The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál

For example describes Hannah Arendt, who was also a trial observer in
Jerusalem 13 , in her book „Eichmann in Jerusalem” 14 the normality with which
Eichmann met the crimes with the words „banality of evil”. She represented
him as a ruthless command receiver without motives and tried to point out that
this attitude was more terrible than all the atrocities. For many people her
„banalisation of evil” represented simultaneously a „banalisation of the
holocaust”. That’s the reason why her views remain more than controversial in
historical research. Simon Wiesenthal described Eichmann contrary as an
„Accountant of death”. 15 Hans Mommsen wrote: „Adolf Eichmann represents
the mechanism of compartmentalized accountability, associated with
perfectionism bureaucratic and authoritarian submission.” 16 Gideon Hausner
however regards Eichmann as the personification of evil. He wrote, that
Eichmann was the „Incarnation of the satanic principle” 17 . The Historian
Yaacon Lozowick objects Hannah Arendt in his book „Hitler’s Bureaucrats”
by making clear, that Eichmann and his comrades had nothing banal in
themselves and very well knew what they were doing. 18 Even John Weiss
rejects the theory of the „Banality of Evil” and concludes: [Eichmann followed]
„a terrible and unshakable personal belief in the ideology of death.” 19
Eichmann's role in the Nazi power structure and his personal freedom of
action, motives and initiatives are, therefore, as we see, in controversial
referring to that, Auschwitz a „[…] No man’s land of understanding […]”. He also thinks that
Auschwitz is a „[…] black box of explanation, a historiographical interpretation attempts
absorbing, beyond historically importance receiving vacuum.” DAN, Diner: Zwischen Aporie
und Apologie. Über Grenzen der Historisierbarkeit des Nationalsozialismus. In: DAN, Diner
(ed.) Ist der Nationalsozialismus Geschichte? Zu Historisierung und Historikerstreit. Frankfurt
am Main, 1987. Read in: SAFRIAN, Hans: Eichmann’s Men. 10.
13
Adolf Eichmann had to stand trial in court of the Israeli Government in Jerusalem in 1961.
After he managed to go underground after 45’he made it to Argentina along the so-called „ratline”.
In 1960 a target group of investigators of the „Mossad” smuggled Eichmann, in lack of an
extradition agreement to Israel. The trial against Eichmann in the Jerusalem District Court with
the case number 40/61 began on the 11th of April and ended on the 15 th of December 1961. The
judgement, which was to death by hanging, was confirmed by the Court of Appeal on second
instance. Adolf Eichmann was executed on the 31 st of May 1962 in Ramleh near Tel Aviv. Until
today it was the only death sentence, carried out by the Israeli judiciary.
14
ARENDT, Hannah: Eichmann in Jerusalem. A report on the banality of evil. London, 1963.
15
ZDF-Dokumentation: Eichmann – der Vernichter.
16
MOMMSEN, Hans: Der Nationalsozialismus und die deutsche Gesellschaft. Ausgewählte
Aufsätze. Hamburg, 1991. 215. In the original text: „Adolf Eichmann repräsentiert den
Mechanismus kompartimentalisierter Verantwortlichkeit, die sich mit bürokratischem
Perfektionismus und obrigkeitsstaatlicher Unterwerfung verknüpfte.”
17
HAUSNER, Gideon: Die Vernichtung der Juden. München, 1979. 10. In the original text:
„Verkörperung des satanischen Prinzips”
18
LOZOWICK, Yaacon: Hitler’s Bureaucrats. The Nazi security police and the banality of
evil. Leicester, 2002. 22.
19
WEISS, John: Der lange Weg zum Holocaust. Die Geschichte der Judenfeindschaft in
Deutschland und Österreich. Hamburg, 1997. 519. In the original text: [Eichmann folgte] „einem
schrecklichen und unerschütterlichen persönlichen Glauben an die Ideologie des Todes.”
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