. Paper, when cut, had to lie flat without curl or wrin-
-    kle, and feature a hard, smooth finish on either side that yielded a "good
-    snap or rattle." 96
-
-    -- 103
-
-There seems to be an equivalent discourse on purity and eugenics during the
-development of the transistor. Something to check out.
-
-    Only IBM could make and sell the unique punch cards for its machines.
-    Indeed, punch cards were the precious currency of data processing. Depend-
-    ing upon the market, IBM derived as much as a third of its profit from card
-    sales. Overseas sales were even more of a profit center. Punch card profits
-    were enough to justify years of federal anti-trust litigation designed to break
-    the company's virtual monopoly on their sale and manufacture."
-    When Herman Hollerith invented his technology at the close of the
-    previous century, he understood the enduring commercial tactic of prolifer-
-    ating a single universal system of hardware and ensuring that he alone pro-
-    duced the sole compatible soft goods. Hollerith was right to size his card like
-    the dollar. IBM's punch card monopoly was nothing less than a license to
-    print money.
-
-    -- 104
-
-    Never before had so many people been identified so precisely, so silently, so
-    quickly, and with such far-reaching consequences.  The dawn of the Information
-    Age began at the sunset of human decency.
-
-    -- 110
-
-## 1933 census was just a rehearsal
-
-    Top racial experts of the Interior Ministry flew in for the assignment. Working
-    with drafts shuttled between Hitler's abode and police headquarters, twin
-    decrees of disenfranchisement were finally patched together. The Law for the
-    Protec- tion of German Blood and a companion decree entitled the Reich
-    Citizenship Law deprived Jews of their German citizenship and now used the term
-    explicitly—Jew, not non-Aryan. Moreover, Jews were proscribed from marry- ing
-    or having sexual relations with any Aryan.
-
-    [...]
-
-    Laborious and protracted paper searches of individual genealogical
-    records were possible. But each case could take months of intensive research.
-    That wasn't fast enough for the Nazis. Hitler wanted the Jews identified en
-    masse.
-
-    [...]
-
-    Once drafted, the Nuremberg regulations would be completely
-    dependent upon Hollerith technology for the fast, wholesale tracing of Jew-
-    ish family trees that the Reich demanded. Hollerith systems offered the
-    Reich the speed and scope that only an automated system could to identify
-    not only half and quarter Jews, but even eighth and sixteenth Jews. 14
-
-    [...]
-
-    Earlier in 1935, the Party's Race Political Office had estimated the total
-    number of "race Jews." Thanks to Dehomag's people-counting methods, the
-    Nazis believed that the 1933 census, which recorded a half million observant
-    Jews, was now obsolete. Moreover, Nazis were convinced that the often-
-    quoted total of some 600,000 Jews, which was closer to Germany's 1925
-    census, was a mere irrelevance. In mid-June 1935, Dr. Leonardo Conti, a key
-    Interior Ministry raceologist, declared 600,000 represented just the "practic-
-    ing Jews." The true number of racial Jews in the Reich, he insisted, exceeded
-    1.5 million. Conti, who would soon become the Ministry's State Secretary for
-    Health overseeing most race questions, was a key assistant to the officials
-    rishing to compose the Nuremberg Jewish laws for Hitler. 16
-
-    -- 114-115
-
-"Final sollution":
-
-    Gesturing fanatically, he [Hitler] concluded with this warning: The new law "is
-    an attempt at the legal regulation of a problem, which, if it fails, must be
-    turned over to the Nazi Party for final solution." 22
-
-    -- 116
-
-### Mechanics
-
-    Ironically, while all understood the evil anti-Jewish process underway,
-    virtually none comprehended the technology that was making it possible,
-    The mechanics were less than a mystery, they were transparent.
-    In 1935, while the world shook at a rearmed Germany speeding toward
-
-    [...]
-
-    NAZI GERMANY was IBM's second most important customer after the U.S.
-
-    [...]
-
-    Business was good. Hitler needed Holleriths. Rigid dictatorial control
-    over all aspects of commerce and social life mandated endless reporting and
-    oversight.
-
-    [...]
-
-    IBM was guided by one precept: know your customer, anticipate their needs.
-
-    -- 117
-
-    [...]
-
-    Dehomag could do the sorting in-house for a fee. The company bragged that
-    it possessed the ability to cross-reference account numbers on bank deposits
-
-    -- 119
-
-    None of Germany's statistical programs came easy. All of them required
-    on-going technical innovation. Every project required specific customized
-    applications with Dehomag engineers carefully devising a column and corre-
-    sponding hole to carry the intended information. Dummy cards were first
-    carefully mocked-up in pen and pencil to make sure all categories and their
-    placement were acceptable to both Dehomag and the reporting agency. [...]
-    Dehomag was Germany's data maestro.
-
-    -- 121
-
-    New devices never stopped appearing. [...] Many of these devices were of course
-    dual-purpose. They as routinely helped build Germany's general commercial,
-    social, and military infrastructure as they helped a heightening tower of Nazi
-    statistical offensives.  In Germany, some of the devices, such as the IBM
-    Fingerprint Selecting Sorter, were only usable by Nazi security forces. 46
-
-    -- 123
-
-### What the alliance meant
-
-    Rottke openly conceded the contract between IBM and Heidinger had
-    "been made under an unlucky star, [and] appears to be the source of all
-    evil." But he nonetheless warned Watson again that if Heidinger's shares
-    were transferred to a foreign source Dehomag would probably not be per-
-    mitted "the use of the word Deutsche (German) as an enterprise recognized
-    in Germany as German." 126 That disaster had to be avoided at all costs. To
-    IBM's doctrinaire German managers, including Heidinger, Dehomag repre-
-    sented far more than just a profit-making enterprise. To them, Dehomag had
-    the technologic ability to keep Germany's war machine automated, facilitate
-    her highly efficient seizure of neighboring countries, and achieve the Reich's
-    swiftly moving racial agenda. If IBM's subsidiary were deemed non-Aryan,
-    the company would be barred from all the sensitive projects awaiting it.
-    Hitler's Germany—in spite of itself—would be deprived of the Holleriths it
-    so desperately required.
-
-    From Watson's point of view, Germany was on the brink of unleash-
-    ing its total conquest of Europe. IBM subsidiaries could be coordinated by
-
-    Dehomag into one efficient continental enterprise, moving parts, cards, and
-    machines as the Reich needed them. The new order that Hitler promised was
-    made to order for IBM.
