Censuses were not invented by the Nazi leadership; they had already been taken in the German Customs Union [Zollverein] during the nineteenth century. But in the new National Socialist police state, which sought total control over society, a state “survey” [Übersicht] of the population took on a new meaning. Below is an advertisement for the Dehomag company, a subsidiary of IBM, for so-called Hollerith punch cards, which were used in preparing and analyzing the 1933 census.