Eichmann in Jerusalem

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a book written by political theorist Hannah Arendt, originally published in 1963. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Hitler's rise to power, reported on Adolf Eichmann's trial for the New Yorker magazine. The book Eichmann in Jerusalem is the result of this reportage.

Essentially, Arendt states that aside from a desire for improving his career, Eichmann showed no trace of anti-Semitism or psychological damage. She called him the embodiment of the "banality of evil," as he appeared at his trial to have an ordinary and common personality, displaying neither guilt nor hatred, claiming he bore no responsibility because he was simply "doing his job" ("He did his duty...; he not only obeyed orders, he also obeyed the law." p. 135).

Arendt takes Eichmann's court testimony and the historical evidence available, and make several compelling observations about Eichmann:

• Eichmann stated himself in court that though he was not religious, he had always tried to abide by Kant's categorical imperative (as discussed directly on pp. 135-137). She argues that Eichmann had essentially taken the wrong lesson from Kant: Eichmann had not recognized the "Golden Rule" and priniciple of reciprocity implicit in the categorical imperative, but had only understood the concept of one man's actions coinciding with general law. Eichmann attempted to follow the spirit of the laws he carried out, as if the legislator himself would approve. In Kant's formulation of the categorical imperative, the legislator is the moral self, and all men are legislators; in Eichmann's formulation, the legislator was Adolf Hitler. Eichmann claimed this changed when he was charged with carrying out the Final Solution, at which point Arendt claims "he had ceased to live according to Kantian pirinciples, that he had known it, and that he had consoled himself with the thoughts that he no longer 'was master of his own deeds,' that he was unable 'to change anything' (p. 136).

• Eichmann, in his peripheral role at the Wannsee Conference (so Arendt argued), witnessed the rank-and-file of the German civil service heartily endorse Reinhardt Heydrich's program for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe. Upon seeing members of "respectable society" endorsing Hitler's ultimate crime, and enthusiatically participating in the planning of the solution, Eichmann felt that his moral responsibility was relaxed, as if he were "Pontius Pilate".

Arendt suggested that this most strikingly discredits the idea that the Nazi criminals were manifestly psychopathic and different from common people. From this document, many concluded that situations such as the Holocaust can make even the most ordinary of people to commit horrendous crimes with the proper incentives, but Arendt adamantly disagreed with this interpretation, as Eichmann was voluntarily following the Führerprinzip.

Arendt presented Eichman's situation during World War II from his persepective, even sympathetically, and went to great lengths to put Eichmann's actions within an understandable and rational framework. This, along with a generally unsympathetic attitude toward Jewish collaborators with the Nazis, and an occasionally sarcastic tone, made the book a target for criticism when it was first published.

Conceivably, a new version of the book, revised with a more balanced tone, might be better received by contemporary readers.