 The cover of 'Eichmann in Jerusalem' by Hannah Arendt 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. The book Eichmann in Jerusalem is the result of this reportage. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...
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Hannah Arendt (October 14, 1906 – December 4, 1975) was a Jewish-German (later American) political theorist. ...
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ...
Otto Adolf Eichmann (known as Adolf Eichmann; March 19, 1906 – June 1, 1962) was a high-ranking Nazi and SS Obersturmbannführer (equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel). ...
The New Yorker is an American magazine that publishes reportage, criticism, essays, cartoons, poetry and fiction. ...
Essentially, Arendt states that aside from a desire for improving his career, Eichmann showed no trace of anti-Semitism or psychological damage. Her subtitle famously referred to the "banality of evil," and that phrase is used quite abruptly as the final words of the final chapter. In part, at least, the phrase refers to Eichmann's deportment at the trial, 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). The Eternal Jew: 1937 German poster. ...
The Banality of Evil is a phrase coined in 1963 by Hannah Arendt in her work Eichmann in Jerusalem to describe the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths but rather by very ordinary people who accepted...
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Arendt takes Eichmann's court testimony and the historical evidence available, and makes several compelling observations about Eichmann:
- Eichmann stated himself in court that 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 principle 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 principles, 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's inability to think for himself was exemplified by his consistent use of "stock phrases and self-invented clichés." This "officialese" (Amtssprache) demonstrated his unrealistic worldview and crippling lack of communication skills.
- During his imprisonment before his trial, the Israeli government sent no less than six psychologists to examine Eichmann. Not only did these doctors find no trace of mental illness, but they also found no evidence of abnormal personality whatsoever. One doctor remarked that his overall attitude towards other people, especially his family and friends, was "highly desirable," while another remarked that the only unusual trait Eichmann displayed was being more "normal" in his habits and speech than the average person.
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 commit horrendous crimes with the proper incentives, but Arendt adamantly disagreed with this interpretation, as Eichmann was voluntarily following the Führerprinzip. Arendt insisted that moral choice remains even under totalitarianism, and that this choice has political consequences even when the chooser is politically powerless: Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 – February 12, 1804) was a Prussian philosopher, generally regarded as one of Europes most influential thinkers and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment. ...
The categorical imperative is the central philosophical concept of the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and of modern deontological ethics. ...
A moral is a one sentence remark made at the end of many childrens stories that expresses the intended meaning, or the moral message, of the tale. ...
In philosophy, the self is the idea of a unified being which is the source of an idiosyncratic conciousness. ...
Hitler redirects here. ...
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The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on January 20, 1942. ...
The Byzantine civil service in action. ...
Reinhard Heydrich as SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (March 7, 1904 – June 4, 1942) was an SS-Obergruppenführer, chief of the Reich Main Security Office, and Reich governor of Bohemia and Moravia. ...
The Final Solution (German Endlösung) refers to the German Nazis plan to address the Jewish problem through systematic relocation and later extermination through genocide during World War II. The term was coined by Adolf Eichmann, a top Nazi official who supervised the genocidal campaign. ...
Ecce Homo (Behold the Man!), Antonio Ciseris depiction of Pontius Pilate presenting a scourged Jesus to the people of Jerusalem. ...
A psychologist is a researcher and/or a practitioner of psychology. ...
A mental illness or mental disorder refers to one of many mental health conditions characterized by distress, impaired cognitive functioning, atypical behavior, emotional dysregulation, and/or maladaptive behavior. ...
National Socialism redirects here. ...
For other uses, see Holocaust (disambiguation) and Shoah (disambiguation). ...
Free-Will is a Japanese independent record label founded in 1986. ...
Adolf Hitler made believe he was the incarnation of the Führerprinzip The Führerprinzip, the German name for the leader principle, refers to a system with a hierarchy of leaders that resembles a military structure. ...
- [U]nder conditions of terror most people will comply but some people will not, just as the lesson of the countries to which the Final Solution was proposed is that “it could happen” in most places but it did not happen everywhere. Humanly speaking, no more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation.
Arendt mentions, as a case in point, Denmark: - One is tempted to recommend the story as required reading in political science for all students who wish to learn something about the enormous power potential inherent in non-violent action and in resistance to an opponent possessing vastly superior means of violence.
