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Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a book written by political theorist Hannah Arendt, originally published in 1963. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Hitler's rise to power, reported on Adolf Eichmann's trial for The New Yorker. The book Eichmann in Jerusalem is the result of this reportage.

Essentially, Arendt states that aside from a desire for improving his career, Eichmann showed no trace of anti-Semitism or psychological damage. Her subtitle famously referred to the "banality of evil," and that phrase is used quite abruptly as the final words of the final chapter. In part, at least, the phrase refers to Eichmann's deportment at the trial, displaying neither guilt nor hatred, claiming he bore no responsibility because he was simply "doing his job" ("He did his duty...; he not only obeyed orders, he also obeyed the law." p. 135).

Arendt takes Eichmann's court testimony and the historical evidence available, and makes several compelling observations about Eichmann:

• Eichmann stated himself in court that though he was not religious, he had always tried to abide by Kant's categorical imperative (as discussed directly on pp. 135-137). She argues that Eichmann had essentially taken the wrong lesson from Kant: Eichmann had not recognized the "Golden Rule" and principle of reciprocity implicit in the categorical imperative, but had only understood the concept of one man's actions coinciding with general law. Eichmann attempted to follow the spirit of the laws he carried out, as if the legislator himself would approve. In Kant's formulation of the categorical imperative, the legislator is the moral self, and all men are legislators; in Eichmann's formulation, the legislator was Adolf Hitler. Eichmann claimed this changed when he was charged with carrying out the Final Solution, at which point Arendt claims "he had ceased to live according to Kantian principles, that he had known it, and that he had consoled himself with the thoughts that he no longer 'was master of his own deeds,' that he was unable 'to change anything' (p. 136).

• Eichmann's inability to think for himself was exemplified by his consistent use of "stock phrases and self-invented clichés." This "officialese" (Amtssprache) demonstrated his unrealistic worldview and crippling lack of communication skills.

• Eichmann, in his peripheral role at the Wannsee Conference (so Arendt argued), witnessed the rank-and-file of the German civil service heartily endorse Reinhardt Heydrich's program for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe. Upon seeing members of "respectable society" endorsing Hitler's most reprehensible crime, and enthusiastically participating in the planning of the solution, Eichmann felt that his moral responsibility was relaxed, as if he were "Pontius Pilate".

• During his imprisonment before his trial, the Israeli government sent no less than six psychologists to examine Eichmann. Not only did these doctors find no trace of mental illness, but they also found no evidence of abnormal personality whatsoever. One doctor remarked that his overall attitude towards other people, especially his family and friends, was "highly desirable," while another remarked that the only unusual trait Eichmann displayed was being more "normal" in his habits and speech than the average person.

Arendt suggested that this most strikingly discredits the idea that the Nazi criminals were manifestly psychopathic and different from common people. From this document, many concluded that situations such as the Holocaust can make even the most ordinary of people commit horrendous crimes with the proper incentives, but Arendt adamantly disagreed with this interpretation, as Eichmann was voluntarily following the Führerprinzip. Arendt insisted that moral choice remains even under totalitarianism, and that this choice has political consequences even when the chooser is politically powerless:

[U]nder conditions of terror most people will comply but some people will not, just as the lesson of the countries to which the Final Solution was proposed is that “it could happen” in most places but it did not happen everywhere. Humanly speaking, no more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation.

Arendt mentions, as a case in point, Denmark:

One is tempted to recommend the story as required reading in political science for all students who wish to learn something about the enormous power potential inherent in non-violent action and in resistance to an opponent possessing vastly superior means of violence.

It was not just that the people of Denmark refused to assist in implementing the Final Solution, as the peoples of so many other conquered nations had been persuaded to do (or had been eager to do) — but also, that when the Reich cracked down and decided to do the job itself it found that its own personnel in Denmark had been infected by this and were unable to overcome their human aversion with the appropriate ruthlessness, as their peers in more cooperative areas had.

[edit] Criticism

Arendt presented Eichmann's situation during World War II from his perspective, even sympathetically, and went to great lengths to put Eichmann's actions within an understandable and rational framework. This, along with a generally unsympathetic attitude toward Jewish collaborators with the Nazis and an occasionally sarcastic tone, made the book a target for criticism when it was first published.

Sociologist Robert Jackall, in his 1988 book Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers (which is often assigned reading along with Eichmann in Jerusalem), countered Arendt's claims that Eichmann was not a particularly immoral person. From his studies of corporations, Jackall concluded that the ambition to further one's career (the only unusual trait Arendt listed Eichmann as having) was in itself a highly amoral pursuit that led individuals (including the corporate managers he studied) to take extremely questionable and immoral actions.nl:Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of Evil