IBM and the Holocaust

It has been over 50 years since Adolf Hitler took his life in a small underground bunker near Berlin. And while, for many, the Holocaust that he planned and executed against the Jewish population of Europe is a thing of the past – a dark chapter of our history that serves a reminder of man’s inhuman potential – for others, it is a subject of unrelinquished sorrow and tireless investigation.

It is in the latter camp that we find Edwin Black, author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated international bestseller IBM and the Holocaust. The book, which documents IBM’s direct links to Hilter and his so-called ‘Final Solution’ by providing the Third Reich with census machines and punch card technology, caused IBM to issue a formal statement claiming that the Nazis controlled the operations of IBM Germany during the war. But Edwin’s research shows that Thomas J. Watson, founder and president of IBM during the company’s financial relationship with the Nazis, exercised more hands-on control of the operation than they care to admit.

In his Guerrilla News directorial debut, Paul Shore interviews the author and deploys GNN’s trademark design aesthetic in what is sure to be one of the most controversial documentaries about U.S. corporate complicity with the Nazi regime.

Credits

Directed / Produced by:

Paul Shore

Music by:

Mitchell Akiyama

Posted by anthony
Anthony Lappé is GNN's Executive Editor. He's written for The New York Times, Details, New York, Paper, The Fader and Vice, among many others. He has worked as a producer for MTV and Fuse. He is the co-author of GNN's True Lies and the producer of their Iraq doc, BattleGround.