About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherRandom House Large Print

ISBN-100375431241

ISBN-139780375431241

eBay Product ID (ePID)1891423

Product Key Features

Book TitleIBM and the Holocaust : The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

Number of Pages992 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicIndustries / Computers & Information Technology, Holocaust, Europe / Germany, Commerce, Jewish

Publication Year2001

FeaturesLarge Type

GenreBusiness & Economics, History

AuthorEdwin Black

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height2.1 in

Item Weight45 oz

Item Length9.5 in

Item Width6.4 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

Dewey Edition21

Reviews"Establishes beyond dispute that IBM Hollerith machines significantly advanced Nazi efforts to exterminate Jewry. . . .IBM and the Holocaustis a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust." -Washington Post Book World "An ugly story, hidden for years, told by a master craftsman . . . compelling . . . it's a chilling lesson." -Miami Herald "IBM and the Holocaustis a disturbing book-all the more so because its author doesn't prescribe what should be done about sins committed more than half a century ago. It is left to the readers to decide." -Chicago Tribune From the Trade Paperback edition., "Establishes beyond dispute that IBM Hollerith machines significantly advanced Nazi efforts to exterminate Jewry. . . . IBM and the Holocaust is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust." -Washington Post Book World "An ugly story, hidden for years, told by a master craftsman . . . compelling . . . it's a chilling lesson." -Miami Herald "IBM and the Holocaust is a disturbing book-all the more so because its author doesn't prescribe what should be done about sins committed more than half a century ago. It is left to the readers to decide." -Chicago Tribune From the Trade Paperback edition.

Dewey Decimal940.53/18

Edition DescriptionLarge Type / large print edition

SynopsisIBM and the Holocaustis the stunning story of IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany -- beginning in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continuing well into World War II. As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s. Only after Jews were identified -- a massive and complex task that Hitler wanted done immediately -- could they be targeted for efficient asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, enslaved labor, and, ultimately, annihilation. It was a cross-tabulation and organizational challenge so monumental, it called for a computer. Of course, in the 1930s no computer existed. But IBM's Hollerith punch card technology did exist. Aided by the company's custom-designed and constantly updated Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate his persecution of the Jews. Historians have always been amazed at the speed and accuracy with which the Nazis were able to identify and locate European Jewry. Until now, the pieces of this puzzle have never been fully assembled. The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor. IBM and its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions, one by one, anticipating the Reich's needs. They did not merely sell the machines and walk away. Instead, IBM leased these machines for high fees and became the sole source of the billions of punch cards Hitler needed. IBM and the Holocausttakes you through the carefully crafted corporate collusion with the Third Reich, as well as the structured deniability of oral agreements, undated letters, and the Geneva intermediaries -- all undertaken as the newspapers blazed with accounts of persecution and destruction. Just as compelling is the human drama of one of our century's greatest minds, IBM founder Thomas Watson, who cooperated with the Nazis for the sake of profit. Only with IBM's technologic assistance was Hitler able to achieve the staggering numbers of the Holocaust. Edwin Black has now uncovered one of the last great mysteries of Germany's war against the Jews -- how did Hitler get the names?