It was not just that the people of Denmark refused to assist in implementing the Final Solution, as the peoples of so many other conquered nations had been persuaded to do (or had been eager to do) — but also, that when the Reich cracked down and decided to do the job itself it found that its own personnel in Denmark had been infected by this and were unable to overcome their human aversion with the appropriate ruthlessness, as their peers in more cooperative areas had. Nonviolent resistance (or nonviolent action) is the practice of applying power to achieve socio-political goals through symbolic protests, economic or political noncooperation, civil disobedience and other methods, without using violence. ...
Criticism
Arendt presented Eichmann's situation during World War II from his perspective, 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. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki TÅjÅ Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...
Sociologist Robert Jackall, in his 1988 book Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers (which is often assigned reading along with Eichmann in Jerusalem), countered Arendt's claims that Eichmann was not a particularly immoral person. From his studies of corporations, Jackall concluded that the ambition to further one's career (the only unusual trait Arendt listed Eichmann as having) was in itself a highly amoral pursuit that led individuals (including the corporate managers he studied) to take extremely questionable and immoral actions. Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ...
A corporation (usually known in the United Kingdom and Ireland as a company) is a legal entity (distinct from a natural person) that often has similar rights in law to those of a Civil law systems may refer to corporations as moral persons; they may also go by the name...
In his 2006 book, Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes and Trial of a "Desk Murderer", noted Holocaust-researcher David Cesarani has questioned Arendt's portrait of Eichmann on several grounds. According to his findings, Arendt attended only part of the trial, witnessing the prosecution's presentation. She did not witness Eichmann's testimony and defense of himself. This may have skewed her opinion of him, since it was in the parts of the trial that she missed that the more forceful and less colorless aspects of his character appeared. [1] Professor David Cesarani (1956-) is an English historian who specialises in Jewish history, especially the Holocaust. ...
Second, Cesarani presents extensive evidence suggesting that Eichmann was in fact highly anti-Semitic and that these feelings were important motivators of his genocidal actions. Thus, he alleges that Arendt’s claims that his motives were "banal" and non-ideological may stand on weak foundations. [2] However, Arendt's point was not in denying that Eichmann was anti-Semitic, but that he had abdicated his autonomy, founding of human morality, by obeying the Führer's orders without questioning them.
Finally, and most controversially, Cesarani suggests that Arendt's own prejudices influenced the opinions she expressed during the trial. He claims that like many Jews of German origin, she held Ostjuden (Jews from Eastern Europe) in great disdain. This led her to attack the conduct and efficacy of the chief prosecutor, Gideon Hausner, who was of Polish origin. In a letter to the noted German philosopher Karl Jaspers she stated that Hausner was "a typical Galician Jew. . . constantly making mistakes. Probably one of those people who doesn't know any language." [3] Her dislike of Zionism affected her view of the trial also. Cesarini claims that some of her opinions of Jews of Middle Eastern origin verged on racism. She described the Israeli crowds as an "Oriental mob, as if one were in Istanbul or some other half-Asiatic country." [4] The Israeli police force, she states "gives me the creeps, speaks only Hebrew and looks Arabic." [5] Gideon Hausner ( Israel, 1915 – 1990), the legal adviser of the Israeli Government, was the main prosecutor at the war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. ...
This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
Zionism is a political movement that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, where Jewish nationhood is thought to have evolved somewhere between 1200 BCE and late Second Temple times,[1][2] and where Jewish kingdoms existed up to the 2nd century CE. Zionism is...
Despite these criticisms, Arendt's view of Eichmann, with its universal significance to our understanding of human behavior, is likely to remain the dominant narrative on this topic.
Notes - ^ Cesarani, David, Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes and Trial of a "Desk Murderer", Da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006, pages 197, 347
- ^ Cesarani, Becoming Eichmann, page 346
- ^ Cesarani, Becoming Eichmann, page 345
- ^ Ibid.
- ^ Ibid.
- Literatur -- Institute of Documentation Israel Tuviah Friedman Spezial Collection Korrespondenz Lothar Hermann
- Tuviah Friedman by German National Bibliothek
- Simon Wiesenthal - Tuviah Friedman Korrespondenz Document-Book Germany National Bibliothek
- 1957 reported the Blind man Lothar Hermann Information Adolf Eichmann alias Francisco Schmidt to Fritz Bauer
1958 März CIA- BND Akte Ricardo Clemens 1959 (Dezember) said Attorny General Fritz Bauer Adolf Eichmann KUWEIT Press-Archiv H.S. - Story Tuviah Friedman Haifa Documentation absolutely correct 10 000 Dollar
- The Blind man Lothar Hermann born 11.11.1901 Quirnbach Germany full Jew. Patriot for the World
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