Marion L’Epine -Erasmus- History of the totalitarianism regime in Europe : Subject : « The critics and explanations about Hannah Arendt famous book… [613976]

Marion L’Epine -Erasmus- History of the totalitarianism regime in Europe : Subject : « The critics and explanations about Hannah Arendt famous book :Eichmann to Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil »
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Summary: Introduction : …………………………………..…………………………………………………3 I-Eichmann’s life and personality ……………………………………………………………..4-5 A-Eichmann’s implication in Nazi actions ………………………………………………….…4 B-Eichmann’s personality ………………………………………………………………………5 II-Zoom on Arendt’s book ……………………………………………………………….……6-7 A-Book’s summary ……………………………………………………………………………..6 B- Arendt’s thesis ………………………………………………………………………………..7 III-The main critics …………………………..…………………………………………………8-10 A-Negative critics ………………..…………………………………………………………….8-10 B-Positiv critics ……………………………………………………………………………………10 Conclusion : Today’s eyes: …………………………………………………………………..…11 Sources : ……………………………………………………………………………………….…12 / 213

Introduction : I choose this topic because it shows that the kind of regime put in place under the nazi Germany can be resettled today and Eeichmann actions and personality can explain why. Indeed think that Hannah Arendt book show in a raw way how things can degenerate. That is why here in order to be as clear as possible, i will divide my presentation in 3 parts with the intention to replace the contexte to understand the subject in its entirety. Firstly i would like to speak quickly about Eichmann his actions and his personality to understand who he was (I), secondly about the thesis developed in Arendt’s book (II) , and thirdly to emphasis the majors critics against her arguments, actions, way to describes the trial and how she used historical fact; in this last part it is relevant to focus on the main reviews of the book, negative and positives ones. (III) Then i will conclude with my personal point of view and with a fresh look of the historical facts and philosophical idea.
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I.Eichmann’s life and personality : In order to understand as well as possible this subject it is primary to know Eichmann ’s life. De facto it is relevant to shortly relate and explain Eichmann implication in the Nazi regime his actions and responsibilities (A) and then to analyse his personality(B). A-Eichmann implication in Nazi actions: Eichmann joined the Nazi party in April 1932 through the party hierarchy. In November 1932 he became a member of Heinrich Himmler’s SS ,the Nazi paramilitary corps, then in 1933 he joined the terrorist school of the Austrian Legion at Lechfeld, Germany. From January to October 1934 he was attached to an SSunit at Dachau and was appointed to the SS Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) central office in Berlin, where he worked in the section that dealt with Jewish affairs. He advanced steadily within the SS and was sent to Vienna after the annexation of Austria (March 1938) to rid the city of Jews. One year later, with a similar mission, he was sent to Prague. When in 1939 Himmler formed the Reich Security Central Office, Eichmann was transferred to its section on Jewish affairs in Berlin. However the real mourning point was in January 1942, at the conference of Wennesee , (a conference of Nazi high officials were convened to organize the logistics of what the Nazis called the «  final solution to the Jewish question.  ») Eichmann was choose to coordinate the details; but it was not yet generally known that the « final solution » was mass execution, Eichmann had in effect been named chief executioner. Thereupon he organized the identification, assembly, and transportation of Jews from all over occupied Europe to their final destinations at Auschwitz and other extermination camps in German-occupied Poland. Following the war, U.S. troops captured Eichmann, but in 1946 he escaped from a prison camp. After dodging in and out of the Middle East for several years, Eichmann settled in Argentina in 1958. He was arrested by Israeli secret service agents near Bueno Aires, Argentina, on May 11, 1960; nine days later they smuggled him out of the country and took him to Israel. After settling the controversy that arose over this Israeli violation of Argentine law, the Israeli government arranged his trial before a special three-judge court in Jerusalem. Eichmann’s trial was controversial from the beginning. The trial—before Jewish judges by a Jewish state that did not exist until three years after the Holocaust was mainly criticized. Some called for an international tribunal to try Eichmann, and others wanted him tried in Germany, but Israel was insistent. At stake was not only justice but also honor, as well as an opportunity to educate a new generation about the Holocaust. His trial lasted from April 11 to December 15, 1961, and Eichmann was sentenced to death, the only death sentence ever imposed by an Israeli court. Eichmann was hanged on May 31, 1962, and his ashes were scattered at sea.