-
-    In July 1939, Watson arrived in Berlin to personally mediate with Hei-
-    dinger. A compromise would be necessary. The stakes were too high for the
-    Nazis. The stakes were too high for capitalism. But it was the Germans who
-    gave in, deferring on Heidinger's demands for a few months under term
-    Watson dictated. "Watson now controlled something the Third Reich needed
-    to launch the next decisive step in the solution of the Jewish question, not
-    just in Germany—but all of Europe. Until now, the fastest punchers, tabula-
-    tors, and sorters could organize only by numbers. The results could then be
-    sorted by sequentially numbered profession, geographic locale, or popula-
-    tion category. But now Watson had something new and powerful. 127
-    He had the alphabetizes.
-
-    -- 172-173
-
-    In Copenhagen, at the ICC [International Chamber of Commerce] Congress,
-    Watson's pro-Axis proposal exceeded anything the State Department could have
-    expected. He champi- oned a resolution whereby private businessmen from the
-    three Axis and three Allied nations would actually supercede their governments
-    and negoti- ate a radical new international trade policy designed to satisfy
-    Axis demands for raw materials coveted from other nations. The businessmen
-    would then lobby their respective governments' official economic advisors to
-    adopt their appeasement proposals for the sake of averting war. Ironically, the
-    raw mate- rials were needed by Axis powers solely for the sake of waging war.
-
-    On June 28, under Watson's leadership, the ICC passed a resolution again
-    calling for "a fair distribution of raw materials, food stuffs and other
-    products . . . [to] render unnecessary the movements of armies across fron-
-    tiers." To this end, the ICC asked "the governments of France, Germany, Italy,
-    Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States . . . each collaborate with
-    their own leading businessmen . , . with respect to national needs . . . [and
-    therefore] give all countries of the world a fair opportunity to share in the
-    resources of the world." 27
-
-    Even as Watson angled for Germany to be ceded more raw materials,
-    Germany was openly raping invaded territories.
-
-    [...]
-
-    No wonder the German delegate to the ICC enthusiastically lauded
-    Watson's proposal, which only sought to legitimize by private consultation
-    what the Third Reich was undertaking by force. In his final speech of the
-    Congress, Watson himself summed up the misery and devastation in the
-    world as a mere "difference of opinion." His solution of businessmen confer-
-    ring to divvy up other nations' resources to avoid further aggression was
-    offered with these words: "We regret that there are unsatisfactory economic
-    and political conditions in the world today, with a great difference of opinion
-    existing among many countries. But differences of opinion, freely discussed
-    and fairly disposed of, result in mutual benefit and increased happiness to all
-    concerned." 31
-
-    [...]
-
-    One State Department assistant secretary could not help but comment on the
-    similarity of Watson's suggestion to the Axis' own warlike demands. "This is,
-    of course, a political question of major world importance," wrote the assistant
-    secretary, and one upon which we have been hearing much from Germany, Italy and
-    Japan. It occurs to me that it is most unfortunate that Mr. Thomas J. Watson,
-    as an American serving as the president of the International Chamber of
-    Commerce, should have sponsored a resolution of this character. It may well be
-    that his resolution will return to plague us at some future date." That comment
-    was written on October 5, 1939. 37 By then it was unnecessary to reply
-
-    -- 181-184
-
-### Biblical Census
-
-    The Bible itself taught that unless specifically ordered by God, the census is
-    evil because through it the enemy will know your strength:
-
-        I Chronicles 21: Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a cen-
-        sus of Israel. . . . This command was also evil in the sight of God. . . Then
-        David said to God, "I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now I beg you to take
-        away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing." 78 On
-        October 28, 1939, for the Jewish people of Warsaw, everything
-
-    -- 195
-
-### The Ghetto, The Train and the Print Shop
-
-    Now the Reich knew exactly how many Jews were under their jurisdic-
-    tion, how much nutrition to allocate—as low as 184 calories per person per
-    day. They could consolidate Jews from the mixed districts of Warsaw, and
-    bring in Jews from other nearby villages. The transports began arriving.
-    White armbands with Jewish stars were distributed. Everyone, young or old,
-    was required to wear one on the arm. Not the forearm, but the arm—visible,
-    above the elbow. The Warsaw-Malkinia railway line ran right through the pro-
-    posed ghetto. It was all according to Heydrich's September 21 Express Let-
-    ter. Soon the demarcated ghetto would be surrounded by barbed wire.
-    Eventually, a wall went up, sealing the residents of the ghetto from the outside
-    world. Soon thereafter, the railway station would become the most feared lo-
-    cation in the ghetto. 83
-
-    The Nazi quantification and regimentation of Jewish demographics in
-    Warsaw and indeed all of Poland was nothing less than spectacular—an al-
-    most unbelievable feat. Savage conditions, secrecy, and lack of knowledge by
-    the victims would forever obscure the details of exactly how the Nazis man-
-    aged to tabulate the cross-referenced information on 360,000 souls within
-    forty-eight hours.
-
-    But this much is known: The Third Reich possessed only one method
-    of tabulating censuses: Dehomag's Hollerith system. Moreover, IBM was in
-    Poland, headquartered in Warsaw. In fact, the punch card print shop was just
-    yards from the Warsaw Ghetto at Rymarska Street 6. That's where they pro-
-    duced more than 20 million cards.
-
-    -- 196
-
-    The strategic alliance with Hitler continued to pay off in the cities and
-    in the ghettos. But now IBM machines would demonstrate their special value
-    along the railways and in the concentration camps of Europe. Soon the Jews
-    would become Hollerith numbers.
-
-    -- 203
-
-### 'Blitzkrieg' efficiency
-
-    HITLER'S ARMIES SWARMED OVER EUROPE THROUGHOUT the first months of 1940. The
-    forces of the Reich slaughtered all opposition with a military machine
-    unparalleled in human history. Blitzkrieg—lightning war—was more than a new
-    word. Its very utterance signified coordinated death under the murderous
-    onslaught of Hitler's massive air, sea, and 100,000-troop ground assaults.
-
-    -- 204
-
-    IBM had almost single-handedly brought modern warfare into the
-    information age. Through its persistent, aggressive, unfaltering efforts, IBM
-    virtually put the "blitz" in the krieg for Nazi Germany. Simply put, IBM orga-
-    nized the organizers of Hitler's war.
