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Comment by smnscu | Hacker News Reader

Slightly off topic, my wife just sent me this link after a friend mentioned today how Bayer had links to the Nazis. The last paragraph about IBM is particularly funny.

http://www.11points.com/News-Politics/11_Companies_That_Surp...

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In September of 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, the "New York Times" reported that three million Jews were going to be "immediately removed" from Poland and were likely going to be "exterminat[ed]."

IBM's reaction? An internal memo saying that, due to that "situation", they really needed to step up production on high-speed alphabetizing equipment. (Source: CNet)

When I click on the source link I get redirected to http://www.cnet.com/topics/tech-industry/, which tells me nothing.

It doesn't strike me as very plausible that NYT would be reporting on the extermination of Jews in 1939. If they were, I am eager to learn about it. If anyone knows more about this, please link me to it.

To my knowledge, mass exterminations didn't begin until 1941, carried out by gas trucks and firing squads. The Final Solution was formulated in 1942, with the first death camps going into operation that year. In 1939 the Nazis had already started exterminating some "undesirables" (including at least the disabled and mentally ill) and they were already operating concentration camps, but the nominal goal of these camps was the eventual deportation of Jews rather than extermination. I would be surprised to learn that any Allied governments (or those who would become Allies) knew about the extermination of Jews in 1939, let alone the press.

The link should've been to http://www.cnet.com/news/probing-ibms-nazi-connection/. The claim about the IBM memo comes from Edwin Black, author of the book "IBM and the Holocaust". The reference to a New York Times article is specifically to one from its front page on September 13, 1939, titled "Nazis Hint 'Purge' of Jews in Poland". The article can be purchased from the New York Times at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B06EED81330E.... You can also see bits of the article at http://www.rarenewspapers.com/view/590025, and it is also referenced at the New York Times itself more contemporarily in the article http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/14/news/150th-anniversary-185....

(I haven't actually been able to read the referenced article in full, mind you, because I am cheap; thus, I am not personally vouching for the article saying what it is claimed to. I'm just providing to others the ability to do so if any of you have interest and/or disposability of income greater than mine at the moment.)

I am also too cheap to buy the article, but I think it is noteworthy that the full title is "NAZIS HINT 'PURGE' OF JEWS IN POLAND; 'Special Report' From Invaded Region Discusses Possible Solution of Problem GROUP EUROPE'S LARGEST 3,000,000 Population Involved --'Removal' From Europe Viewed as Benefit." We're primed to associate the word "solution" with extermination, but the Final Solution definitely did not exist as such in 1939. The word "removal" matches my recollection that official Nazi policy at this time was aimed at eventual deportation.

The underlying premise of your comment is, at very least, debatable. Death camps were in operation far earlier than you imply, if you leave the semantics aside.

Take a look at the report from Dachau in the New Republic (1934) [1], the report by Gerhard Seger from Oranienburg (1934) [2] and contrast those with Hitler's word in his speech from January 1939 [3] or in Mein Kampf from 1925 [4]. There were reports by other people I'm unable to find right now. If you combine the information with an open mind a picture emerges, one that could have possibly found its way into the NYT in 1939.

[1] https://newrepublic.com/article/119850/1934-report-dachau-co... [2] http://library.fes.de/library/netzquelle/rechtsextremismus/p... [3] http://www.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/documents/part1/doc... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf#Antisemitism

You speak about death camps and then list concentration camps that weren't death camps. Death camps were set up not earlier than 1942: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_camp

The Dachau concentration camp you mentioned has a gas chamber but it wasn't used if I remember it correctly (was there on a school trip).

The T4 programme started in 1940. There were public protests of the T4 programme in 1941. The T4 programme was the mass killing of disabled - mostly learning disabled- people.

The T4 killings are seen as the precursor to the mass extermination of Jews, with refinements of killing methods.

Six different camps were used. People were killed in gas chambers, or by lethal injection, or by starvation.

Hitler authorised this in 1939.

That's all true, but we're talking specifically about the extermination of Jews. Is there evidence that the Nazis planned T4 as a trial run of Jewish extermination, and if so would NYT have known about those intentions in 1939?

What's "alphabetizing equipment"?

That refers to equipment like punch card sorters, which could mechanically put punch cards in order based on the data they held. If you have 100 punch cards with personal data, you could sort the cards by people's names by hand if you needed to, but you couldn't do that for 100,000 cards. That's where sorters and tabulators, which were precursors to modern computers, come in handy.

A link to the Nazis? They were a key player in IG Farben, the people who bought Haber's delightful patent for... Zyclon B. Nazis wouldn't have spread beyond Germany frankly, if not for IG Farben turning conquered areas to mass industrial production.

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