It has been known for a while that IBM had connections with the Nazis before World War 2 but today it has been announced that there is a book coming out that claims they were dealing with them during the war too, while the US was fighting with the allies.

For a long time it has been thought that the Nazis dealt with the German branch of IBM (Dehomag), but according to Edwin Black in his new book 'IBM and The Holocaust' Germany was in direct discussion with IBM while fighting the war. He claims that a lawyer from IBM travelled to Germany in 1942 from New York to arrange for the transfer of money for the use of IBM products (punch card based systems with 15 people operating them, including a machine which was “bigger than a sofa”). The machine’s use is the most shocking revelation as it was servicing the Nazi occupation of Poland, which was of course the place where countless numbers of Jews were slaughtered inhumanly.

Last year survivors of the holocaust attempted to sue IBM - unsuccessfully. These new revelations come after Black has trawled through thousands of documents that show the true extent of IBM’s involvement in Nazi Germany.

Now the reputation of IBM could be torn apart should this information be used by tabloids. IBM predictably questions the evidence but Black is a Third Reich expert, although a quite controversial one who isn't afraid to expose evidence like this. IBM also claims that if the revelations are proved true they will "be the first to condemn any actions that assisted the Nazi regime".

Edwin Black's book 'IBM and The Holocaust' (new edition) is published this week.

Source: The Sunday Times

That is an interesting story indeed, but personally I don't believe that IBM's reputation will be "torn apart" by tabloids (let alone even dented), if in fact this is truth.

Just my $0.02 + ($1 handling fee.) ;)

Yep, I agree with getboxed. Similar accusations have been made about other companies, as well as -- as stated -- IBM itself. While the author and publisher will no doubt try to create as much of a buzz as possible, recent history shows that most people don't really see this as an important issue today.

I'm not touching on whether or not it should be; only that there doesn't seem to be much chance of significant damage to IBM's "reputation" (or stock prices, or much else, really) over it.

I didn't know IBM Exists that long... :o

IceBlaze, hard to believe but IBM was founded in 1911 :eek2:
Although they didn't get the name International Business Machines (IBM) until 1925!

Cheers! ;)

Originally posted by IceBlaZe
I didn't know IBM Exists that long...Yep. Actually the company was founded in 1911 under a different name: C-T-R, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. They changed the name to IBM, International Business Machine Corporation, in 1924.

i've heard the same things.... also that the legendary Z3 (Zuse) calculator (now in the museum in munich, germany) had some connection to the nazi regime. I did see 1 or 2 weeks ago a docu on discovery channel. they've listed so many companies which where envolved (I knew they where lots but not soooooooo many). Switzerland f.eg. does/did look so neutral to us, but instead soooooooooo many swiss companies (not only banks) gained huge profits by exploiting the poor prisoners in the KZ (but not only) of the nazis. F.eg. also Maggi did make huge profits that way... as far I know this huge company belongs to the even huger one... Nestle. Imagine, having a soup of this company today while they have exploited prisoners...

On TV we go on hearing about Deutsche Bank, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and others... but there are so many more .... so many....:( which we would not even imagine they were somehow responsable for the exploits, too. But now we see their nice and so friendly TV spots thinking, wow what a great company.

this post is not intended as provocation or accusation, it is just based on things I've seen on tv. We will nerver know what really happened.

*bump for all those who didn't see this ;)