Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Penguin Classics)

The wonderful new movie, Hannah Arendt (2012), directed by Margarethe von Trotta and starring Barbara Sukowa, shows that Arendt’s series of articles on Adolf Eichmann’s trial, covered by The New Yorker in 1961 and subsequently published under the title of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Penguin Books, New York, 1963), was a double-edged sword in her career. On the one hand, it gave Arendt a broader mainstream visibility, in part because of the international controversy it generated. On the other hand, this very controversy cost her several valuable friendships and even jeopardized her reputation in the academia. The controversy hinges upon the manner in which Arendt describes the nature of evil that characterizes the worst genocide in human history: the Holocaust.Her explanation, captured by the phrase “the banality of evil,” posits that evil deeds are, for the most part, not perpetrated by monsters or sadists. Most often, they are perpetrated by seemingly ordinary people like Adolf Eichmann, who value conformity and narrow self-interest over the welfare of others. The concept of the banality of evil seems intuitive enough. Nontheless, it generated a huge controversy, primarily because ccritics interpreted it as exonerating Adolf Eichmann and indicting the victims of the Holocaust: particularly the Jewish leaders who were compelled by the Nazis to organize the Jewish people for mass deportations and eventual extermination.Was Arendt putting the criminals and the victims in the same boat? Or, even worse, does her notion of the banality of evil end up blaming the victims? I don’t think so. In what follows, I’d like to explain why by outlining Arendt’s two explanations of the banality of evil: the first one being people who naturally lack empathy and conscience in any circumstances (like Eichmann) and who thrive in totalitarian regimes; the second understood as evil actions (or callous indifference) that even people who do have a conscience are capable of under extreme circumstances.Adolf Eichmann and the banality of psychopathyAdolf Eichmann (1906-1962) was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Nazi regime and one of the key figures in the Holocaust. With initiative and enthusiasm, he organized the mass deportations of the Jews first to ghettos and then to extermination camps throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. Once Germany lost the war, he fled to Argentina. Years later, he was captured by the Mossad and extradited to Israel. In a public trial, he was charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes. He was found guilty and executed by hanging.In her accounts of the trial, Arendt is struck by the contrast between Eichmann’s monstrous deeds and his average appearance and banal, technocratic language. Unlike other Nazi leaders notorious for crimes against humanity, such as Amon Goeth or Josef Mengele, Eichmann didn’t seem to be a disordered sadist. More remarkably given his actions against the Jewish people, unlike Hitler, Eichmann wasn’t even particularly anti-Semitic.Although six psychiatrists testified during the trial to Eichmann’s apparent “normality,” in her articles Arendt emphasizes the fact that his normalcy is only a mask. In fact, she highlights the aspects of his behavior under questioning that were anything but normal: his self-contradictions, lies, evasiveness, denial of blame about the crimes he did commit and inappropriate boasting about his power and role in the Holocaust for crimes there’s no evidence he committed. Arendt is particularly struck by this man’s absolute lack of empathy and remorse for having sent hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths. To each count he was charged with, Eichmann pleaded “Not guilty in the sense of the indictment.” (p. 21) This leads Arendt to ask: “In what sense then did he think he was guilty?” (p. 21) His defense attorney claimed that “Eichmann feels guilty before God, not before the law,” but Arendt points out that Eichmann himself never acknowledges any such moral culpability.If he denies any moral responsibility it’s because, as Arendt is astonished to observe, he doesn’t feel any. Although, astonishingly, none of the forensic psychologists see Eichmann as a psychopath, Arendt describes Eichmann in similar terms Hervey Cleckley uses to describe psychopathic behavior in his 1941 groundbreaking book, The Mask of Sanity. First and foremost, Eichmann is a man with abnormally shallow emotions. Because of this, he also lacks a conscience. Even though he understands the concept of law, he has no visceral sense of right and wrong and can’t identify with the pain of others. His extraordinary emotional shallowness impoverishes not only his sense of ethics, but also his vocabulary. Arendt gives as one of many examples Eichmann’s desire to “find peace with his former enemies” (p. 53). Arendt states that “Eichmann’s mind was filled to the brim with such sentences” (p.53). These stock phrases are a manifestation of Eichmann’s empty emotional landscape; his behavior towards the Jews even more so.Yet, Arendt emphasizes, even ordinary people capable of empathy and remorse can still cause extraordinary harm in unusual circumstances. In such cases, they're motivated by a conformity which she describes as the banality of evil.Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