-
-    Keeping corporate distance in the face of the company's mounting
-    involvement was now more imperative than ever. Although deniability was
-    constructed with enough care to last for decades, the undeniable fact was
-    that either IBM NY or its European headquarters in Geneva or its individual
-    subsidiaries, depending upon the year and locale, maintained intimate
-    knowledge of each and every application wielded by Nazis. This knowledge
-    was inherendy revealed by an omnipresent paper trail: the cards themselves.
-    IBM—and only IBM—printed all the cards. Billions of them.
-
-    -- 213
-
-### Even more discretion
-
-    Only with great caution could Watson now publicly defend the Hitler
-    agenda, even through euphemisms and code words. Most Americans would
-    not tolerate anyone who even appeared to be a Nazi sympathizer or collabo-
-    rator. So, as he had done since Kristallnacht in late 1938, Watson continued
-    to insert corporate distance between himself and all involvement in the
-    affairs of his subsidiaries in Nazi Europe—even as he micro-managed their
-    day-to-day operations. More than ever, he now channeled his communica-
-    tions to Nazi Europe through trusted intermediaries in Geneva and else-
-    where on the Continent. He controlled subsidiary operations through
-    attorneys and employees acting as nominee owners, following the pattern set
-    in Czechoslovakia and Poland. 7
-
-    [...]
-
-    Peace was Watson's message.
-
-    [...]
-
-    Ironically, at that very moment, Watson and IBM were in fact Europe's most
-    successful organizers not of peace, but of the ravages of war.
-
-    -- 206-207
-
-### Customized, proprietaty tech from a monopoly
-
-How they knew how the card was user for, which would lead to ethical concerns
--- but the part of IBM -- and strategic ones -- by the part of the German government:
-
-    IBM printed billions of its electrically sensitive cards each year for its
-    European customers. But every order was different. Each set was meticu-
-    lously designed not only for the singular client, but for the client's specific
-    assignments. The design work was not a rote procedure, but an intense col-
-    laboration. It began with a protracted investigation of the precise data needs
-    of the project, as well as the people, items, or services being tabulated. This
-    required IBM subsidiary "field engineers" to undertake invasive studies of
-    the subject being measured, often on-site. Was it people? Was it cattle? Was it
-    airplane engines? Was it pension payments? Was it slave labor? Different data
-    gathering and card layouts were required for each type of application. 44
-
-    [...]
-
-    Once printed, each set of custom-designed punch cards bore its own
-    distinctive look for its highly specialized purpose. Each set was printed with
-    its own job-specific layout, with columns arrayed in custom-tailored configu-
-    rations and then preprinted with unique column labels. Only IBM presses
-    manufactured these cards, column by column, with the preprinted field topic:
-    race, nationality, concentration camp, metal drums, combat wounds to leg,
-    train departure vs. train arrival, type of horse, bank account, wages owed,
-    property owed, physical racial features possessed—ad infinitum. 46
-
-    Cards printed for one task could never be used for another. Factory pay-
-    roll accounting cards, for example, could not be utilized by the SS in its on-
-    going program of checking family backgrounds for racial features.
-
-    [...]
-
-    An IBM punch card could only be used once. After a period of months, the
-    gargantuan stacks of processed cards were routinely destroyed. Billions more
-    were needed each year by the Greater Reich and its Axis allies, requiring a
-    sophisticated logisti- cal network of IBM authorized pulp mills, paper
-    suppliers, and stock trans- port. Sales revenue for the lucrative supply of
-    cards was continuously funneled to IBM via various modalities, including its
-    Geneva nexus. 50 Slave labor cards were particularly complex on-going projects.
-    The Reich was constandy changing map borders and Germanizing city and regional
-    names. Its labor needs became more and more demanding. This type of punch card
-    operation required numerous handwritten mock-ups and regular revisions. For
-    example, MB Projects 3090 and 3091 tracking slave labor involved several
-    mock-up cards, each clearly imprinted with Deho- mag's name along the edge.
-    Written in hand on a typical sample was the pro- ject assignment: "work
-    deployment of POWs and prisoners according to business branches." Toward the
-    left, a column was hand-labeled "number of employed during the month" next to
-    another column hand-marked "number of employed at month's end." The center and
-    right-hand column headings were each scribbled in: French, Belgium, British,
-    Yugoslavian, Polish. 51 Another card in the series was entitled "registration
-    of male and female
-
-    [...]
-
-    The delicate machines, easily nudged out of whack by their con-
-    stant syncopation, were serviced on-site, generally monthly, whether that site
-    was in the registration center at Mauthausen concentration camp, the SS
-    offices at Dachau, or the census bureau in any country. 54
-
-    -- 214-217
-
-### Business plan and practice
-
-    Few in the financial community were sur- prised. IBM profits had been in a
-    steep climb since the day Hitler came to power. 57 Clearly, the war was good to
-    IBM coffers.  Indeed, in many ways the war seemed an ideal financial
-    opportunity to Watson. Like many, he fully expected Germany to trample over all
-    of Europe, creating a new economic order, one in which IBM would rule the data
-    domain.  Like many, Watson expected that America would stay out of the war, and
-    when it was over, businessmen like him would pick up the post-war economic
-    pieces.  In fact, Watson began planning for the post-war boom and a complete
-
-    "Our program," asserted Watson, "is for national committees in the individual
-    countries to study their own problems from the standpoint of what they need
-    from other countries and what they have to furnish other countries." It was the
-    same Hitleresque message Wat- son had been preaching for years. Some countries,
-    both men believed, were simply entided to the natural resources of another. War
-    could be avoided by ceding these materials in advance. 58 No time was wasted in
-    making plans.
-
-    -- 217-218
-
-But domestic pressue got too high in the US:
-
-    The long delayed moment had come. That day, June 6, Watson wrote a
-    reluctant letter to Adolf Hitler. This one would not be misaddressed or
-    undelivered. This one would be sent by registered mail and released to the
-    newspapers. Watson returned the medal Hitler had personally granted—and
-    he chose to return it publicly via the media. The letter declared: "the present
-    policies of your government are contrary to the causes for which I have been
-
-    -- 222
-
-    Dehomag was to become completely Nazified. The hierarchy had plans
-    for Hollerith machines that stretched to virtually all the Reich's most urgent
-    needs, from the conflict in Europe to Hitler's war against European Jewry.
-
-    -- 227
-
-But Germany was too dependent on IBM automation technologies. In fact dependency
-on information technology was so high that equipment production could not supply
-the demand. The automation process might have been exponential, beyond the
-capacity of the system itself. Information was faster than physical, industrial
-production:
-
-    But the strategic alliance with IBM was too entrenched to simply switch off.