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B- Eichmann Personality : Under questioning, Eichmann claimed not to be an anti-Semite. He stated that he disagreed with the vulgar anti-Semitism. Describing an earlier trip to Haifa, he said that he was more interested in the Jews than the Arabs. He said that he subscribed to Jewish periodicals and had bought the Encyclopedia Judaica. Moreover, he claimed to have read Theodor Herltz The Jewish State but said that he had never read adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf thoroughly or closely and that he had never read the anti-Semitic tract protocol. He portrayed himself as an obedient bureaucrat who merely carried out his assigned duties. As for the charges against him, Eichmann maintained that he had not violated any law and that he was « the kind of man who cannot tell a lie.  » (1) Denying responsibility for the mass killings, he said, « I couldn’t help myself; I had orders, but I had nothing to do with that business.  » (2) He was evasive in describing his role in the extermination unit and claimed that he was responsible only for transport. « I never claimed not to know about the liquidation, » (3) he testified. « I only said that Bureau IV B4 (Eichmann’s office) had nothing to do with it. » (4) He even professed personal discomfort at hearing about the workings of a gassing installation: « I was horrified. My nerves aren’t strong enough. I can’t listen to such things—such things, without their affecting me.  » (5) Of his observation of a gassing van in operation at Chelmno, he said, « I didn’t look inside; I couldn’t. Couldn’t! What I saw and heard was enough. The screaming and…I was much too shaken and so on.  » (6) He averred that he had continued to oversee the deportation of victims but that he sought to keep his distance from the actual killing. Eichmann was not the first Nazi defendant to argue obedience and adherence to the law. While he denied his ultimate responsibility, he seemed proud of his effectiveness in establishing efficient procedures to deport millions of victims. However, Eichmann did more than merely follow orders in coordinating an operation of this scale. He was a resourceful and proactive manager who relied on a variety of strategies and tactics to secure scarce cattle cars and other equipment used to deport Jews at a time when equipment shortages threatened the German war effort. He repeatedly devised innovative solutions to overcome obstacles. As said earlier, he was arrested in Argentina. While Eichmann’s trial was itself controversial, an even greater controversy followed the trial. Hannah Arendt, a German-born Jewish American political philosopher, covered the trial for The New Yorker. Later published as Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, her articles portrayal of Eichmann as banal rather than demonic provoked a storm of debate that is still present today. (1,2,3,4,5,6) Eichmann trial / 513

II. Zoom on Arendt’s book: In a second time, i will focus on Arendt’s book, first by briefly summarizing her book (A) and then present the thesis developed in it (B). A-Book’s summary : Hannah Arendt, is a German-born political theorist who escaped from Germany in her youth, she commented the trial of the notorious Eichmann. Her book is the result of a synthesis of journalism reports on Eichmann's trial in the 1960s. Writing for the New Yorker, Arendt attend some moments of the trial in Israel before returning to America to shape her thoughts into the book we know today. The first two chapters of the book paint the picture of the cultural context in Israel at the time of the trial, outlining the tone of the courtroom, and introducing personalities critical to the narrative. The first speaks mainly of the context, the second of Eichmann himself. However, the third and final chapter marks the beginning of her true coverage over the issues. The central question of the book is the analysis of Eichmann's nature. The subtitle, A Report on the Banality of Evil, summarizes Arendt's thesis about it. She argues that Eichman, is not a monster. Arendt, taking Eichmann's act of posturing and demeanor throughout the trial as evidence, notes that Eichmann is in fact wholly unexceptional. She claims that Eichmann is not, in any sense of the word, a fanatic nazi. Rather, he is extremely banal. Relying on cliches and jaded axioms to defend himself, he claims no true passion for anything. It is this banality that Arendt identifies as the essence of Eichmann's character. However we can see here an adhesion to Eichmann defense, and that will be the main critics about Arendt’s book; that she believed Eichmann in his justification without questioning some historical facts. B- Arendt’s thesis : This banality of Eichmann's character opens up into a larger discussion of human nature. Characterizing Eichmann as a joiner Arendt notes, « Kaltenbrunner had said to him: Why not join the S.S.? And he had replied, Why not? That was how it happened, and that was about all there was to it ». (1) Through her analysis of Eichmann, Arendt boils down the tragedy of the Holocaust to the thoughts of men who carried no concern for their actions. This radical characterization of banality runs centrally throughout the book. Further analyzing Eichmann, Arendt explains that Eichmann was never very intelligent or successful for most of his life. Describing a point in his early life, she writes, « he was now about twenty-two years old and without any prospects for a career; the only thing he had learned, perhaps, was how to sell ». (2) Eichmann was, in essence, an average man, one who did not question the things around him and simply did as he was told. Does / 613