While I do not agree with all of Arendt's positions or arguments, this is an important work from both journalistic and philosophical viewpoints. While the reader expecting to understand Eichmann to the same degree that a reader of Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth will come to understand Speer (which is not surprising given Arendt's lack of first-hand access to Eichmann) will be disappointed, the reader is still left with a vivid impression of Eichmann's 'ordinariness' and 'thoughtlessness' rather than an inaccurate picture of a sadistic genius. As an account of the trial, I find Arendt's account of the flaws in both prosecution and defence cases and the essentially fair-minded and objective conduct of the presiding judges in an (justifiably) emotionally-charged environment convincing and compelling.It appears, however, that Arendt could not completely make up her mind as to whether this trial should have been a narrowly-focused prosecution of Eichmann alone (a position which informs her best criticisms of the conduct of the trial) or a wider inquest into the Holocaust as a whole (which seems to shape her searching questions on the role of Jewish leadership and the relative lack or organised resistance). Her views on the appropriateness of an Israeli court hearing the charges against Eichmann as opposed to an (at the time non-existent) international tribunal appear - from today's perspective, where almost a generation after the end of the Cold War the International Criminal Court is still of limited influence and effectiveness in trying cases of this nature. her arguments on this issue reminded me of Orwell's observations on HG Wells utopian plea to remove airpower from the hands of nation-states in the 1930's in ('Wells, Hitler and the World State', in Fifty Orwell Essays [linked table of contents]) - whatever their merits, there was little prospect of at her proposals being adopted to deliver a satisfactory outcome. In her postscript, (written some time after the original draft), Arendt observes that states may at times be compelled to commit actions that can be regarded as 'criminal' to ensure the survival of lawfulness - I would suggest that submitting Eichmann to trial in Jerusalem (and for that matter, the trials of the Nazi leadership at Nuremberg) met that description, and at least secured appropriate outcomes even if not representative of the most desirable legal process.Perhaps the true lesson of Eichmann's trial and Arendt's account is not that evil is always banal, but that as Arendt states 'Justice, but not mercy, is a matter of judgement", and that civilised and decent people need to be prepared to stand in judgement of evil (and even better, continue to debate exactly what a more perfect justice should look like) rather than follow the temptation of simply granting 'mercy' as a means of dealing with the unthinkable.

I was watching an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent where some guy killed someone else and when asked why he did it, the guy just said something like he wanted to know what it was like to kill someone. When the Captain was told of this, he just replied "the banality of evil," shaking his head or something like that. Then the episode was over. It had occurred to me that the phrase "the banality of evil" must have had some deeper meaning or background behind it, which was the style of L&O writing and themes, so I decided it was worth a search.At first, it was difficult to read. Not because of the subject matter but of the author's writing style and the sheer density of the material. And the subject matter. It always struck me as odd that it seemed that nobody ever talks about the holocaust. This is a book that everyone must read in my opinion. It should be taught in schools. I have zero knowledge of the controversy surrounding this book, and that is partially on purpose. I was almost heartbroken when I read the addendum that came out afterward, which is now at the end of this version, which read more like an apology than anything else. There is a reason why we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. We're just too stupid not to. Arendt should have apologized for nothing.Once I was able to keep up with Arendt, it became clear to me that I was in the presence of a mind much greater than my own. She should have gotten a nobel peace prize or something, you know, back when a NPP still meant something.I haven't gotten around to reviewing this book since I read it because I just haven't known how to review it. There is nothing I can say without doing this book an injustice. I know this review is terrible. One day I will fix it. But I just have to get something out there that says read this book right now. If you read nothing else in your life, read this book.As a side note, as loathsome as Hitler was, it amazes me just how much the powers of post WW2 history have taken pages out of Hitler's playbook day after day, year after year to control, manipulate, and subjugate the populations of people around the world.Again, this review is terrible, but I just want to finish by saying that often in life, we have questions about why certain things are the way they are and how certain people can do the things they do. Sometimes the thought plagues us for long periods of time, and sometimes we just shake our heads. Arendt states in her addendum something like this book is not meant to be a treatise on the nature of evil. Either she was being clever with the literal meaning of "treatise," or the lynch mob of idiots really made her question her work. Either way, if not a treatise, this book at the very least will put you face to face with the nature of evil as clearly as if you were staring into a mirror. It will give you and has to offer much more than that, make no mistake, but that's what drew me to the book in the first place.