-    Since the birth of the Third Reich, Germany had automated virtually its entire
-    economy, as well as most government operations and Nazi Party activities, using
-    a single technology: Hollerith. Elaborate data operations were in full swing
-    every- where in Germany and its conquered lands. The country suddenly discov-
-    ered its own vulnerable over-dependence on IBM machinery.
-
-    [...]
-
-    At the same time, Germany's war industry suffered from a chronic paper and pulp
-    shortage due to a lack of supply and the diversion of basic pulping ingredients
-    to war propellants.  Only four specialized paper plants in Germany could even
-    produce Hollerith
-
-    [...]
-
-    Holleriths could not function without IBM's unique paper. Watson controlled the
-    paper. 17 Printing cards was a stop-start process that under optimal conditions
-
-    [...]
-
-    Holleriths could not function without cards. Watson controlled the cards. 18
-    Precision maintenance was needed monthly on the sensitive gears, tum-
-
-    [...]
-
-    Even working at peak capacity in tandem with recently opened IBM factories in
-    Germany, Austria, Italy, and France, Nazi requests for sorters, tabulators, and
-    collators were back-ordered twenty-four months. Hollerith systems could not
-    function without machines or spare parts. Watson controlled the machines and
-    the spare parts. 19
-
-    Watson's monopoly could be replaced—but it would take years. Even
-    if the Reich confiscated every IBM printing plant in Nazi-dominated Europe,
-    and seized every machine, within months the cards and spare parts would
-    run out. The whole data system would quickly grind to a halt. As it stood in
-    summer 1941, the IBM enterprise in Nazi Germany was hardly a stand-
-    alone operation; it depended upon the global financial, technical, and ma-
-    terial support of IBM NY and i t s seventy worldwide subsidiaries. Watson
-    controlled all of it.
-
-    Without punch card technology, Nazi Germany would be completely
-    incapable of even a fraction of the automation it had taken for granted,
-    Returning to manual methods was unthinkable. The Race and Settlement
-
-    -- 228-230
-
-    If Watson allowed the Reich—in a fit of rage over the return of the medal—to
-    oust IBM technologic supremacy in Nazi Germany, and if he allowed Berlin to
-    embark upon its own ersatz punch card industry, Hitler's data automation
-    program might speed toward self-destruction. No one could predict how
-    drastically every Reich undertaking would be affected. But clearly, the blitz
-    IBM attached to the German krieg would eventually be sub- tracted if not
-    severely lessened. All Watson had to do was give up Dehomag as the Nazis
-    demanded. If IBM did not have a technologic stranglehold over Germany, the
-    Nazis would not be negotiating, they would simply seize what- ever they wanted.
-    For Watson, it was a choice.
-
-    [...]
-
-    But Watson would not detach Dehomag from the global IBM empire.
-
-    -- 235
-
-    Albert empha- sized that in the very near future, "a minority of shares might
-    be even materi- ally of higher value than the present majority." He added that
-    the notion of stockholder "control" was actually becoming a passe notion in
-    Germany since the Reich now direcdy or indirectly controlled virtually all
-    business.  "A majority of shares," he wrote Watson, "does not mean as much as
-    it used to . . . [since] a corporation, company, enterprise or plant
-    manufacturing in Germany is so firmly, thoroughly and definitely subjected to
-    the governmen- tal rules and regulations." 46
-
-    -- 237
-
-    For IBM, war would ironically be more advantageous than existing
-    peace.
-
-    Under the current state of affairs, IBM's assets were blocked in Ger-
-    many until the conflict was over. Under an enemy custodian, those same
-    marks would still be blocked—again until any war was over. As it stood, Hei-
-    dinger was threatening daily to destroy Dehomag unless IBM sold or re-
-    duced its ownership; and he was demanding to cash out his stock. But if war
-    with the U.S. broke out, Heidinger and the other managers would be sum-
-    marily relieved of their management authority since technically they repre-
-    sented IBM NY. A government custodian chosen on the basis of keen
-    business skills—and Albert might have the connections to select a reliable
-    one—would be appointed to replace Heidinger and manage Dehomag. In
-    fact, the Nazi receiver would diligendy manage all of IBM's European sub-
-    sidiaries. The money would be waiting when the war was over. 56
-
-    Plausible deniability would be real. Questions—would not be asked by IBM NY.
-    Answers-would not be given by IBMers in Europe or Reich officials. 58
-
-    -- 240-241
-
-    [...]
-
-    The company that lionized the word THINK now thought better of its
-    guiding mandate.
-
-    -- 241-242
-
-    IBM should rely on its decided technologic edge, suggested Chauncey,
-    because of the profound difficulty in starting a punch card industry from
-    scratch, especially if New York could block French Bull competition. In spite
-    of the quality of its devices, French Bull was a very small company with very
-    few machines. Bull's one small factory could never supply the Reich's conti-
-    nental needs. Ramping up for volume production—even if based within a
-    Bull factory—would take months. Hitler didn't have months in his hour-to-
-    hour struggle to dominate Europe. In a section entided "Length of Time for
-    Competition to Come in Actuality," Chauncey argued, "Unless the authori-
-    ties, or the new company, operate in the meantime from the French Bull fac-
-    tory, it would appear that much time may elapse before such new company
-    [could] ... furnish machines in Germany." 103
-
-    -- 257
-
-    It seemed that in spite of its autarkic impulses and collective rage
-    against Watson, the cold fact remained: Nazi Germany needed punch cards.
-    It needed them not next month or even next week. It needed them every
-    hour of every day in every place. Only IBM could provide them.
-    "My inclination is to fight," Chauncey declared straight out. But the
-    battle would be difficult. He knew that IBM was fighting a two-front psycho-
-    economic war: Heidinger's demand to cash in his stock, and Nazi Party
-    demands to take over the subsidiary. Clearly, the two were organically linked,
-
-    [...]
-
-    As for IBM's fight with the Nazi Party, Chauncey reiterated his willing-
-    ness to "make any representations to the authorities that our managers need
-    not reveal any information of the activities of Dehomag's customers... . but I
-    cannot get the actual persons out in the open." 107 That chance would now
-    come. After weeks of remaining in the background, Dr. Edmund Veesen-
-    mayer would finally come forward.
