The Monstrous Mundane: Understanding Arendt’s Banality of Evil

1964. Journalist Günter Gaus sits in his studio, prepared to conduct an interview with the person seated opposite him: a female political “philosopher” whose recent book, “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil”, has sparked significant controversy. A cigarette in hand, she seems ready to dispel the vilifying mist cast over her latest work. She is well known for her analysis in “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” She is Hannah Arendt…

“When people reproach me with accusing the Jewish people, that is a malignant lie and propaganda and nothing else. The tone of voice, however, is an objection against me personally. And I cannot do anything about that.”

“You are prepared to bear that?” asks Gaus. “Yes, willingly,” Arendt claimes...

Nota Bene

Before delving into the mechanics of her thoughts, and for a better understanding of her somewhat unusual position at that time, it is appropriate to explore the event that made the writing of that book possible. This not only provides historical context but also sheds light on the conceptualization of her famous quotation, “The Banality of Evil”.

The Eichmann Trial

No survivors have been summoned to the Nuremberg trial in 1945, nevertheless, in Jerusalem, they flew from all over the world to give evidence about the genocide. It was held for the witnesses in the first place in order to show the world the atrocity of what was happening 20 years earlier.

The mass murder of Jews by the Nazis is widely acknowledged, but has rarely been openly depicted to the public. This highly publicized trial openly exposes the harsh reality Jews faced two decades ago. Disturbing footage of the killings is featured: Jews were buried in Europe like animals.

Strikingly, and to the shock of the audience, Eichmann maintaines the same defense throughout his cross-examination: he was merely a civil servant carrying out orders from his superiors and he bears absolutely no responsibility for the Final Solution or its implementation, his duties were strictly limited to the matter of transport. The content of the railway carriages or its destination were outside of his purview… Although he signed hundreds of documents, all of them incriminating, Eichmann opposites the blame of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitsh. During the trial of Nuremberg, the latter accused Eichmann for being the prime corporate for the deportings and the mass murder of the Jews.

Reflections

[…]
Gaus: Is it permissible then to remain silent about something you have come to recognize as true?
Arendt: Should I have done that? Yes, I should have written it … Look, someone asked me: if you had been able to predict this and that, wouldn’t you have written the Eichmann book differently? I answered: no. I was faced with the alternatives of writing or not writing. Of course, it is possible to keep one’s mouth shut.
[…]

Eichmann‘s portrait

Arendt writes in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil:

For the more than two hundred and fifty witnesses called by the prosecution testified to what happened to their families and friends during the war years, and not to what the accused had done.

A way out

Eichmann was a dropout who wound up in his position in the Nazi Party, a relatively low rank compared to the magnitude given to his role during the trial. He was a mere salesman looking for an escape, which he found in the Nazi Party. He isn’t an evil character eager to kill, but rather, in Arendt’s words, a terrifyingly normal person who wanted to make a name for himself, and isn’t particularly anti-Semitic.

Arendt writes in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil:

In Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, he attended the same high school that Adolf Hitler had attended, albeit about seventeen years later. His family was not poor, and after finishing high school he entered the higher grades of the Realschule, a secondary school, but then he quit in the middle of the term, for unknown reasons. After that, he started an apprenticeship in the sales department of the Austria Automobile Company. During these years, he showed a certain lack of direction, tried his hand at several jobs, and finally, in 1933, when he joined the Nazi Party, he seemed to have found his place.”

Crimes against humanity Jews

Arendt observes a flagrant difference between the Nuremberg trials and this one: crimes against humanity are put aside, and the trial revolves around crimes against Jews. Don’t get me wrong, Eichmann is later charged with war crimes, the Romani genocide, and more, but seven out of his fifteen charges specifically relate to the persecution of Jewish people. Besides, the trial is held in Israel, in an Israeli court, rather than an international court like Nuremberg, which had the presence of many representatives of both the victims and the victors. What about disabled people? Don’t they have the right to be spoken of? Focusing so specifically on crimes against Jews have indeed marginalized the suffering of other groups targeted by the Nazis.