Hannah Arendt's EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM:A REPORT ON THE BANALITY OF EVIL is an important book for those who want to know why terrible evil can exist among "decent" people. What is frightening is that Arendt makes clear that mass murders in Eastern Europe were done in compliance with existing law. Miss Arendt has done a masterful job in attempting to explain these events and the disturbing question, "why."Miss Arendt gives a brief summary of Adolf Eichmann's life and career. She also gives the background of the German bureaucracy and the tragic willingness of "normal" people to submit to the law and bueaucratic procedures that led to concentration camps and mass murder.One of the most disturbing sections of the book begins on page 117 in which Miss Arendt gives a horrifying example that mass murders in German occupied Europe were done with the sanction of the victims. She explains that leaders of Jewish councils cooperated with German authorties in a triage effort in herding victims to the concentration camps. This section reveals what happens when "decent" people exert serious efforts to prove that they can obey the law even if the law means their own destruction. These comments are followed by similiar remarks on page 137 whereby Miss Arendt remarks, ...the odd notion, indeed very common in Germany, that to be law-abiding means not merely to obey the laws but to act as though one were the legislator of the laws that one obeys. Hence the conviction that nothing less than going beyond the call of duty will do." These remarks partailly explain the subtitle of the book, A REPORT ON THE BANALITY OF EVIL.Yet, as depressing as this book is, Miss Arendt cites examples of rare courage in German occupied Europe during World War II. Miss Arendt cites the Danes who in effect said that they would no longer comply with German law, and a few Danes openly resisted efforts to arrest and convey Jews to concentration camps. This is an important part of the book in that it explains what can occur when petty minded bureaucrats meet with open defiance based on principle. Miss Arendt reveals what many thought was "toughness" was merely,... "a ruthless desire to comform at any price..."Miss Arendt does not give anyone, Germans nor allies, a free pass in this book. She explains in the last section of the book that, under international law, the "allies" committed acts of deliberate violence against civilians. These remarks are in line with A.J.P. Taylor's remark, "Though none were innocent, all were guilty."Those who complain that Hannah Arendt excuses Eichmann need to read this book more carefully. Miss Arendt explains that " a nobody" like Adolf Eichmann became a "paper shuffling" bureaucratic who never shot or directly killed any of his victims. What these critics need to understand is that men who rise to powerful positions do so only because "normal" people support such men and fall over themselves to prove they can obey the law. "Normal" people refuse to question basic issues of morality and good versus evil. Too many people accept the dangerous notion that morality is whatever is defined by political leaders and their laws. Such evil leaders only get power and keep it because of mass support and the notion that somehow thoughtlessness is a virtue.This reviewer highly recommends this book. When the question is asked why terrible, tragic events occured during the interwar years and during World War II, Hannah Arendt's EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM provides insight and some of the answers.

I doubt many authors have been able to pack as much into three hundred pages as Hannah Arendt did in Eichmann in Jerusalem: there’s the description of the actual trial, of course, but there’s also her notorious study of Eichmann’s personality, her history of the Holocaust, her philosophy of totalitarian regimes and a reflection on the nature of punitive justice. All these topics have generated substantial subsequent literature; I’ll simply summarize the philosophical parts which I found most interesting.For a historian of the Holocaust, Arendt is surprisingly optimistic about the possibilities of non-violent resistance. Following her tripartite division of human action into biological, technological and political she repeatedly cites instances such as the kingdom of Denmark where non-cooperation frustrated the Germans’ plans. This leads perhaps to too much emphasis on the role of the Jewish councils in facilitating mass murder but Arendt was never one to shy away from difficult issues.She also makes a passionate case that Eichmann’s execution was necessary. Arguing that he had engaged in a unique activity, the genocide of a people irrespective of territorial bounds, the injustice he perpetrated on the world’s moral fabric could only be handled by removing him from it.What I am trying to say is that Eichmann in Jerusalem is far more than the oft quoted banality of evil. Eichmann’s personality, though central, is only one of a number of themes. Like Arendt herself, the book is and deserves to be controversial but is must reading for those wanting to understand the unique position of Jewry in the modern world. She certainly knew how to handle what could have been merely an odious trial and render its significance to the entire human community—if, post-Holocaust, we can still speak of one.

