IBM and the Holocaust — How Information Infrastructure Scaled Persecution

What happens when a system designed to count people becomes capable of organizing their persecution?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black as its lens, this investigation examines how information infrastructure can expand the administrative capacity of a destructive state.Black argues that IBM, principally through its German subsidiary Dehomag and its European network, supplied and customized punch-card systems used in census operations, population classification, railway administration, forced-labor allocation, and concentration-camp recordkeeping. He explicitly acknowledges that the Holocaust would have occurred without IBM. His argument is that automation increased its speed, coordination, precision, and bureaucratic reach.The episode traces how human beings were converted into categories, categories into actionable lists, and institutional actions into further data. It also examines proprietary technology, leasing and maintenance arrangements, corporate oversight, market dominance, recurring revenue, technical dependence, and the fragmentation of moral responsibility.At the center of the investigation is a difficult systems question: when a company continually customizes and supports technology for a harmful institutional purpose, where does technical service end and moral responsibility begin?📺 Watch on YouTube:https://youtu.be/ejxvNASKuss❤️ Support / Episode Post on Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/CrisisinPerception/posts/ibm-and-how-165338864?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_linkIf these ideas resonate, consider reading the work yourself or borrowing it from your local library. Supporting authors and libraries helps keep critical inquiry accessible.If you value systems-level analysis like this, please follow, rate, and share the project.This content was created using AI-assisted tools for research synthesis, structuring, and narration support. All analysis, framing, and editorial decisions are guided by human judgment as part of the Crisis in Perception project.