Summary:
Hannah Arendt's account of the trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, "Eichmann in Jerusalem," shows Eichmann not to be an evil mastermind but as a mediocre, banal man unable to articulate why he participated in the "final solution" of killing Jews.
"It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us--the lesson of the fearsome, the word-and-thought-defying banality of evil" (252).
The capture and trial of Adolf Eichmann, which evoked legal and moral controversy across all nations, ended in his hanging over four decades ago. The verdict dealing with Eichmann's involvement with the Final Solution has never been in question; this aspect was an open-and-shut case which was put to death with Eichmann in 1962. The deliberation surrounding the issues of Eichmann's motives, however, are still in question, bringing forth in-depth analyses of the aspects of evil.
Using Adolf Eichmann as a subject and poster-boy of a new threat to society, author Hannah Arendt is able to penetrate the limitations of the trial itself and.....
This is a free excerpt of 135 words. There are 1,308 words (approx.
4 pages at 300 words per page) in the full essay.
Read the rest of this Essay with our Banality of Evil and Adolf Eichmann Access Pass.