-
-    -- 258
-
-    IBM as a company would know the innermost details of Hitler's Holle-
-    rith operations, designing the programs, printing the cards, and servicing the
-    machines. But Watson and his New York directors could erect a wall of credi-
-    ble deniability at the doors of the executive suite. In theory, only those down
-    the hall in the New York headquarters who communicated direcdy with IBM
-    Geneva, such as IBM European General Manager Schotte, could provide a
-    link to the reality in Europe. But in fact, any such wall contained so many
-    cracks, gaps, and hatches as to render it imaginary. The free flow of informa-
-    tion, instructions, requests, and approvals by Watson remained detailed and
-    continuous for years to come—until well into 1944.
-
-    [...]
-
-    Using codes and oblique references, they nonetheless all spoke the
-    same language, even when the language was vague.
-
-    [...]
-
-    Millions of punch cards were routinely shipped from IBM in America
-    directly to Nazi-controlled sources in Poland, France, Bulgaria, and Belgium,
-    or routed circuitously through Sweden or colonies in Africa. When IBM's
-    American presses did not fill orders, subsidiaries themselves would ship
-    cards across frontiers from one IBM location to another. 125
-
-    -- 264-265
-
-Such knowledge would in fact interest the allies. But curiously the State
-Deparment acted as a "postman" during "DURING IBM'S day-to-day struggle to
-stay in the Axis during wartime" (page 277):
-
-    The Department's desire to secretly advance the commercial causes of
-    IBM persevered in spite of the nation's officially stated opposition to the
-    Hitler menace. For this reason, it was vital to Watson that nothing be done to
-    embarrass or even annoy the Department publicly. This caution was only
-    heightened by an on-going FBI investigation into IBM's operation as a
-    potential hotbed of Nazi sympathizers. Avoiding embarrassing moments was
-    difficult given the far-flung global empire of IBMers so deeply involved with
-    Fascist and Axis countries, and accustomed to speaking supportively of their
-    clients' military endeavors.
-
-    -- 277
-
-That was before the US entering the war.
-
-### The new board
-
-    During all the genocide years, 1942-1945, the Dehomag that Watson
-    fought to protect did remain intact. Ultimately, it was governed by a special
-    Reich advisory committee representing the highest echelons of the Nazi hier-
-    archy. The Dehomag advisory committee replaced the traditional corporate
-    board of directors. As with any board, the committee's duty was to advise
-
-    [...]
-
-    Four men sat on the advisory board. One was a trustee. Second was
-    Passow, chief of the Maschinelles Berichtwesen. Third was Heidinger. Fourth
-    was Adolf Hitler's personal representative. 160
-
-    Hitler's representative on Dehomag's advisory committee was Dr. Edmund
-    Veesenmayer. 161
-
-    -- 271
-
-### General Ruling 11
-
-    As America advanced toward the moment it would enter the war, the
-    Roosevelt Administration had recendy espoused General Ruling 11, an
-    emergency regulation forbidding any financial transactions with Nazi Ger-
-    many without a special Treasury Department license involving written justifi-
-    cations. Even certain corporate instructions of a financial nature were subject
-    to the rule. This was something completely new to contend with in IBM's
-    Nazi alliance. IBM would now be required to seek a complicated, bureau-
-    cratic approval for each financial instruction it ordered for its overseas sub-
-    sidiaries under Nazi control. General Ruling 11 would not affect subsidiaries
-    in neutral countries, such as Sweden or Switzerland. Even still, it would
-    severely hamper all communications with Dehomag itself, and open a gov-
-    ernment window into many of IBM's complex transactions. 51
-    How much time did IBM have?
-
-    -- 288
-
-    Now it appeared that General Ruling 11 had been violated.
-
-    -- 291
-
-    IBM would not place a stop on any of its Dehomag business, or any
-    subsidiary's interaction with it. IBM filed another request with the Treasury
-    Department, this time to send an instruction to all of its European sub-
-    sidiaries and agencies, as well, as its divisions in Japan. The instruction: "In
-    view of world conditions we cannot participate in the affairs of our compa-
-    nies in various countries as we did in normal times. Therefore you are
-    advised that you will have to make your own decisions and not call on us for
-    any advice or assistance until further notice." It was sent to the State Depart-
-    ment on October 10, 1941, with a request for comment. 77
-
-    -- 293
-
-    December, just days before Pearl Harbor, to circumvent Treasury license
-    requirements and issue financial instructions to Dehomag. Ultimately, after
-    the U.S. joined the war against Germany, Westerholt was appointed the cus-
-    todian of CEC. 39 The Nazis were able to do with CEC as they pleased so
-    long as IBM was paid. The looming competition with Bull never came
-    to fruition. It was more of a bargaining chip than a genuine threat. Unable to
-    replace IBM, the Third Reich pressured the company into relinquishing Wat-
-    son's troublesome micro-managing in favor of the faster and more coordi-
-    nated action the Reich required.
-
-    -- 306
-
-### Holland and France
-
-    Germany wanted the Jews identified by bloodline not religion, pauper-
-    ized, and then deported to camps, just as they were elsewhere in conquered
-    Europe. The Jews of France stood vulnerable under the shadow of destruc-
-    tion. Hitler was ready.
-
-    In France, the Holleriths were not.
-
-    -- 307
-
-    In 1936, as Inspector of Population Registries, Lentz standardized local
-    population registers and their data collection methodology throughout the
-    Netherlands—an administrative feat that earned him a royal decoration. That
-    same year, he outlined his personal vision in Allgemeines Statistisches Archiv,
-    the journal of the German Statistical Society: "Theoretically," predicted
-    Lentz, "the collection of data for each person can be so abundant and com-
-    plete, that we can finally speak of a paper human representing the natural
-    human." 46
-
-    [...]
-
-    His motto was "to record is to serve." 47
-
-    -- 308-309
-
-    Ten days after the census ordered by decree V06/41 was fully com-
-    piled, punched, and sorted, Nazi authorities demanded all Jews wear the
-    Jewish star. Again a number of Dutch people reacted with outrage and
-    protest. British diplomats reported that in one town, when the burgomaster
-    ordered Jews to affix the star, many non-Jews wore one as well. 87
-    But it was not the outward visage of six gold points worn on the chest
-    for all to see on the street, it was the 80 columns punched and sorted in a
-    Hollerith facility that marked the Jews of Holland for deportation to concen-
-    tration camps. The Germans understood this all too well.