this,Arendt wonders, mean that the capacity for this horrifying evil is itself part of our « average »human nature? According to Arendt it is Eichmann's responses in the trial that are most revealing of the horrifying banality of his crimes, and that most strongly indict the broader social context that made Nazism possible. Early in the trial, Eichmann resorts to trivial responses in defense of his action: « He did his duty, as he told the police and the court over and over again; he not only obeyed orders, he also obeyed the law ». (3) He goes so far as to claim that « he had lived his whole life according to Kant's moral precepts, and especially according to a Kantian definition of duty » (4) . These claims landed on the ears of many as outlandish and without ground. The utterly gross thing, according to most who were present, was the apparent sincerity with which Eichmann conducted himself. This sincerity and blandness characterize not only Eichmann but also the whole of the Nazi population in Arendt's analysis. Arendt, stepping outside of her role as a simple journalist, provides occasional responses to Eichmann. Commenting on Eichmann's claims to be living according to the Enlightenment philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Arendt argues, « This was outrageous, on the face of it, and also incomprehensible since Kant's moral philosophy is so closely bound up with man's faculty of judgment, which rules out blind obedience ».(5) Eichmann in Jerusalem provides both a shocking and unsettling account as well as an enlightening and invigorating narrative of one of history's most egregious crimes. However the publication post this book raised many debates and still today the subject stay heated. (1,2 ,3 ,4,5) eichmann à Jérusalem ou la banalité du mal : (french edition )
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III. The main critics : The famous philosophical and historical books has raised many criticisms, a lot were negative (A), nevertheless some where positive (B), and that is on what this final part will focused on. A-Negativ critics : The main critics formulated against the author were first that she accused the jewish councils to cooperate and then that she seemed to defend Eichmann and has being convinced that he was not really anti-semite. On the other hand some authors also emphasis her way to play with historical facts and that she did not have a real historical approach, here i will take some exemples of those critics. Immediately after the book’s publication, Norman Podhoretz carried out A Study in the Perversity of Brilliance in a review essay for Commentary, he noted that the book « is in no sense a work of objective historical research » (1) and that Arendt’s « manipulation of evidence is at all times visibly tendentious.  » (2) Her ‘cavalier treatment of evidence’ created « distortions of perspective. ».(3) He also ridiculed Arendt’s thesis that Eichmann was no fanatical anti-Semite: « The man around the corner who makes ugly cracks about the Jews is an anti-Semite, but not Adolf Eichmann who sent several million to their death: that would be uninteresting and would tell us nothing about the Nature of Totalitarianism.  » (4) Her claims about Jewish cooperation were wholly unwarranted. He was unwilling to enter into «  the endless moral debate over the behavior of the Jewish leaders, » concluding : They did what they did, they were what they were, and each was a different man. None of it mattered in the slightest to the final result. Murderers with the power to murder descended upon a defenseless people and murdered a large part of it. What else is there to say? Morris Shappes also rebutted Arendt’s denial that Eichmann was a fanatical anti-Semite by citing the testimony of the Nazi Kurt Becher, who as a witness for the defense admitted that Eichmann was a convinced National Socialist and a fanatical anti-Semite. Her picture of «vast Jewish criminal collaboration with the Nazis and of almost total Jewish passivity and cowardice was exaggerated and distorted. » (4) Her opinion on the Jewish leadership was «downright perverse, quite misleading» and contained « unfounded generalizations. » (5) On Jewish resistance « she seems uninformed, not having taken the trouble to consider the available evidence. » (6) Moreover, Jacob Robinson in his paper : Refutation of Eichmann in Jerusalem; showed that, although there were inevitably some scoundrels and traitors, Council members were victims, like their fellow Jews; in any case, whether or not a particular Jewish Council cooperated with the Nazis, the result was always the same. Arendt had attempted to substantiate her claim that Jews would have been better off without leadership by asserting that in Belgium there was no Jewish Council and « It is / 813

