This summer, I had the privilege of finally reading in full “Eichmann in Jerusalem” by the German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt. Whilst working in Munich, I was exposed to Arendt’s work, which was mentioned frequently, though not always positively. Her work continues to be controversial, but it raises important philosophical arguments about our individual capacity in the face of oppression, injustice and undeniable evils.
Originally written as a serial for the New Yorker, “Eichmann in Jerusalem” documents Arendt’s first-hand account of witnessing the trial of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was a member of the Schutzstaffel (the SS) and led the Nazi’s Referat IV, known more infamously as the Section for Jewish Affairs. He was in charge of arranging the deportation of Jews and other groups deemed “untermenschen” from occupied territories and worked to make Germany “judenrein,” “free of Jews.” Eichmann was apprehended, controversially, in Argentina and brought to Israel to stand trial in 1960. Arendt parses through Eichmann’s life before the trial and attempts to understand why a man could be so passively engaged in something so horrific. Arendt most famously, and controversially, concludes that Eichmann was not evil. She states it is unlikely he possessed some hatred for Jews or truly believed in exterminating the Jewish people: he, most terribly, held an incapacity for thought.
This thoughtlessness, the submission of one’s critical faculties, is of the most damning importance. Eichmann was a vacuum salesman before becoming a high-ranking SS party member. He was by no means remarkable, intelligent or critical in any regard; his thoughtlessness proved to be most dangerous, yet most effective, to the framework of the Holocaust. Arendt’s reasoning relates to the German concept of “Mündigkeit,” which literally means “majority” or “empowerment.” Mündigkeit is often figuratively associated with one’s ability for reason and self-determination, something Eichmann undeniably lacked.
I recommend this work to anyone wishing to read an impactful piece of nonfiction, not solely due to its relationship with learning about the Nazi era, but as a general think-piece on our own actions and involvement in the world and civic governance today. We live in an era in which artificial intelligence is being made to write for us. We delegate our most basic considerations, like what to have for dinner, how to answer a lengthy and uncomfortable text or how to structure our days. AI has become something that removes our thoughts for the sake of our vain convenience. Arendt concludes importantly that evil is banal. Evil is not radical, and it is not wise; it is born out of blind obedience, lack of personal agency and failure of thought. Arendt reminds us that the second we fail to engage in critical thought, we become susceptible to evil.
I will not ignore the relevance of this work to the modern day. The second Trump administration has attacked the democratic processes our nation holds dear and has engaged in a campaign of deportation and intimidation of non-white populations within our nation. Many will disagree with my categorization of this as “relevant” to Arendt’s work, but I believe it is strongly connected with her pursuit of understanding unalienable rights of man. It was the practice of Eichmann in Referat IV to process the denaturalization of Jews. When Nazi Germany revoked the citizenship of Jews, it became much easier to deport them to death camps. Jews abroad could not inquire about their missing relatives in countries that did not count them as citizens, as the nation had abandoned its commitment to grant rights to these people. By surrendering our belief in inalienable rights, we surrender to the banality of evil. If we do not care about due process for people not “like” us, we become complicit in surrendering our capacity of thought to ideologies and movements beyond us, ideologies and movements that could very well be evil.
Arendt ends a chapter titled “Deportations from Western Europe” with a point of focus, and of hope, on Denmark. The Danes provided a critical lesson to us in civil resistance and nonviolent resistance against oppressive powers. The Danish government claimed it could not help the Nazis deport the Jewish people. Since Germany had removed their citizenship, the Danes asserted the Nazis had no claims to these refugees within their borders. Even when deportations from Denmark began, the civil apparatus of resistance through purposely delayed bureaucracy, refusal of local police in cooperation and the support of private citizens in buying safe passage to Sweden for Jews greatly hindered the Nazi effort to enact the Holocaust in Denmark.
This chapter provides us with a critical example that a chain can only be as strong as its weakest link. Arendt reminds us that our capacity for thought is the strongest asset and most critical skill we possess as humans. Having read “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” Arendt taught me that it is my responsibility, as it is all our responsibilities, to refuse to cooperate with injustice in any form. As we live in an era with increasing anti-democratic movements and fascism as a threat to democracy and life, we must remember that we can so easily become a link in the chains of oppression. But even if we find ourselves reduced to a cog in the machine, we possess the ability as humans to refuse to function as that cog. Arendt, in facing down evil, reminds us: it is always up to what you choose to do.