I understand the controversies this book must have caused to the sensitivity of the sufferings of the Jews, but I can't help but being amazed by the courage of the author and her indefatigable power of analytical intellect. My understanding is that no matter how sensitive the issue was, the author had to bring out what could be one of the most unfavorable aspects of the trial on this individual, which is the political manipulation by the Ben Gurion government used to justify the state of Israel. Perhaps by vilifying and punishing one individual, the world may lose the perspectives of the moral collapse of the entire European society, and the implication that no one is exempt from the potential of evil, either by active participation or passive condonation/compromise, or simple indifference. She is sharp in her criticism of discrepancies and hypocrisies in the laws, trials, and media coverage. Although she does not present any solutions or potential alternatives, her perspectives are broad, and very very insightful, particularly in retropect of the last 50 years since the report--Genocides in Africa, oppression of women in Muslim countries and what has been going on in Israel occupied Palestine, and lack of united mechanism to handle these crimes in the international politics.

The Holocaust is an often told story. Hundreds if not thousands of books are written about it. This book, "Eichmann in Jerusalem" has to be the book to read on the subject. The book tells the story of Adolph EIchmann's trial in Jersusalem for crimes committed in the Holocaust during WWII. This is a trial for a person who personally did not kill one Jew. He was a mere Lt. Colonel in a huge bureaucracy, buried deep down in the organizational chart. How can that be? I think the answers in the book chill the average person to the bone. It touches on some subjects out of history that are very dark. It also is frighteningly real for today's world. I know that alone will scare most as well as any haunted house they go through.This book flows very well. The author keeps the flow moving fast from chapter to chapter. She tells you the who on Eichmann, why it was important then in 1963, and goes over the events of the Holocaust. Her information comes straight from the trial transcripts. That adds a new angle to the event, closer to the timeline. I think that adds a lot to the story.Overall the book is a great history of the Holocaust. It will give you facts that you haven't read before. These facts rattled the world then and I think it would now to anyone who reads it.The book explains the whole final solution in intimate detail. It walks you through how it started as mercy killings due to low quality of life to a very large complex state owned machine. The book doesn't fill you will the horrible stories. It gives you the bureaucratic dry explanation on how the system worked. You learned how the elite was very much behind the process. That alone is something few other books offer. Through this line you learn that Eichmann was the person who made the whole system run. He made it run as only a Lt. Colonel buried in the bureaucracy who controlled very little. His office got the trains to put the Jews on. Then he coordinated with the camps to take the Jews. He did not run the camps himself. The Nazis also used the local Jews to make their system run. It was their local government which choose the names and Jews at gunpoint which guided them to the chambers in many camps. Their succession of lies to the Jews about a better tomorrow was a critical fuel that made the system run. Everyone would either trade in their neighbor or hung on in hope of a better tomorrow. German society also bore a piece of the guilt. Whole institutions jumped on board to make things happen.Hannah Arendt also gives you the context from the period. Why the Israeli's conducted trail and the reaction from the world. The process of the trial in a way shaped world attitudes even to today. It brought out the horror of the system out of the shadows to see it was more than a mix of personal stories but it was a state sanctioned machine. I think it explained the system which no one on on the outside understood.There is one thing from the book I know will upset people. The question today is how can people do this? Why would people do this. The book explains who Eichmann was. He started as a private in the SS. He was an average worker in Germany before that; a salesman. He moved up the SS chain quickly through hard work and taking full advantage of opportunities as they came. He probably would have moved to the top of any bureaucracy, Walmart, Exon, Ford, as he did with the SS. The only difference was then the mission was the Holocaust vs. selling odds and ends at Walmart. His story shows the importance of morals vs. just a good job. He was just a career climber in the business of the day. You can see how this principle of career success alone, outside of morals turns people into monsters. That element alone is what people can see happening tomorrow but won't admit it. That do that because they fear they too might do the same thing to advance or know someone who will.This book

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.

History, philosophy, moral, and laws converging but still unable to explain and properly judge. This is a masterpiece forever. Strongly reccomended in difficult times!

This is a very interesting read; she really looks from a very objective point of view at this subject. The Story of Eichmann is extremely interesting and important. Also incredibly sad, which makes it such an important story to tell, and read. Eichmann was the guy who organized the transportation of Jews in the third Reich during the Nazis attempts to eliminate and eradicate the Jews from Germany and Europe. While he probably never personally ordered someone to kill someone or killed anyone himself. His efforts were crucial in the killing of millions of people. Which cost him eventually his life. In my opinion a must read, even though it can be a bit slow sometimes when it comes to all the details of it, but at the same time, this it is also extremely important to understand some of the details. If you are interested in history and you are interested in the question of good and evil, this is a great read.

good

Arendt shows how we do, when we shouln't. It was the case of the Germans during the Hollocaust, it was legal. The book is also History, it is a report on the Eichmann jugement.

Excellent read!! Gave some perspectives I had no idea about. Bought a couple of extra copies to give to Friends.