I thought this was pretty interesting reading, thanks to a K."In June 1937, Thomas J. Watson, founder of International Business Machines Corp., accepted an honor that would come to haunt him, a medal created by Adolf Hitler for foreign citizens "who made themselves deserving of the German Reich." Embedded with swastikas and eagles, the medal was dramatic confirmation of IBM's contribution to the automation of Nazi Germany."
At the time, Germany was second only to the United States as IBM's best customer. Historians have since documented how IBM punch-card technology, the precursor to the computer, did everything from helping to make German trains run on time to facilitating Hitler's rearmament program to tabulating the census data that were an important element in the Nazi leader's murderous racial politics.
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