-
-    -- 316
-
-    Arthur Seyss-Inquart, German Kommissar for Holland: 'Thanks to decree
-    6/41, all Dutch Jews are now in the bag." 88
-
-    FRANCE EXCELLED at many things. Punch card automation was not one of
-    them. Although IBM had been able to install several hundred Hollerith
-    devices, mainly for high-volume military, railway, and banking users, Reich
-    forces had in large part confiscated those machines
-
-    -- 317
-
-    Oppressive Nazi rule could have dictated its iron will to all reluctant
-    French authorities, and conquered the demographic uncertainties of a
-    French Jewry in two zones if only the Holleriths could be deployed. That is
-    precisely what Holleriths brought to any problem—organization where there
-    was disorder and tabular certainty where there was confusion. The Nazis
-    could have punch-carded the Jews of France into the same genocidal sce-
-    nario in force elsewhere, including Holland. But in the aftermath of the MB's
-    technologic ravages, France's punch card infrastructure was simply incapable
-    of supporting the massive series of programs Berlin required. Even if the
-    machines could have been gathered, transferred, or built—CEC just didn't
-    have the punch cards.
-
-    -- 319
-
-    Rene Carmille, comp- troller general of the French Army, had for years been an
-    ardent advocate of punch cards. More than that, he had machines in good working
-    order at his government's Demographic Service. Carmille came forward and
-    offered to end the census chaos. He promised that his tabulators could deliver
-    the Jews of France. 119
-
-    -- 324
-
-    Carmille had been working for months on a national Personal Identifi-
-    cation Number, a number that would not only be sequential, but descriptive.
-    The thirteen-digit PIN number would be a manual "bar code" of sorts
-    describing an individual's complete personal profile as well as professional
-    skills in great detail. For example, one number would be assigned for metal
-    workers, with a second modifying number for brass, and then a third modi-
-    fying number for curtain rods. Tabulators could then be set to whisk
-    through millions of cards until it located French metal workers, specializing
-    in brass with experience in curtain rods. Those metal workers could also be
-    pinpointed in any district. The system mimicked a concurrent Reich codifica-
-    tion system that assigned a descriptive bar code-like number to every prod-
-    uct and component in Germany. Carmille's number would ultimately evolve
-    into France's social security number. 123
-
-    -- 325
-
-    "We are no longer dealing with general censuses, but we are really following
-    individuals." Carmille made clear, "the new organization must now be envisioned
-    in such a way that the information be obtained continuously, which means that
-    the updating of information must be carefully regulated." 127 Carmille was now
-    France's great Hollerith hope.
-
-    -- 328-329
-
-    Clearly, Carmille was running an active tabulator operation. Why wasn't
-    he producing the Jewish lists?
-
-    [...]
-
-    Just days after the French mobilized in Algeria the Nazis discovered
-    that Carmille was a secret agent for the French resistance. He had no inten-
-    tion of delivering the Jews. It was all a cover for French mobilization.
-
-    [...]
-
-    Carmille had deceived the Nazis. In fact, he had been working with
-    French counter-intelligence since 1911. During the worst days of Vichy,
-    Carmille was always considered one of the highest-placed operatives of the
-    French resistance, a member of the so-called "Marco Polo Network" of sabo-
-    teurs and spies. Carmille's operation had generated some 20,000 fake iden-
-    tity passes. And he had been laboring for months on a database of 800,000
-    former soldiers in France who could be instandy mobilized into well-
-    planned units to fight for liberation. Under his plan, 300,000 men would be
-    ready to go. He had their names, addresses, their military specialties, and all
-    their occupational skills. He knew which ones were metal workers specializ-
-    ing in curtain rods, and which were combat-ready troops. 154
-    As for column 11 asking for Jewish identity, the holes were never
-    punched—the answers were never tabulated. 155 More than 100,000 cards
-    of Jews sitting in his office—never handed over. 156 He foiled the entire
-    enterprise.
-
-    -- 332-333
-
-    In early 1944, SS security officers ordered Carmille arrested. He was
-    apprehended in Lyon at noon on February 3, 1944. He was taken to the
-    Hotel Terminus where his interrogator was the infamous Butcher of Lyon,
-    Klaus Barbie. Barbie was despised as a master of torture who had sadistically
-    questioned many members of the resistance. Carmille went for two days
-    straight under Barbie's hand. He never cracked. 159
-
-    -- 334
-
-    It never stopped in Holland. The Population Registry continued to
-    spew out tabulations of names. The trains continued to roll.
-    Meanwhile, in France, the Germans also deported Jews to death camps
-    as often as possible. But in France, Nazi forces were compelled to continue
-    their random and haphazard round-ups. 168
-
-    Carmille was sent to Dachau, prisoner 76608, where he died of exhaus-
-    tion on January 25, 1945. He was posthumously honored as a patriot
-    although his role in dramatically reducing the number of Jewish deaths in
-    France was never really known and in some cases doubted. How many lives
-    he saved will never be tabulated. After the war, Lentz explained he was just a
-    public servant. He was tried, but only on unrelated charges, for which he was
-    sentenced to three years inprison. 169
-
-    Holland had Lentz. France had Carmille. Holland had a well-entrenched
-    Hollerith infrastructure. France's punch card infrastructure was in complete
-    disarray.
-
-    -- 336
-
-### American Property
-
-    So even though corporate parents, such as IBM, were not
-    permitted to communicate with their own subsidiaries because they were in
-    Axis territory, these companies were deemed American property to be pro-
-    tected. In fact, since IBM only leased the machines, every Dehomag machine,
-    whether deployed at the Waffen-SS office in Dachau or an insurance office in
-    Rome, was considered American property to be protected. 10
-
-    -- 342
-
-### War, Computing, Cryptography and Meteoroloy
-
-    IBM and its technology were in fact involved in the Allies' most top-
-    secret operations. The Enigma code crackers at Bletchley Park in England
-    used Hollerith machines supplied by IBM's British licensee, the British Tabu-
-    lating Machine Company. Hut 7 at Bletchley Park was known as the Tabulating
-    Machine Section. As early as January 1941, the British Tabulating Machine
-    Company was supplying machines and punch cards not only to Bletchley
-    Park, but to British intelligence units in Singapore and Cairo as well. 40
-
-    Park, but to British intelligence units in Singapore and Cairo as well. 40
-    By May 1942, IBM employees had joined America's own cryptographic
-    service. A key man was Steve Dunwell, who left Endicott's Commercial Re-
-    search Department to join other code breakers in Washington, D.C. The
-    group used a gamut of punch card machines made by IBM as well as Rem-
-    ington Rand to decipher intercepted Axis messages. Captured enemy code
-    books were keyed into punch cards using overlapping strings of fifty digits.
