Eichmann in Jerusalem

1522 Words7 Pages
Eichmann in Jerusalem In 1961 Hannah Arendt covered a trial for The New Yorker of a former Nazi SS officer named Adolf Eichmann that she would use to show a different perspective of why an individual is lead to commit a crime. In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt writes about how she observes a truth that, except the desire of improving his career, Adolf Eichmann had no motives at all in doing his job for Nazi party and can instead be qualified to say that he acted out of sheer thoughtlessness. Examining this thoughtlessness brings up other points for Arendt such as how thoughtlessness can be used in modern societies as a source of powerful evil and how it can show that a perpetrator does not have to be far from normal to be a criminal. Arendt uses Eichmann’s case to showcase her point that besides the desire to improve his career, Adolf Eichmann had no malicious motives in doing his job, but his sheer thoughtlessness governed his actions in criminal activity for the Nazi Party. What Arendt is inherently saying about Eichmann when she states that he acted out of sheer thoughtlessness is that he is not thinking or what can also be said is that he suffers from lack of thought. Eichmann was thoughtful as an administrator to which it’s true that he could deal with lots of complicated details, but overall to her, Eichmann is not thinking. For Arendt, thinking involves on the spot judgment and the ability to take another’s viewpoint into consideration. This is something that she thinks Eichmann lacks. For instance, in her book she states that this is a flaw where he, Eichmann, cannot take another fellow’s point of view and her example is in relation to when he was working in Vienna. (Arendt, 47-48) She describes here that whenever the Jewish community had difficulties, they came to Eichmann for help because their desire was to emigrate and Eichmann could help them in that

More about Eichmann in Jerusalem

Open Document