Rating: 
Summary: An interesting reading, although not a history book
Review: The author sustains a thesis: IBM, which according to the author was the most powerful American corporation during the time in which the action is set, stipulated an unwritten "strategic alliance" with Hitler's Nazi Germany. The book starts with a panoramic and synthetic view of IBM's history starting from the invention of an automatic tabulating machine by Mr. Hollerith, an engineer working for the U.S. census Bureau. Then the narration focus on the IBM German subsidiary Dehomag and on its business relationship with its most important customer: the German state. The facts, about co-operation between Dehomag and the Nazi Government, are reported from the population census ordered in 1933 to the end of the third Reich in 1945. There is then a last part about how the Allied Force and in particular the American Army disposed of special units in charge of the recovery of the Hollerith Machines during the liberation of German occupied territories. While writing about Dehomag history, the author also writes about the history of the persecution, ghettizazion and extermination of European Jews. There are many facts reported and some parts of the research are very well done but, in my opinion, this book cannot be regarded as a History research written by a scholar for the following reasons:1) A strong position against IBM is sustained since the beginning of the book. For instance, the author reports that Hollerith invented and used an electrical device to keep rats of his yard. 2) Facts are presented in order to prove the author's thesis. It is like attending a trial with no lawyer present, but only the representative of the people. 3) Rudimental Hollerith machines are presented as powerful modern computers. No details are reported about how they worked and why could they be so helpful for the Nazi in organising the mass deportation. The author keeps saying that the SS knew the names of the Jews. However, as he reports they knew the names because they filled paper forms with the information about religion and tracked the so-called "racial Jews" going through the church records of conversions to the Christian religion. I think they had the names because they frantically looked for them. How Hollerith machines helped to speed the process, in my opinion, is not well explained. 4) Many times, it seems to read two different books: one about IBM financial operation and business history and the other about Holocaust with few or no connections about the two plots. Besides these partial presentation of facts I think this book is worthy to be read because it underlines how interests of an international company might be significantly different from the interests of its country of origin. It also shows very clearly many problems generated by World War II to IBM which had, as any other international company, to defend its own business through a deep reorganisation.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: Author Edwin Black presents a compelling account of how IBM got its start in the early days of computing by providing the calculations that enabled the Nazis to identify and process Jews and other groups that were targeted for imprisonment and elimination. Black's detailed, heavily documented (note the 75 pages of end notes) saga draws on thousands of historic papers, as well as interviews conducted with the help of more than 100 volunteer researchers. Black asserts that IBM's technology helped make the Holocaust possible and that IBM's Thomas Watson was a Nazi sympathizer who saw his deal with the Nazis as good business. This fascinating book puts IBM's history of conformist culture in a new light, although it reveals a story IBM undoubtedly would rather leave untold. We [...] recommend this fine work of historical reporting to general readers and academics, as well as executives and managers. You'll be enthralled and outraged.
Rating:
Summary: First Rate Research--Even a Widget has its Evil Side
Review: Who would have anticipated that a speedy card-sorter, the Hollerith machine, would evolve into a tool of one of the most evil schemes of all time? Yet, this patented machine, devised by a little-known man of German descent, made it possible to conduct a census in a short time period, and turned counting into a tool useful on a mass scale. Black's book is a page-burner, containing information that will surprise the reader paragraph by paragraph. In my generation, the "Do Not Spindle, Fold, or Mutilate" written on each IBM punchcard was the introduction to the computer and information age (and often the butt of jokes). A scant 25 to 30 years earlier, similar punch cards became the currency on which the Holocaust was based. A truly groundbreaking piece of research that, fortunately, has already appeared in German translation. In the days where vast amounts of personal information are being reduced to a series of ones and zeros carried electronically and stored digitally, this saga may be the harbinger of horrors much worse than were conceived by the progenitors of the 1000-year Reich. We should pay close attention to the uses of such personal information, lest humans lose complete control of their humanity. Here we find a true fable (that's an oxymoron) with much more to teach than Aesop could have imagined.
Rating:
Summary: Utterly spectacular tale of IBM evil
Review: This is the first book I've read on the Holocaust and I'm glad I selected it. The ruthless greed -detailed by footnote after footnote- of IBM is a cold and shocking juxtaposition to even more grotesque actions taken by the Germans. There is no way a person can read this book and not be awed by its power and authority. Nothing, not one claim, is made in this book without substantiation. IBM didn't just supply the equipment needed to process the holocaust, they were right there in their expensive suits asking, "So do you want the punch card to read filthy Jew or skanky Jew?" Personally, I hope this book leads to an endless string of fabulously expensive law suits for this gigantic company which so clearly does not deserve to exist. I don't care how long ago the holocaust happened in "MTV years" it wasn't that long ago in spreadsheet years and IBM should be held accountable for their evil. And to those who clearly have not read this book and say, "You can't blame corporations for what the Germans did..." I say, read the book and then see if you still feel that way.