Eichmann‘s charges

Counts 1–4 were for crimes against the Jewish people:
Killing Jews, via the systematic deportation of millions of Jews to the extermination camps beginning in August 1941.
Placing Jews in living conditions calculated to bring about their physical destruction, by imprisoning them in concentration and extermination camps
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to Jews
Preventing births against Jews, with an order for forced abortionS in Theresienstadt Ghetto
Counts 5–7 were for crimes against humanity against Jews:
Forced emigration of Jews from March 1938 to October 1941, deportation of Jews in October 1939 during the Nisko Plan, and his role in the Final Solution
Persecuting Jews on national, religious, or political grounds
The systematic plunder of the property of millions of Jews. Theft of property was not enumerated in the law as a crime against humanity (it was counted as a war crime), but the prosecution argued that it fit the criteria of “any other inhuman act committed against any civilian population” as stipulated in the law. Since Eichmann founded the Central Office for Jewish Emigration, which confiscated the property of deported Jews, and the court determined that the purpose of such confiscation was in part to instill terror and facilitate the deportation and murder of Jews, it found him guilty on this count.
Count 8 was for war crimes, based on Eichmann‘s role in the systematic persecution and murder of Jews during World War II.
Counts 9–12 related to crimes against humanity against non-Jews:
Mass deportations of Polish civilians
Mass deportations of Slovene civilians
Participation in the Romani genocide by the systematic forced deportation of Romani people. Although the court did not find evidence that Eichmann knew that the Romani victims were sent to extermination camps, it nevertheless found him guilty on that count.
Participation in the Lidice massacre; he was found guilty for deportation of part of the population of Lidice, but not the massacre itself.
Counts 13–15 charged Eichmann with membership in enemy organizations, respectively the Schutzstaffeln der NSDAP (SS), Sicherheitsdienst des Reichführers SS (SD), and Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo). He was found guilty on all three counts because he was not only proven to be a member of these organizations but committed crimes as part of his role, namely those discussed above.

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The Jewish Collaboration…

I’m speculating here, but it’s worth considering the complex and contentious actions of Jewish leaders during the Holocaust. Figures like Rudolf Kastner negotiated with Adolf Eichmann to save Jewish lives, but critics argue his efforts favored friends, family, and the wealthy over the broader Jewish population. His failure to warn Hungarian Jews about impending deportations to Auschwitz further complicates his legacy. This raises questions about the ethical complexities faced by Jewish leaders under Nazi occupation. Some suggest that their cooperation with the Nazis, facilitated by privileges and a degree of autonomy, could be seen as deliberate collaboration rather than solely forced compliance. Comparing this to the successful resistance efforts in Denmark — where the Danish resistance and many ordinary citizens organized a massive effort to hide and transport Jews to neutral Sweden — prompts reflection: why didn’t Jewish leaders across Europe resist more actively instead of facilitating the Nazis in locating Jews in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and beyond?

Arendt writes in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil:

Without Jewish help in administrative and police work – the final rounding up of Jews in Berlin was, as I have mentioned, done entirely by Jewish police – there would have been either complete chaos or an impossibility to put through the Final Solution.

The Rebirth

Chief Prosecutor Gideon Hausner quotes from the Book of Ezekiel:

And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.

The Banality of Evil

While everyone sees Eichmann‘s behavior as cold and extremely serein in the face of such atrocities, Hannah Arendt takes a different stance: the horrible things he commited are not due to his cruelty but to his mediocrity…

WHO is Eichmann in reality?

Eichmann demonstrates an incapacity for speaking without uttering a single cliché which reveales his lack of deep ideological commitment or personal malice. I give also the example of him wrongly using the categorical imperitave which he claimes that he lived according to it. However, Arendt points out that he grossly misinterpreted and misapplied Kant’s moral philosophy. Instead of understanding the categorical imperative as a principle that requires one to act only according to maxims that can be universally applied, Eichmann twisted it to mean that one should follow the orders of the Führer as if they were universal laws.

Eichmann tends to use euphemisms as well like “resettlement” to describe the deportation of Jews to concentration and extermination camps, a way to distance himself from the brutal reality of his actions. This is a sign of his bureaucratic mindset where he equated the orders given by his superiors with moral imperatives, thus absolving himself of personal responsibility. In this case, imagination is turned off, and we’re no longer affected by what we’re doing.

The concept

Arendt writes in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

the trouble with Eichmann 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. This normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied… that this new type of criminal, who is in actual fact hostis generis humani, commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong.

Arendt doesn’t mean by her expression “The Banality of Evil” — one of the most influential phrases of the 20th century — that Eichmann‘s actions were in any way ordinary or banal. Instead, she points out that these atrocities were not committed by someone harboring deep-seated hatred or evil within him, but by a mundane person who was merely following orders without considering the moral implications of his actions, as long as his career was progressing. The evil itself is banal because it can be perpetrated by anyone as mediocre as Eichmann, or even by the victims themselves who, presumably, participated in it to mitigate its impact on them and their families.

References

Never put on line /The Trial of Adolf Eichmann – Documentary

Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Analysis by David Guignion)

Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (the book)