The Nazis system initiated modern day Census, according to book

I just received my Census package after a knock on the door, and a warning that if we didn't turn it in, there would be another visit from the Census people, and if we didn't turn that one in, we would be arrested.

WTF. What happened to my right to privacy? The government knows I'm here. I'm listed in the phone book, my address on my drivers license, and other licenses,
my tax ID number, soc. sec, vehicle registration, and on and on.

So, I had to ask, where did the Census come from. What I found, confirmed my suspicions of where this country is headed.

A controversial book when originally published in Germany, The Nazi Census documents the origins of the census in modern Germany, along with the parallel development of machines that helped first collect data on Germans, then specifically on Jews and other minorities.

The authors begin by examining the history of statistical technology in Germany, from the Hollerith machine in the 1890s through the development and licensing of IBM punch-card technology.

The authors explain that census data was collected on non-Germans in order to satisfy the state's desire to track racial groups for alleged security reasons. Later this information led to disastrous results for those groups and others that were tracked in similar ways.

Ultimately, as the authors point out in this short, rigorously researched book, the techniques the Nazis employed to track, gather information, and control populations initiated the modern system of citizen registration. Aly and Roth argue that what led to the devastating effects of the Nazi census was the ends to which they used their data, not their means. It is the employment of "normal" methods of collection that the authors examine historically as it applies to the Nazi regime, and also the way contemporary methods of classification and control still affect the modern world.

(bold added by me)
www.goodreads.com...


There is a limited preview on Google Books
books.google.com...=onepage&q=&f=false

edited title to better reflect OP
911stinks

[edit on 8-3-2010 by 911stinks]

reply to post by 911stinks


I think you need to do a little more research.

The census has been part of the US constitution since 1787.

Not just any old Nazis, but time-travelling Nazis! I mean, how on earth would those pesky Krauts have organised the census returns a 100, or 200 or 250 years before WWII.

Does anyone know whether John Titor had a little square moustache?

reply to post by 911stinks


I think the Nazi's started everything didn't they? Who would we blame every evil thing on if not for them.

Personally I think the word should be a curse word like f--k or s--t and you shouldn't be allowed to pull it out of a grab bag of shocking hurtful terms just to make the point... you don't like something.

Originally posted by 911stinks
I just received my Census package after a knock on the door, and a warning that if we didn't turn it in, there would be another visit from the Census people, and if we didn't turn that one in, we would be arrested.

Just do what I do, and fill in the number of people. The only thing the census is authorized by the Constitution is as an enumeration (count, numbering) of the people. Anything beyond that is a violation.

The Roman empire had a Census.


They had to keep track of all their people.
the NAZI's are johnny come latelys relatively speaking.

reply to post by 911stinks


Well if the Nazis diddnt do it, Then those damn Jews did it... AAHHHHH
But maybe if you breathe and take a look at history you would know that Rome and even the Persians had a census of sorts.... Dont you remeber the biblical story of Jesus's birth? That was due to the Census... Not the birth but why he was born in a manger in bethlem instead of his home.

Originally posted by poedxsoldiervet
reply to post by 911stinks

 

Well if the Nazis diddnt do it, Then those damn Jews did it... AAHHHHH
But maybe if you breathe and take a look at history you would know that Rome and even the Persians had a census of sorts.... Dont you remeber the biblical story of Jesus's birth? That was due to the Census... Not the birth but why he was born in a manger in bethlem instead of his home.

So, since the Romans did it...

The Census asks for race. What does that have to do with it. I'm American!

reply to post by 911stinks


I think most of the other posters are missing the point of the book.

It doesn't say Nazi's created the idea of the census, it says they created the nosy, overly intrusive questions we find in the modern census. They created this type of intrusive census in order to track groups of people and identify those who would be designated as enemies of the state.

A census is supposed to be used to count how many people live within each district. The added nosy, intrusive questions are there so the govt can pigeon hole us into categories, possibly for sinister future plans against us.

reply to post by 911stinks


It's acceptable according to our constitution:
www.usconstitution.net...

It's a practice that goes way back and was even recorded in the Gospels during the Roman Empire:

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to his own town to register.

Luke 2:1-3

But I do hear you, OP. The practice may not be new and it may be constitutional but some of the information they ask is REALLY none of their business and makes me a bit uncomfortable.

reply to post by 911stinks


Everytime I fill out a census form they ask for race and I put down American... You should do the same.

