Arendt's 'Eichmann in Jerusalem' is a fascinating study at multiple levels. Her knowledge of the history and bureaucracy of the Haolocaust is amazing in and of itself. Her knowledge of Eichmann's participation is also fascinating. At the same time, while not questioning the justice of Eichmann's execution, she is rightly critical--even contemptuous--of the kidnapping and the two years long 'legal' prosecution of Eichmann. At one point she actually denies that her work is a study on the nature of evil but, in my opinion, the totality of Arendt's work is--whether she intended it herself--is precisely a study of a PARTICULAR kind of evil. The subtitle of the book, 'The Banality of Evil', is a fair summation of Arendt's opinion.
Eichmann, in fact, was relatively small-fry in terms of the policies and philosophies of Nazi genocide. He was an apparachnik, no more, no less. He definitely wasn't the 'sadistic killer' the Jerusalem court adjudged him to be. He wasn't even particularly anti-semitic and he wasn't by nature either a torturer or murderer. He was the perfect gear in a complex, illogical and totally cynical machine. If the Nazi political machine had been 'good'-- if it had genuinely tried to help the Jews and all other peoples--Eichmann would have performed his 'good' role with equal dedication and skill. If the system had required Eichmann to perform the role of a Mother Theresa, Eichmann would have tried to prove himself the ideal saint.
Success, order, social standing and acceptance were the gods Eichmann worshipped. With some truth, Eichmann complained that his Nazi leaders misused Eichmann's highest qualities Initially his job was relatively--ahhh--banal. He was to help get Jews out of Germany, sometimes to Palestine, itself. If things had stopped at this point, Eichmann would now be regarded as something of a pro-Zionist. Things, however, didn't stop there and the system gradually, gradually, gradually morphed into an incomparable killing machine. Eichmann morphed right along with it.
Still this is a small part of the story and couldn't justify the Israel's fracturing of international law to kidnap such a non-entity in Buenos Aires. On the face of it, Eichmann simply wasn't worth it. Ben Gurion must have known it but reckoned that Eichmann--and a 'trial' against Eichman--could serve Israeli purposes. Eichmann wasn't the point of the trial. The TRIAL was the purpose of the trial. Eichmann's presence afforded the prosecutors to--once again once--bring forth the voluminous evidence of the Nazi genocidal atrocity. Most of the 'evidence' had absolutely nothing to do with Eichmann. It was an Israeli effort to gain 'justice', publicity and sympathy for the Jewish plight and Israeli survival. As such, it certainly didn't end with Eichmann's death. 'We must never forget', declared Simon Wiesenthal, as he hunted down Nazi war criminals. But what if we run out of 'war criminals'? What happens--as it has already happened--that they are all captured, punished or, especially dead of old age? The category of 'war criminal' therefore reaches downward to young guards drafted into service of a criminal regime. What happens when even these are gone?
No matter. Who are the guilty? Is an Eichmann or even a Heydrich, more evil than Ted Bundy? Bundy--up close and personal--kidnapped, raped, slowly tortured and murdured dozens of young women. Bundy gained physical pleasure and gratification in acts that unquestionably would have made even the most Jew-hating Nazi sick to his stomach. Eichmann, Heydrich and many, many others certainly did more harm, in a numerical sense, than did Bundy. So is evil a function of numbers? Is a person who kills ten people less evil than a person who kills ten thousand? Is a Communist who expedites the murder of an entire class of people, such as the Kulaks of the Soviet Union, less evil than a person who expedites the murder of ethnic groups in Nazi-occupied Europe?
At the same time it can be argued that Bundy and all those like him are 'sick' which somehow moderates the enormity of their crimes. Then again, how do we know they are 'sick'? Does the nature of the crime define mental illness? If so, maybe Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich and Eichmann were simply diseased souls--victims of their heredities and environments--who simply couldn't help themselves when presented with a certain set of circumstances. Maybe none of us are ultimately responsible for anything. I don't know but I do know that any society that adopts this nihilist philosophy--which many 'liberal' western societies have toyed with--the world is genuinely lost.
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Top reviews from other countries
Carol Long
Fantastic analysis of a complex issue.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 6, 2021Amazon Customer
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Reviewed in Brazil on September 4, 2019