|
IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance
between Nazi Germany and America's Most
Powerful Corporation by Edwin Black |
Philologos review:
"It was an irony of the war that IBM equipment was used to encode and
decode for both sides of the conflict" (p. 344). Too bad there wasn't more
info like that that actually looked at IBMs role in winning the war to
counterbalance this decidedly one-sided account. Every step that IBM made
during the war years is portrayed as evil and just doesn't ring true to
me. If you're going to give IBM this sort of treatment, you're going to
have to go after hundreds if not thousands of other companies who backed
the Hitler regime. After I finished reading this book I wasn't convinced
that IBM was all that different than any other corporation that did
business with Germany at that time and am still scratching my head trying
to figure out why they were singled out. Bad judgment in high places is
nothing new and, motivated by their hatred of Jews, a rabid Nazi with a
pencil could've given an IBM Hollerith machine a run for its money if he
had been forced to.