Posterity has always played the final role in exposing the misdeeds of the past, it is in the light of this statement that this paper will be conducting an explorative review of written literature that has brought to the fore the gruesome atrocities committed by state actors against an established social institution all purported to be in the interest of the state. The paradox that will be revealed through the retrospective look at these intriguing works is the rationality behind humanity acting against humanity under the cover of championing the cause of humanity.
In a ground breaking work, Edwin Black has stepped beyond the invisible line of retracing the long historical relationship between the IBM Corporation and the role of complicity it played in aiding the Nazi orchestrated Holocaust. An incident that is widely condemned as the most barbaric and gruesome act in the annals of humanity, carried out in the name of achieving a supposed state of racial purity. The question that begs to be answered is why, one race have reasons to feel impure by the existence of another race. Also, the extent to which an entire nation can expose an unpardonable level of gullibility by adhering to brainwashing barbaric propaganda tactics is also very worrying. In the same way, should sheer corporate objectives be the ultimate factor in finalizing the process of making a corporate giant like IBM become bedfellows with the Nazi regime? In seeking to provide clues to these acts, Black’s book have engendered a series of debates that have drawn us more closer than ever in our quest to reconciling the puzzles of the Nazi purge in Europe.
According to some analyst, contrary to the widely held notion that Silicon Valley is at the helm of pioneering the current information technology revolution, the hidden truth is that IBM’s reputation as the pioneering monopolist of information technology cannot be questioned. Candidly, real computer technology was evidently born in Berlin, by IBM’s European subsidiaries. This stunning revelation according to Black explains the remarkable efficiency with which the Nazi regime carried out its genocidal activities with a considerable degree of precision. A device known as the “ Hollerith punch-card,” tabulating machine, a precursor to the modern computer, used by the Nazi regime to conduct the first ever racial census was first created by IBM. Black further writes that, “When Germany wanted to identify Jews by name, IBM showed them how. When Germany wanted to use that information to launch programs of social expulsion and expropriation, IBM provided the technology wherewhithal. When the trains needed to run on time, from city to city or between concentration camps, IBM offered that solution as well.”
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