Their guilt lay somewhere in between they were often directly and personally involved in killing the helpless, and if deriving little or no personal gratification from it, or acting out of what German law describes as base motives, still finding ample justification for their actions. If most of these perpetrators of the crimes under consideration in this text were not sadistic monsters, neither were the majority of them true Schreibtischtäter like Eichmann, long-distance executioners who were content to issue orders for the killing of millions to other operatives in the field without soiling their own hands. Of course, much depends on what is understood by normal in this context, but what was true of Eichmann was also true of the great majority of those responsible for both the theory of National Socialist racial hygiene and its practice. In fact, this was quite evident to Arendt herself, for she concluded that it would have been very comforting indeed to believe that Eichmann was a monster .the trouble was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.. What has generated a seemingly endless debate in the more than half-century since she coined the phrase is not her description of Eichmann's acts, but the subtitle of her book, which is not so much ∺ Report on the Banality of Evil, but rather ∺ Report on the Banality of the Evildoer. Such banality becomes increasingly apparent as the history of the perpetrators of Nazi crimes is studied. Although it was apparent that this in no way lessened his monstrous crimes, a fact surely evident even to Eichmann himself, it does raise the issue of the designation Arendt chose. Such an accusation was an offence to his honour. Accused of killing a boy in the garden of his villa in Budapest in 1944, Eichmann vehemently denied having ever personally killed anybody - indeed, this became a cornerstone of his defence. It is at least open to question as to whether he could have ever have been anything other than an enthusiastic administrator, a classic example of the Schreibtischtäter the desk murderer, corrupted by limitless power. Circumstances, rather than talent or ability made him, although there is no doubting his dedication to murder on a gigantic scale when fate placed him in a position to play God. In truth, Eichmann was an efficient, rather dull bureaucrat, who, bereft of his SS uniform and consequent limitless powers over life and death, would not even rate a footnote in Holocaust history. As a figure, Eichmann may well have appeared banal. The phrase is often used to inadequately describe evil behaviour that is in all other respects incomprehensible, but it is pertinent to question the meaning Arendt actually ascribed to it. ![]() The banality of evil, and what this phrase has come to imply, is intrinsic to any study of Nazi eugenics and its consequences, indeed of Nazism in its entirety. The public had expected a monster instead they saw everyman. On the surface, polite, respectful, and obsequious, his appearance and attitude, however, were parts of a carefully contrived defence strategy. ![]() Balding, suited, in horn-rimmed spectacles, he resembled little more than a stereotype of the travelling salesman for the Vacuum Oil Company he had been prior to seeking an alternative career in the Nazi Party. Hannah Arendt sub-titled her study of the trial of Adolf Eichmann ∺ Report on the Banality of Evil. There was no doubting the banal nature of Eichmann's appearance in the Jerusalem courtroom. German scholarship provided the ideas and techniques which led to and justified this unparalleled slaughter. Karl Jaspers īut the actual murderers and those who sent them out had accomplices. But their existence was possible because so many people no longer wanted to be free, to be responsible for themselves. They robbed us of our freedom, first inwardly, then outwardly. Victor Klemperer Īll Führers were incurable phantoms. What does a perfect group of followers do? It doesn't think, and it doesn't feel any more it follows. Less Than Human - Pages 231-387 « Previous Page
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