Eichmann in Jerusalem: A sneak peak into the 1961 Controversial Trial

Surname: Instructor’s Name: Course: Date: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A sneak peak into the 1961 Controversial Trial Background Hannah Arendt was a journalist working the “The New Yorker” when she covered the Eichmann Trial in Israel in the year 1961. Her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem is based on a progression of articles she later wrote about the famous trial. Adolf Eichmann was born in 1906 and after early childhood failures at school and difficulties of attaining a good or well-paying job he joined the NSDAP and the SS so as to realize his dreams to enter the career in 1932. He is known for orchestrating the Jewish emigration from what is today known as Germany, and after a final resolution was ordered by Hitler, he, touted as an expert on Jewish matters would later become the chief mastermind of the expulsion of Jews from Germany and murdering several using gas chambers built by the general government. After the genocide Eichmann later disappeared and resurfaced in Argentina, where he was later captured by the Israeli intelligence and brought over to Jerusalem in order to face charges of crimes against humanity in 1960. After a hearing that started in 1961, and took a few months to conclude and decide it culminated with Eichmann death sentencing with the capital punishment itself being executed in May 1962. The book highlights the story of Eichmann chronologically and in a structural manner. It looks to focus on the three main issues, that is, the trial itself, the person that is Eichmann and the general treatment of the Jews. The last one, the treatment of the Jews covers a major portion of the book and highlights a number of solutions for the expulsion, concentration and murdering of the Jews through plans orchestrated by the German authorities and then followed by the mass movement of people toward the east to the Asian subcontinent. This part of the book has caused considerable acrimony and controversy over the complicity of the Judenrat officials (pp. 117-119). The writer’s conclusion is that without the complicity and collaboration in organizing these heinous acts then so many live could have been saved or not lost altogether. Eichmann’s Personality & Character The most interesting parts of the book, however, are the fragments on the person of Eichmann because Hannah Arendt does not endeavor to psychologically analyze his persona but simply seeks to recount the convict’s actions and words that he utters. That alone is enough to expose the image of an unremarkable as well as a simple-minded man. Eichmann willfully participated in the process of extermination of millions of Jews, and even during his trial, Eichmann (Arendt ) showed close to no remorse as his principal and only regret was that his calling had not moved further with the Third Reich. Adolf Eichmann had not been in anyway a fanatic visionary, and therefore expected to curve his own career as expected of many others. Adolf was a small man often performing his duties and quite often proud of himself as a law-abiding citizen of Germany, as he pointed out, Hitler’s word meant law (p. 132). He embodied what the writer of the book has cleverly termed as the “banality of evil”. Indeed, Adolf Eichmann was an everyday man, ordinary in the sense that he bore no personal hatred of Jews. He only got motivated by the need to advance his career just like every other average man could think of at the time. The writer point out that he was driven by careerism. And this unfortunately led him to be one of the chief masterminds and therefore orchestrated in the organization of the Holocaust. We can view him as a cog a cog in the machinery, probably one...