Arendt's controversial book details the trial against Adolf Eichmann, who was involved in implementing the Final Solution during World War II. The most interesting aspect of this book, however, is Arendt's reflection on the trial itself, and what it revealed about the state of international law, and our own ability to judge a crime of such magnitude. Arendt discusses the pros and cons of the way Eichmann was brought to trial (kidnapped in Buenos Aires, where he was not trying very hard to hide out), the place the trial took place (Jerusalem vs. an international court of justice), and the content of the trial itself (judging one man vs. exposing the atrocities committed against Jews and other groups). Her arguments present clearly and fairly the divisive issues of the trial and, in the Postcript, she addresses some of the concerns and controversy that surged from the publication of this book. ( )

2248 Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, by Hannah Arendt (read 18 Nov 1989) The author covered the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem--he was hanged on May 31, 1962--and her book is a famous study. I am not sure it would not have been better to read a more analytic, less impressionistic account of the trial, but she is very balanced and thought-provoking. The crime was unprecedented, though Eichmann was a mere evil functionary who had no conscience. In fact, numerous consciences in Germany--and elsewhere--were dulled by the evil of Nazidom. This book was well worth reading. One should periodically read about Nazi evil--to realize how awful it was, and to reinvigorate one's detestation of it. ( )

In considering Arendt's controversial Eichmann in Jerusalem, I think it is important to say at the outset what the book is not before discussing what it is. As Arendt herself noted time and time again, Eichmann in Jerusalem is a report, not a theory of evil. Arendt dissects Eichmann's character arriving at a picture of a man who was not calculatingly evil, but on the contrary, achieved evil through not calculating at all. In painting the picture of a man who refused to think about his actions, Arendt is able to write of the dangers of thinking in cliches, the fallacy of subscribing to a cog theory, and the behaviors that constitute moral bankruptcy.

By the end of book, it is tempting to view Eichmann as an Everyman because he is, in fact, so ordinary. In later works Arendt would warn against this temptation, and this is also where she noted that she was not putting forth a theory of evil in Eichmann in Jerusalem. However, later collections (like Responsibility and Judgment as well as The Life of the Mind) do start to play with a theory of evil that appears directly rooted in Eichmann. It was as if Eichmann became Arendt's rosetta stone, acting as a translating bridge by which metaphysics and ethics begin to talk to one another and emphasizing the connection between thinking and morality.

History enthusiasts might also be interested in Arendt's treatment of the Wannsee Conference and the logistics involved in the Final Solution.

This is a well-written book and an excellent starting point for those wishing to study Arendt. ( )

One of the most important books you can read on the subject, very well written. ( )

Adolf Eichmann had been a leading official in Nazi Germany's SS, one of the key figures in the implementation of the Final Solution, and he had managed to remain in hiding in Argentina until Israeli agents captured him in 1960. In her critical account of his 1961 trial for crimes against the Jewish people and humanity, Arendt argued that Eichmann, far from being a "monster," as the Israeli prosecutor insisted, was nothing more than a thoughtless bureaucrat, passionate only in his desire to please his superiors. Eichmann, the unthinking functionary capable of enormous evil, revealed the dark potential of modern bureaucratic man.

Arendt, an influential Germanborn Jewish intellectual socialist living in the United States, saw in Eichmann, in her famous phrase, the embodiment of "the banality of evil".

According to Arendt, Eichmann had little imagination and was not particularly anti-Semitic: he would also have sent a million Bulgarians or Portuguese to gas chambers if he had been ordered to do so by his superiors.