Originally posted by FortAnthem
reply to post by 911stinks

 

It doesn't say Nazi's created the idea of the census, it says they created the nosy, overly intrusive questions we find in the modern census. They created this type of intrusive census in order to track groups of people and identify those who would be designated as enemies of the state.

Actually, the kind of Census you are talking about was the brainchild of Americans like Madison Grant and other Eugenicist Conservatives (in the meaning that word had in California in the 10's and 20's of the 20th cent.).

Hitler was deeply impressed by Grant's " The passing of the great race " and the Nazis modelled many of their laws on Grant's et al. strict immigration laws. Back in those days, the nazis even admitted to their American inspiration...

So we shouldn't turn around causation here. Yes, Hollerith-machines, IBM and the census were an integral part of the nazis campaign of annhiliation - but that has more to do with the Nazis than with the census.

The census can be a good thing. Like anything, it can be abused. By people.

Originally posted by FortAnthem
reply to post by 911stinks

 

I think most of the other posters are missing the point of the book.

It doesn't say Nazi's created the idea of the census, it says they created the nosy, overly intrusive questions we find in the modern census. They created this type of intrusive census in order to track groups of people and identify those who would be designated as enemies of the state.

A census is supposed to be used to count how many people live within each district. The added nosy, intrusive questions are there so the govt can pigeon hole us into categories, possibly for sinister future plans against us.

I don't think posters are missing the point. The 1841 census of the United Kingdom, the first modern census of it's type over here, actually records where people were born in that whether they were born in that particular county and if not that county, then which other county and, more importantly, which country. So, the UK has been tracking "Johnny Foreigner" and other "enemies of the state" in a census since 1841.

Depending how conspiratorial you want to be, you could say that this census also includes how productive a member of society you are in terms of class and employment status. You could extrapolate on that with the introduction of medical status in 1861 regarding whether you were deaf, blind, dumb in and then, in 1871, whether you were 'mental' in some way.

All this long before before the Nazis apparently devised their "intrusive" census. Fancy!

[edit on 8-3-2010 by Merriman Weir]

Originally posted by poedxsoldiervet
reply to post by 911stinks

 

Everytime I fill out a census form they ask for race and I put down American... You should do the same.

I always put down African-American. Oh, sure you have to go back 60 some odd million years, but it's all in the ancestry evidently.

Ehh, don't knock it. The census has records of one of my relatives living for over 120 years before he simply disappeared. The suggested answer to the question was that he moved out of the county aged somewhere between 120-130 or he just went up into the mountains and died (which is the most likely).

Still the old coot managed to outlive all of his children, all but 3 of his grandchildren, 15 of his great-grandchildren and 6 of his great-great-grandchildren (3 were infant/childbirth deaths).

He timed his life right though, too young to fight in the Revolution and too old to fight in the Civil War. Which puts him alive when my grandmother's father was a boy to teenager, although they never met.

Ha ha didn't this thing start in Bethlehem?

Not sure why people get so uppity about given over some quite simple details. I did my first UK census in 2001 and while it was compulsory (£5000 fine for non compliance), I didn't view it as an invasion of my privacy as the Government has all this info anyway.

All the census is, at least in the UK, is a way for them to quickly and efficiently collect information about the population so services can be budgeted for and targetted to the right area's, so they can track how the pupulation grows and moves (again to plan for services) and trends in the population that could help with other strategic planning they have to do.

To get your knickers in a twist over it is really quite silly and to claim the Nazi's invented it is even more silly.

Historical records are a great asset to humanity. It's book keeping in the modern day...history for tomorrow.

The Egyptians weren't much into history, but their records were fairly meticulous. Sumerians also...they recorded facts and figures that help modern researchers get a handle on what life was like way back.

So as not to be off topic...the Nazis were surprisingly anti-smoking too...

reply to post by Kandinsky


And Ayn Rand said that not to smoke was anti-life.

Full circle back to the mindset of the OP - (Ayn Rand was fond of the Ad Hitlerum argument, too - so its' more like double full circle back to the topic and its spirit).

Couldn't resist.

Sorry for that.

BTW the Nazis also wanted to get rid of cancer and Himmler once owned and operated a small chicken farm...

And Pol Pot was an anti smoker too.

While Stalin and Mao smoked cigarettes so fast that it almost looked like they ate them.

[edit on 8-3-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

reply to post by NichirasuKenshin
Ayn Rand would likely approve of this old tobacco poster....cough...splutter...chuckle...



Perhaps a census of criminal icons and idiotic intellectuals would muddy the waters of discussion even further? (I added that to remain OT whilst posting an image that's car-crash tasteless)