-    The punched cards were sorted. Each deciphered word was used to attack
-    another word until a message's context and meaning could laboriously be
-    established. At one point, Dunwell needed a special machine with electro-
-    mechanical relays that could calculate at high speed the collective probability
-    of words that might appear in a theoretical message bit. Dunwell sought per-
-    mission from Watson to ask that the device be assembled at IBM. Watson
-    granted it.
-
-    It was an irony of the war that IBM equipment was used to encode and
-    decode for both sides of the conflict. 42
-
-    IBM was there even when the Allies landed at Normandy on June 6,
-    1944. Hollerith machines were continuously used by the Weather Division of
-    the Army Air Forces to monitor and predict t h e tempestuous storms afflicting
-    the English Channel. When Al lied troops finally landed at Normandy, MRUs
-    went in soon after the beachhead was secured. 43
-    War had always been good to IBM. In America, war income was with-
-
-    -- 348
-
-    IBM machines were not just used to wage war. They were also used to
-    track people. Holleriths organized millions for the draft. Allied soldiers miss-
-    ing in action, as well as captured Axis prisoners, were cataloged by IBM sys-
-    tems.
-
-    -- 349
-
-### Untouchable and beyond reach of any nation
-
-    IBM and Watson were untouchable. Carter learned the immutable truth in the very
-    words he had written months earlier:
-
-        This [World War] is a conflict of warlike nationalistic states, each having cer-
-        tain interests. Yet we frequently find these interests clashing diametrically
-        with the opposing interests of international corporate structures, more huge
-        and powerful than nations.
-
-    [...]
-
-    IBM was in some ways bigger than the war. Both sides could not afford
-    to proceed without the company's all-important technology. Hitler needed
-    IBM. So did the Allies.
-
-    -- 352
-
-### One could never escape his code (p. 367), Hollerith erfasst: the Logistics of Genocide (p. 375)
-
-    For the Allies, IBM assistance came at a crucial point. But for the Jews
-    of Europe it was too late. Hitler's Holleriths had been deployed against them
-    for almost a decade and were continuing without abatement. Millions of
-    Jews would now suffer the consequences of being identified and processed
-    by IBM technologies.
-
-    After nearly a decade of incremental solutions the Third Reich was
-    ready to launch the last stage. In January 1942, a conference was held in
-    Wannsee outside Berlin. This conference, supported by Reich statisticians
-    and Hollerith experts, would outline the Final Solution of the Jewish prob-
-    lem in Europe. Once more, Holleriths would be used, but this time the Jews
-    would not be sent away from their offices or congregated into ghettos. Ger-
-    many was now ready for mass shooting pits, gas chambers, crematoria, and
-    an ambitious Hollerith-driven program known as "extermination by labor"
-    where Jews were systematically worked to death like spent matches.
-    For the Jews of Europe, it was their final encounter with German
-    automation.
-
-    -- 354
-
-    The multitude of columns and codes punched into Hollerith and sorted
-    for instant results was an expensive, never-ending enterprise designed to
-    implement Hitler's evolving solutions to what was called the Jewish problem.
-    From Germany's first identifying census in 1933, to its sweeping occupa-
-    tional and social expulsions, to a net of ancestral tracings, to the Nuremberg
-    definitions of 1935, to the confiscations, and finally to the ghettoizations, it
-    was the codes that branded the individual and sealed his destiny. Each code
-    was a brick in an inescapable wall of data. Trapped by their code, Jews could
-    only helplessly wait to be sorted for Germany's next persecution. The system
-    Germany created in its own midst, it also exported by conquest or subver-
-    sion. As the war enveloped all Europe, Jews across the Continent found
-    themselves numbered and sorted to one degree or another.
-
-    By early 1942, a change had occurred. Nazi Germany no longer killed
-    just Jewish people. It killed Jewish populations. This was the data-driven
-    denouement of Hitler's war against the Jews.
-
-    Hollerith codes, compilations, and rapid sorts had enabled the Nazi
-    Reich to make an unprecedented leap from individual destruction to some-
-    thing on a much larger scale.
-
-    -- 369
-
-    Der Fuhrer was now deter- mined to unleash a long contemplated campaign of
-    systematic, automated genocide, thus once and for all ridding the world of
-    Jews. 68
-
-    -- 370
-
-    By early 1944, Korherr was able to report to Eichmann a total of 5 million Jews
-    eliminated by "natural decrease, con- centration camp inmates, ghetto inmates,
-    and those who were [simply] put to death." 88
-
-    [...]
-
-    More than a statistical bureau, by its very nature, the Hollerith complex at
-    Friedrichstrasse helped Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, and Eichmann prioritize,
-    schedule, and manage the seemingly impossible logistics of genocide across
-    dozens of cities in more than twenty countries and territories. It was not just
-    people who were counted and marshaled for deportation. Boxcars, locomotives,
-    and intricate train timetables were sched- uled across battle-scarred
-    borders—all while a war was being fought on two fronts. The technology had
-    enabled Nazi Germany to orchestrate the death of millions without skipping a
-    note.
-
-    Amidst the whirlwind of the Final Solution, the Third Reich's transition
-    from the blind persecution of a general population to the destruction of indi-
-    viduals had come full circle. In genocide, the Jews lost their identity. They
-    had been reduced to mere nameless data bits. Now each murdered Jew no
-    longer even represented an individual death. Now every corpse comprised a
-    mere component in a far larger statistical set adding up to total annihilation.
-
-    -- 375
-
-### Business Philosophy of "The Sollutions Company" (page 429)
-
-    Perhaps IBM's business philosophy was best expressed by an executive
-    of Beige Watson in an August 1939 letter to senior officers of IBM NY. The
-    letter detailed the company's growing involvement in Japan's aircraft indus-
-    try. The IBM Brussels executive declared: "It is none of our business to
-    judge the reasons why an American corporation should or would help a for-
-    eign Government, and consequently Mr. Decker and myself have left these
-    considerations entirely out of our line of thought. ... we are, as IBM men,
-    interested in the technical side of the application of our machines." 102
-    But as European territory was liberated in late 1944 and early 1945,
-
-    -- 399
-
-    Fellinger even put IBM's interest before that of the Third Reich, con-
-    stantly badgering Berlin to pay more rent, and clear up its delinquencies.
