ebooks The Deadly Effect of Informatics on the Holocaust: How the Policies of IBM and its Machines Helped the Germans to Kill 4 Million More People during WWII by Andrew Targowski in History

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. How American ingenuity and the dawn of the information age helped the NazisBy Washington DadThe Deadly Effect of Informatics on the Holocaust reveals how one of the most important inventions of the industrial age was turned against civilization and used to facilitate the nearly successful attempt; by the Nazis; to murder all Europeans of Jewish descent. Prof. Targowski first examines the historical significance of the German people throughout Europe in the centuries leading up to the Second World War. Leaders of European superpowers; Queen Victoria of England and Catherine the Great of Russia; are shown to be German by birth; along with many of Europe’s greatest philosophical and artistic thinkers. How then was it possible that such a sophisticated nation could so readily and completely capitulate to the insane whims of a radically sociopathic political party? After more than a decade of suffering after World War One the German population was emotionally distraught. The Nazis were able to use this weakness to manipulate the Germans; presenting the notion that it was necessary to “secure the hygiene” of the German people in order to regain the greatness of the past. The evil philosophy delivered to the German people in the most effective way by the Nazi party's overwhelmingly effective propaganda apparatus; made it clear that it was patriotically necessary for the German people to conduct a campaign of ethnic cleansing.Technology became the greatest tool of the Nazis. The energy that reshaped civilization through the period of the Second World War brought advances in technology at a pace that had never been achieved; and has not been matched since. It transformed the world from the industrial revolution to the technological revolution and the information age.In Europe Prof. Targowski reports that 7;365;194 Jews were murdered by the Gestapo. As the Third Reich entered into each country; a detailed accounting of the ethnic makeup of each nation was required. In some cases there was direct resistance; and sabotage; of the efforts to collect this data. After careful calculation of Jewish populations in several countries; compared with actual deportations and executions; and comparing countries that resisted accurate tabulation of ethnic groups by the Nazis; Targowski arrives at a sobering figure. His calculations indicate that the IBM Hollerith machines; diligently maintained by IBM employees and their "contractors" throughout the holocaust; were directly responsible for 4.4 million deaths.Herman Hollerith’s “punch card” invention was originally an entrant in a contest held by the U.S. Census Bureau in the mid-1890s. The goal of the contest was to find innovative ways to manage data for the good of the people. Forty years later Thomas Watson; CEO of IBM; like Hitler; Stalin; Roosevelt; and Mao; was yet another win at all costs 20th century ideologue who sadly invested his considerable assets; and the eternal reputation of Hollerith and IBM; to work for the Third Reich.Prof. Targowski is one of the world’s most accomplished experts in the field of informatics; the science of data processing through the design of intricate; and often elegant; processing systems. He engineered and implemented the Polish equivalent of the American social security system in the early 1970’s by designing computer programs that processed many millions of points of data about the Polish citizenry. After proudly and successfully contributing to the evolution of his native Poland for nearly two decades; Prof. Targowski’s efforts were suddenly seen as a threat to the establishment; and he was forced out of public life. For more than forty years in the United States Prof. Targowski has taught and conducted research in the fields of Cognitive Informatics; Civilizational Studies; and Philosophy. Expertise in each of these areas contributes to his recent publication.