Eichmann Jerusalem Summary

In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt presents us with the trial of Adolf Eichmann, who was captured in Argentina and brought to face the District Court of Jerusalem to be tried for his role and participation in the “final solution.” Eichmann would inspire Arendt’s last three words of the book: “the banality of evil,” which would stir up years of controversy, debate, and accusations against Arendt herself. Eichmann found his career in serving under Nazi Germany. He was responsible for coordinating the mass deportation and transportation of Jews to concentration camps to face death under the plans for a Jew-free Germany. Usage of the term banality of evil suggest the commonality of evil under a state: that people such as Eichmann are in fact not sadistic, crazy fanatics but in fact ordinary people serving the bureaucracy. They accept the laws of the state and their duty to serve them. Therefore, to Eichmann, making sure the “trains ran on time” would’ve been the equivalent …show more content…
She states that, “Justice demands that the accused be prosecuted, defended, and judged, and that all the other questions of seemingly greater importance be left in abeyance.” She believes this is neglected in the trial itself. Rather than the trial being one holding Eichmann responsible for his deeds, the trial became one about the suffering of the Jews and the German people. Rather, the trial brought forward all the sufferings of the Jewish people, built evidence upon this case, and then searched for evidence to connect Eichmann to this. Unlike the Nuremberg trials, which paid less attention to the fate and tragedy of the Jews in particular and instead to the war crimes committed against various nations and humanity as whole, this trial had become a way for a Jewish court, the Jewish people themselves, to finally find justice for the Jewish people and their sufferings specifically under the Nazi

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