The Eichmann Polemics: Hannah Arendt and Her Critics: Michael Ezra
The Eichmann Polemics: Hannah Arendt and Her Critics: Michael Ezra
The Eichmann Polemics: Hannah Arendt and Her Critics: Michael Ezra
Michael Ezra
Introduction Hannah Arendt, the German Jewish political philosopher who had escaped from a Nazi internment camp, [1] had obtained international fame and recognition in 1951 with her book The Origins of Totalitarianism. [2] Feeling compelled to witness the trial of Adolf Eichmann (an obligation I owe my past), [3] she proposed to the editor of The New Yorker that she report on the prominent Nazis trial in Jerusalem. The editor gladly accepted the offer, placing no restrictions on what she wrote. [4] Arendts eagerly awaited report finally appeared in The New Yorker in five successive issues from 16 February 16 March 1963. In May 1963 the articles were compiled into a book published by Viking Press, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. During the Second World War, Adolf Eichmann had been the head of Section IVB-4 in the Nazi SS, overseeing the deportation of the Jews to their deaths. After the war Eichmann escaped to Argentina where he lived under an assumed name. In May 1960, the Israeli Security Service, Mossad, kidnapped Eichmann in Argentina and smuggled him to Jerusalem to stand trial for wartime activities that included causing the killing of millions of Jews and crimes against humanity. The trial commenced on 11 April 1961 and Eichmann was convicted and hanged on 31 May 1962. Arendts Thesis Enormous controversy centered on what Arendt had written about the conduct of the trial, her depiction of Eichmann and her discussion of the role of the Jewish Councils. Eichmann, she claimed, was not a monster; instead, she suspected, he was a clown. He had no insane hatred of Jews and did not suffer from any kind of fanatical anti-Semitism. She reported Eichmanns claim that he had never harbored any ill feelings against his victims and accepted it as fact. As far as Arendt was concerned, Eichmann simply had an inability to think. She concluded: 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
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Abel, Lionel 1963, The Aesthetics of Evil: Hannah Arendt on Eichmann and the Jews, Partisan Review, Vol. XXX, Number 2, Summer: 211-30. Ainsztein, Reuben 1963, Eichmann and the Sunday Observer: A Judgment of Hannah Arendt, Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, 20 September: 17-19. Anti-Defamation League 1963, A Report on the Evil of Banality: The Arendt Book, Facts Vol. 15, Number 1, July-August: 263-70. Arendt, Hannah 1994 (1963), Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, London: Penguin Books Ltd. Arendt, Hannah 1966, The Formidable Dr. Robinson: A Reply, The New York Review of Books, Vol. 5, Number 12, 20 January. Arguments: More on Eichmann, Spring 1964, Partisan Review Vol XXXI. Number 2: 253-83 Comments by Marie Syrkin, Harold Weisberg, Irving Howe, Robert Lowell, Dwight Macdonald, Lionel Abel, Mary McCarthy and William Phillips. Bell, Daniel 1963, The Alphabet of Justice: Reflections on Eichmann in Jerusalem, Partisan Review Vol. XXX Number 3, Fall: 417-29. Berman, Ronald 1963, Hostis Humani Generis, The Kenyon Review Vol. XXV No. 3, Summer 1963: 541-6. Bernstein, Richard J 1996, Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question, Cambridge: Polity Press. Bettelheim, Bruno 1963, Eichmann; the System; the Victims, The New Republic Vol. 148 Issue 24, 15 June: 23-33. Cesarani, David 2005 (2004), Eichmann: His Life and Crimes, London: Vintage.
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Notes
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