The banality of Evil: A critique of the trial of Eichmann

Eichmann on Trial, A report on the Banality of Evil, written by Arendt in 1962, follows the trail of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Eichmann was a major figure in making the Holocaust happen, he was in charge of transport and logistics, and so his objectives were to transport Jews to ghettos and concentration camps. Eichmann fled Nazi Germany using false documents to Argentina, where was found by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence services and kidnapped back to Israel to be stood on trial for his crimes against the Jewish people. The book covers the trial and Arendt does a great job in providing a tremendous richness to it through the privison of context and analysis.

This book is a real thriller. For me it was one of those books that you know will be interesting, but when you read it, it’s eye-opening to say the least. Why so? Well, the trial of Eichmann is such a complex one. A German national illegally fleeing to Argentina after having committed crimes against humanity/genocide and then being illegally kidnapped to a completely different country for crimes committed in another country. In terms of the legality of all this, it doesn’t get more complicated. But more so than just the legal side, this book really opened the door to so many questions about the inner organisation of the Nazi’s.

Nazi Germany is a concept which really forms part of the subconscious of the peoples living in Europe. We all know about the atrocities committed by people against a people, and we are surprised, shocked by the level of human suffering. The era of National Socialism in Germany is central to so many discussions of politics, power, psychology etc. How can a population be supportive of such actions? How can normal people engage in this kind of Evil? What is Evil?

The defeat of Germany and Hitler in the second world war paved the way for modern EU, that continental polity, founded initially on economic unification, to stop the rise of Germany, and then in time, on legal, social and political.

However, most of us never really find out about the details of it, how it all started, what happened exactly, and in this context, how it actually happened.

While the book probably requires another book to be written to discuss the points raised by Arendt, below, I will highlight a few which I think are the most important to the readers:

• Legal — This is an obvious issue. As I've highlighted early, Eichmann committed crimes in Germany, fled to Argentina, was kidnapped by Israeli Intelligence services from there to be tried in Jerusalem. How does that work? How can you try someone for crimes committed in another country under a different set of laws. Eichmann’s was given the legal status of “enemy of mankind” (hostis generis humani). This legal status is given to pirates, as they are in the open seas and not under the protection of any state, which allows them to be tried by any country. The court claimed that his crimes were so universal in nature, that any court could try them. In terms of kidnapping Eichmann, the claim was that it was not an ‘act of state’. I mean, who believes that an intelligence service kidnaps a Nazi? A few question to consider:

1. Given the dubious legal footing on which the trial was held, what was the actual points of the trial? justice?
2. The issues concerning individuals and the requirement of nationality. What happens when you are an alien, i.e. you’re nationality is removed? Under whose protection are you? Where can you go? What is the concept of rights and can they exist without a nation-state? This was a strategy used by Hitler, the removal of nationality, to make alien the Jewish people, a people of no state, but it also holds true for its implications for Eichmann.

• Banality of Evil — Arendt here is suggesting how evil is expressed as an everyday affair, like going to the shop to buy milk, watching the sun set etc. I think this is a really crucial point which is being highlighted and by the far the most chilling. If we take into account the number of Jews that are being killed in concentration camps, or even in the beginning, talked about being moved to be killed, were talking hundreds of thousands to millions (across the various countries of Europe). Ask yourself, as a simple exercise to understand the complexity of the task, how can I move 10k people from place X to place Y which is 500 miles away? You start to get an understanding of what is happening here. As you increase the numbers, you realise, this gets more and more difficult, the operation gets bigger and more expensive. If you then add the complexity of forcing these people or somehow cajoling them, and in the process taking away their property, this adds another layer of complexity. If this was a private company that had to do this, you can quickly see that it would require a fair amount of resource, human and capital to make this happen. Banality of evil really represents this, ‘ I come to work everyday to get a paycheck’, that is what you do on a daily basis. Eichmann throughout the trial is presented as not particularly the sharpest tool in shed with his bad memory, but he spent everyday for decades running this operation, and the way he spoke about it, showcases how an everyday affair it was. Ask yourself, what are you doing on a daily basis to get a paycheck?
• Eichmann on Kant — Eichmann claimed that he followed the philosophy of Kant, and that’s what kept him in engaged in the work that he was doing. When I read this, I have to admit, I was quite shocked. Not that the rest of the text is satire, but the idea that someone whose actions on a daily basis were that of someone like Eichmann, followed, an arguably robust philosophy of such a famous European philosopher, is quite mind boggling. This certainly open up real questions about the use of reason at an individual level and how we make decisions. ‘I meant by my remark about Kant that the principle of my will must always be such that it can become the principle of general law’. Evidently, Eichmann here refers to the general law as the Fuhrer, which is a gross distortion of the underlying philosophy. As in the point above, it goes back to the above point, if your philosophy of life is to do good in world, how are you doing it? What is the price of that good? Is it Totalitarianism? The thing that we need to protect ourselves from is Totalistarianism. How often people with good intentions end up walking this path. This not only is true for organisations and states, but individuals. How often, through the desire to do the right thing, or to save the people, do they become these types of figures.
• Jewish leadership — Arendt argues that Jewish leadership played a fundamental role in the movement and execution of Jews. Jewish leadership was working with the Nazi party in administrative and policing roles, i.e. managing the jews in the community, , managing the property transfers, policing and deportations. Evidently, Jewish resistance, due to the fact that Jewish community leaders were supporting the Nazis, was minimal. Arendt argues that had Jewish leadership not been involved in the administrative and supporting functions, there would most likely have been chaos, however, given the potential for resistance, the number of Jews to be exterminated in concentration camps would have been significantly less (recall the number currently stands at around 4–6 million).
• Antisemitism in Europe at the time. — One of the elements the book brings to light is the underlying antisemitism in countries throughout Europe at the time. Romania, Arendt argues, was somewhat ahead of Nazi Germany in their anti-antisemitism, while other countries(which are really limited) such as Denmark and Bulgaria, did not accept or support the Nazis but instead supported the Jews in their struggle. The rest of the countries were openly antisemitic to various degrees. Having said that, there is varying degrees of anti-antisemitism, with Germany’s national Socialism being the most pernicious of all. Only Romania really had support for such ideas of the Nazi party, while other countries were antisemitic, they did not support this particular version. This is an interesting position, the undercurrent of racism against Jews throughout the last few centuries in Europe. While they are not being exterminated, is it evident (Arendt goes into this in more detail in the first chapter of her ‘Origins of Totalitarianism’) that there a distinction between The Jew and the national of the country.

I’ve discussed a few arguments that Arendt makes which I think are the most important in the book. They certainly cover a wide range of issues and aspects of life. I have not really discussed the psychology of Eichmann. To be honest, I think I need more to digest Arendt’s thoughts on Eichmann, but I also need to read a lot more on this topic before I can provide in a simple analysis.

I think the book provides enough context and analysis for any new reader of the Nazi’s as well as other seasoned readers to get a more robust critique of what I would say are popular assumptions about its working.