-    He even demanded that the Wehrmacht pay for CEC machines the German
-    military seized from occupied France. It took months of burdensome legal
-    wrangling, but Fellinger successfully argued that the German military had no
-    right to remove CEC's machines without properly compensating IBM. His
-    argument hammered away at the theme that because the plundered machines
-    were leased items, they never belonged to the French government, but to IBM.
-    As such, the transferred devices were not subject to traditional rules of "war
-    booty." Only after reams of Fellinger's dense briefs, supported by attestations
-    by CEC Managing Director Roger Virgile, did the MB finally consent to nearly
-    a million Reichsmarks in back rent for machines transported out of France. 19
-
-    -- 407
-
-    Eventually, after ceaseless efforts, IBM NY regained control of its Ger-
-    man subsidiary. The name had been changed, the money regained, the
-    machines recovered, the record clear. For IBM the war was over.
-
-    But for the descendants of 6 million Jews and millions of other Euro-
-    peans, the war would never be over. It would haunt them and people of con-
-    science forever. After decades of documentation by the best minds, the most
-    studied among them would confess that they never really understood the
-    Holocaust process. Why did it happen? How could it happen? How were they
-    selected? How did the Nazis get the names? They always had the names.
-
-    What seemingly magical scheduling process could have allowed mil-
-    lions of Nazi victims to step onto train platforms in Germany or nineteen
-    other Nazi-occupied countries, travel for two and three days by rail, and then
-    step onto a ramp at Auschwitz or Treblinka—and within an hour be marched
-    into gas chambers. Hour a f t e r hour. Day a f t er day. Timetable after timetable.
-
-    Like clockwork, and always with blitzkrieg efficiency.
-    The survivors would never know. The liberators who fought would
-    never know. The politicians who made speeches would never know. The
-    prosecutors who prosecuted would never know. The debaters who debated
-    would never know.
-
-    The question was barely even raised.
-
-    -- 429-430
-
-    "IBM does not have much information about this period"
-
-    -- 433
-
-    IBM stuck to its story that the "Information Company" had no information about
-    the documents in its own archives, and had transferred some documents to
-    esteemed institutions for study.
-
-    -- 452
-
-## Index
-
-* Contract irregularities and American taxpayers subsidizing Hollerith, 34.
-* Statistics, "race statistics", intellectual shock troops, 53-55.
-* Tax avoidance, 65-66.
-* Plan for a tower centralizing all the information, 97-98.
-* Organized sterilization, 99.
-* Slogan: "Hollerith illuminates your company, provides surveillance and helps organize", 110.
-* Powers Machine Company, specialized, old and still functioning, like a niche technology, 108.
-* Punch card and equipment production in numbers, 123-124.
-* Accounting manipulation, 126-130.
-* Meeting with Mussolini, 137.
-* Meeting with Hitler, '"Heil!" 108 Watson lifted his right arm halfway up before he caught himself', 138.
-* Watson wearing a medal with swastikas, 140.
-* Office of Automated Reporting (Maschinelles Berichtwesen) and an "universal punch code system", 158-159.
-* Animal censuses, 211.
-* Monopoly and anti-trust ligitations, proprietary technology, 36, 213-214; monopoly and Soviet government, 243.
-* FBI investigation on germans at the IBM, 219-220.
-* Examples use for punch cards in nazi-Germany, 215-216, 373; at page 230 it's mentioned the "Race and Setdement Office", "a marriage-assistance bureau for SS officers" "who fulfilled the `[racial]` requirements for marriage", a pre-tinder automated dating agency that could not run correctly due to difficult access to Hollerith machines.
-* Bizarre "alien" corporation management by a trustee in war-declared situations (Alien Property Custodian) with plausible deniability, destruction of evidence and layers of indirection, 238-241.
-* IBM and State Department, 242.
-* Watson was a micromanager, micromanagement (many places in the book).
-* Money/revenue flow, 252.
-* Patent war, 258 and other pages.
-* Nazi-Germany and other US companies, 259.
-* Irish Republican Army, 260.
-* Ustashi croatian militia, 260.
-* International Telephone Company reorganization in Spain; company re-organization under fascist-regimes, 262.
-* Competitors: Bull in France, Powers in the US, Kamatec in Holland, 263.
-* Veesenmayer: "technical scheduler of actual genocide", 268.
-* Network of Hollerith systems installed at railroad junctions; relation between punch cards and trains, 270.
-* Tulard file, a form system from 1941, 322.
-* Notice from the Jewish Underground, 331.
-* Holland and France in numbers: death-ratios (Jews counted / murdered) of 73% versus 25%, 336.
-* Control in Business Machines, corporation as an "international monster" (which sounds like a "transleviathan"), 339.
-* Argument that Hollerith patents should belong to the US Government "in the first place", 340.
-* Watson motive to be "in the international peace movement", 340.
-* IBM guns, grenades and masks, 346.
-* Final Solution, 370.
-* Daily death-rate at Auschwitz getting higher and outpassing Hollerith capacity, giving place to improvised number schemes; decrease of order, 357-358.
-* Mengele and his own distinct numbers tatooed on inmates, 357.
-* Protocol for mass Jewish extermination, 370.
-* Switzerland: "switchboard for Nazi-era commercial intrigue"; banks as annomization proxies, 395.
-* Document fabrication "to demonstrate compliance when the opposite was true" and client "blacklisting", 397.
-* Watson's letter to all subsidiaries on enemy territory stating that now they were on their own, which in practice was only partially true 293, 398.
-* The role of a neutral country to put a subsidiary as a proxy - or a "nexus" (page 399) - between a corporation and it's branches on enemy territories; in the case of IBM it was on Geneva, Switzerland, "a clearing office between the local organizations (...) and the New York Headquarters", 395-399.
-* Validity of "punch card signature", 407.
-* IBM Soldiers, 409.
-* Reparation avoidance after the war, 422.
-* Simultaneus translation technology during the Nuremberg Trials, by IBM and free-of-charge, 425.
-* Hollerith usage by Allies, 426.
-* IBM exemption, 426.
-* Another Census, 428.
-* Book "The History of Computing in Europe", 429.
-* Manual punch card sorting by concentration camp inmates, 432.
-* The Hollerith Bunker, 432.
-* Caloric intake rationing, 196, 443.
-* Defensive Documentation, 446.
-* IBM Klub and House of Data, 449.
-* Investigation that required "Holocaust knowledge with an emphasis on Hitler-era finance, added to information-technology expertise, sifted through the dogged techniques of an investigative reporter", 454.
-* Local and central processing facilities -- like Berlin and Oranienburg, 455.