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Comment by local_crmdgeon | Hacker News Reader

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That just makes it all the more embarrassing for any advertisers who remain. They'll have been beaten in the race to distance their brands from such content by IB fucking M.

I have a German magazine/pamphlet from 1985 for IBM's 75th anniversary. It omits any reference to IBM's involvement in genealogical processing, and instead mentions things like the the Mark I, the Z3, and von Neumann.

Low effort photos of the pages for the 30s and 40s:

https://imgur.com/a/m65RCr3

Sure it has! They ditched their Chronography division at some point.

This definitely shouldn't be flagged, as edgy as it is.

IBM materially provided computers knowingly to the WWII Nazies of Germany, to identify, track, and lead to execution. This isn't some plausibly deniable fact. IBM execs did this knowing exactly what their equipment was used for.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/29/humanities.hig...

The serial numbers tattooed on Jews' arms from the concentration camps are IBM database primary keys.

The information (e.g. your comment) should not be flagged.

The snark (e.g. the parent) could reasonably be.

"But it's true" can not stand alone as the sole measure of whether a comment is of high quality, worthwhile, curious, non-noisy, etc.

They also supported Apartheid South Africa... so must have changed fairly recently.

I'm from SA and I knew about IBM and the Holocaust, but not Apartheid. Thanks for putting me onto that.

Did you know about Kodak and Apartheid? During the 1960‘s, Kodak developed a photo id system for the South African government which was better at taking pictures of darker skin. Due to employee and international pressure, in 1971 Kodak declared they were pulling out of South Africa. Privately though, they used Frank & Hirsch as an intermediary to continue to supply the passbooks until they were found out in 1977.

IBM also manufactured guns for the Allies, so take that as you will. Having their businesses on both sides of the war co-opted by the various governments is a tough position for any business.

They were literally Nazis. There is no whataboutism here.

It shouldn’t be flagged but also let’s not pretend that IBM is this ibm. America also literally hired a ton of Nazis, but you wouldn’t blame any president in the last 20 years right? Well let’s be honest America would ABSOLUTELY do it again

USA hired the most talented Nazis after the war was won (Operation Paperclip). The alternative would be for them to go to the Soviets.

This is different than selling war- and Holocaust-enabling machines before and during the war.

I think people have forgotten how many big-businessmen of the 1920s were pro-Nazi and antisemetic. IBM, Ford, and Charles Lindbergh come to mind immediately.

The 1920s and 1930s had a surprising amount of pro-Nazi sentiment. Remember, USA didn't learn about the Holocaust until 1943 or something (long after it started, and even then only as a rumor in niche papers). The proof of the Holocaust didn't hit until 1945 or later.

Meanwhile, America First Committee and German-American Bund were pushing pro-Nazi sentiments.

If we expand the political groups to the next degree of freedom (ex: Christian Front marched with German-American Bund. I don't know if you could call Christian Front a Nazi-organization, but they were 100% comfortable with marching with the literal Nazi groups), there were plenty of political groups who were "directly a Nazi supporter" and/or "were hosting political rallies and inviting the Nazis".

Ford was spreading antisemitic pamphlet long time after it was know that it is hoax.

Yes! Glad someone actually got it, it's hollow to do this without a mea culpa about running the logistics for the fucking Holocaust.

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