Customer Reviews

The Nazi Census: Identification and Control in the Third Reich (Politics, History, and Social Change)

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The prerequisites of efficient genocide require seemingly routine identification and registration systems which the Nazis employed with sinister intentions. The Nazi Census, originally published in Germany as the Total Registration, is far more than a book about census. Rather, it is a penetrating, almost painful examination of all forms of Nazi registration--from paper and pencil to IBM Hollerith machines, that necessarily preceded the greatest organized persecution and killing of all time. Edwin Black, who wrote IBM and the Holocaust, offers an excellent introduction to the book and pays tribute to its value. When you read the Nazi Census you understand that long before the guns were fired and the boxcars loaded, the victims were organized by the registrars, statisticians and IBM experts.