Rating:
Summary: A Sober, Courageous Look at IBM's Sordid WW II Past
Review: To what end should profit be more important than morality? This is the main question readers should ask after reading Edwin Black's thoughtful, thorough look at IBM's economic history with Nazi Germany before - and especially, during - World War II. Although Black is not the most lyrical of writers, he does make a very persuasive case for IBM's primary role in mechanizing Hitler's Holocaust agains the Jews, Gypsies and other racial, religious and sexual minorities in Nazi-occupied Europe. One important unanswered question from World War II has been the extent of IBM's involvement in Nazi genocide; judging from Black's evidence that involvement was substantial, to say the least. Indeed, it is Black's premise that IBM's counting machines made it possible for Germany to perfect the crime of genocide as a mere matter of industrial mechanization. Black shows how IBM's Hollerith counting machines were used to identify, round up, and then deport hundreds of thousands of Jews from Poland to Holland into the Nazi regime's nightmarish network of labor and death camps. Black's book is also a fascinating look into corporate politics. One wonders how much IBM's New York office knew of its German affiliate's activities. Without gaining access to IBM's archives, Black shows that IBM was aware and choose not to know, concerning itself only with the profits earned by Dehomag, its German affiliate, throughout Nazi-occupied Europe.
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Summary: Gripping, Chilling Documentation IBM Complicity
Review: I am astonished that Holocaust research has advanced so far and no one has yet detailed or even mentioned the involvement of IBM in organizing the Holocaust--from identification to extermination, 1933 to 1945. Not until IBM and the Holocaust. Author Edwin Black has produced a powerful, gripping, chilling and magnificently documented volume. The correspondance of IBM officials juxtaposed against NYT headlines offers a horrid insight into their mindsets as they were designing applications to further oppress the Jews and help Hitler conquer Europe. The author's website is filled with worldwide praise for this work, and yet it stands alone. I can find no other follow-up volumes to this excellent book. ... I cannot recommend enough this important achievement. --This text refers to the Paperback edition
Rating: 
Summary: Makes me UNproud to be former IBM employee
Review: The book is very well written and the author obviously did his homework. I think it is a bit wordy and describes events and conversations contributing little to the overall story.
Rating:
Summary: Not the WHOLE Truth,
Review: The bottom line here is simple. After reading this book, I will never purchase or have any part of an IBM product. This book is not the best I have ever read. The author tends to lose the readers in the details of IBM's involvement with the Third Reich. This book could have been 100 pages shorter and still have been just as effective. The lengthy explanations about the number of manufacturing facilities and the number of punch cards produced and where they were sent were boring. However, the existence of these explanations is used as evidence in an attempt to prove without a doubt that IBM, an American company, knowingly contributed the machinery and manpower that organized and mobilized Germany's blitzkrieg. Other than the lengthy asides, there was one thing that really bugged me about this book. The author is the son of Polish survivors of the Holocaust and the first critic on the back flap to heap praise upon the book is from the American Jewish Historical Society. The facts about the atrocities of the Holocaust are cut and dry, Germany killed 6 million Jews. But, the fact that the author is the son of concentration camp survivors makes me think that it would be difficult to write an objective account of IBM's relations with Germany. There is plenty of evidence to support Black's claim, but I am not positive we are getting the whole story. I liked this book very much, and I would recommend reading it. However, I would tell anyone who is going to read this to keep in mind that there are 2 sides to every story. I am not ready to call for the end of IBM, but I am finished supporting their products.
Rating:
Summary: IBM Should Come Clean
Review: Edwin Black's book has unveiled a whole new understanding of the Holocaust era. I was alternately driven to rage, tears and appreciation as I read his book. If Edwin Black's masterpiece has given us this much without IBM's cooperation, imagine how much more the world could learn if IBM came clean and opened all its files as the author urges.
Rating:
Summary: IBM and the Holocaust
Review: This book is one of the most interesting factual books I have ever read. It is worth the read, but not for the assumptions made in it, to say that IBM can be held as a responsible party for the mass executions is not a fair accusation. However, it has raised many questions in my mind, about the involvment of IBM in Nazi Germany. I'm sure this is raising some questions at IBM also. It seems unthinkable that corporate America could have been invovled in this genocide, but Edwin Black brings it to life. He has brought the Holocaust closer to home than any historian or history book ever has or ever will.
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