not surprising that not a single Jew was ever deported.  » (7) Robinson showed that in Belgium there was a Jewish Council and Jews were deported. Moreover, in Russia, Jews not governed by a Jewish Council were slaughtered even faster than in Poland where there were Jewish Councils. In France, Yugoslavia, Greece and other countries where there were no Jewish Councils, the Nazis still managed to carry out the ‘Final Solution’ effectively. Arendt had claimed, in her letter to Scholem, that Jewish Council members could ask to be relieved of their duties « and nothing happened to them.» (8) The reality, according to a non-Jewish witness of the Cracow ghetto, was that « To resign from the Jewish council was equivalent to signing one’s own death sentence. » (9) Here those three American authors noticed that Hannah Arendt is not a real historian and that she has not the technique to analyze proof and historical facts. They noticed that her analyze is not based on anything concret, according to them Arendt theories about jewish cooperation or Eichmann conduct is resting only on assumptions. They tried to demonstrate by logical and historical facts that Arendt is wrong concerning her affirmation about Jewish cooperation or Eichmann personality. They used real proofs or testimonies to contradict her and thanks to these arguments their theories are better supported and thus seem more likely to be true. It is also interesting to keep an eyes on the recent criticisms, today the major one emanates from D. Lipsdat in her book The Eichmann trial. On the fiftieth anniversary of the 1962 Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem, Lipstadt published an historical reexamination of this important document, adding new information which had not been available at the time and providing a retrospective analysis of its significance. Further contextualizing, Lipstadt reminds us that Arendt was the product of a « highly acculturated upper-class German Jewish family, in which the word Jew was never spoken.  » (10) According to Lipstadt, Arendt’s goals for the Eichmann trial diverged dramatically with the goals of other leading players in Jerusalem: « The expectation that the Eichmann trial would illuminate the nature of totalitarianism, put her at immediate odds with both Ben-Gurion and Hausner. She wanted the trial to explicate how these societies succeeded in getting others to do their atrocious biddings, while the prosecution wanted a laserlike focus on Nazi Germany’s wrongs against the Jewish people.  » (11) For her Eichmann was a Zionist, and his project for settlement in Madagascar was an evidence of a pro-Zionist policy. Moreover, Arendt’s view « of how the trial should be constructed was as narrow and formalistic as Hausner’s was expansive. She believed the trial should be limited to Eichmann’s deeds, not the suffering of the Jews, not even anti-Semitism and racism. » (12) Holocaust deniers, are not the only ones who twist the facts. Arendt wrote, « the majority of Jews found themselves confronted with two enemies- the Nazi authorities and the Jewish authorities.  » This is a clear distortion of the facts, as was her definition of Eichmann as a «  desk-level bureaucrat who showed little initiative and had few talents.  » (13) For her Eichmann « exemplified the «  banality of evil  » in which normal bureaucrats were simply unaware of the evil that they were doing.  » (14) But here / 913

Lipstadt nabs Arendt, noting that she « failed to explain why, if Eichmann was unaware that what he was doing was wrong, he and other Nazi officials labored to destroy the evidence. » (15) Lipstadt criticizes Arendt's failure to recognize the extent of Eichmann's ardent anti-Semitism. Arendt reached a crescendo of criticism in her attack against the Jewish councils. Amazingly, in her view, their « pathetic and sordid » behavior was the « darkest chapter » of the Holocaust, darker than the mass shootings and the gas chambers. Left unsaid is the fact that in 1941–42 the Nazis in Ukraine killed between one and two million Jews without involvement of the Jewish councils. Arendt, it seems, chose her targets with care. While she lambasted the Jewish councils in Europe under Nazi occupation, Lipstadt points out that Arendt maintained that Eichmann supported the Zionist project of bringing together Jews in Madagascar. Arendt also « took aim at the Sonderkommandos, those Jews selected to work in the gas chambers  » (16) and she added, with no historical proof, that  the SS chose the criminal elements for the job. Lipstadt punctuates this point with the words of Primo Levi: « No one is authorized to judge them. I would invite anyone who dares pass judgment tà imagine, if he can, that he has lived for month or years in a ghetto, tormented by chronic hunger, fatigue, promiscuity and humiliation. »(17) De facto, Lipstadt point out Arendt’s mistakes, her credulity about Eichmann and her anger against Israel state, which prevents her from being objective with respects to the historical facts. (1,2,3,4) Norman Politzer Norman Podhoretz A Study in the Perversity of Brilliance (4,5,6) Morris Shappes : review : Jewish Currents (7,8,9) jacob Robinson : Refutation of Eichmann in Jerusalem (10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17) D.Lipsdat : the Eichmann Trial B- Positives critics : Despite the high number of critics from various authors, there are also those; more isolated; who supported Arendt. Bruno Betthelheim, famous American writer and psychologist, also a refugee from the camps, is one of them. In The newspaper the New Republic, he wrote that Arendt posed « the problem of the human being in a modern totalitarian system ».(1) He want beyond criticism of historical facts, and he focused on Arendt’s moral-philosophical approach; A french author : Isabelle Delpla; in her Eichmann book or modern theories: ; highlights the proximity of Arendt's account with those of other commentators, including criticizing the prosecutor Hausner or addressing the problem of the role of Jewish councils. She agrees with B. Betthelheim opinion and said that Eichmann embodies what becomes a man in a totalitarian regime, a regime in which Eichmann in his banal mediocrity seems to be the ideal-type incarnated. (2) Furthermore D.Lipstadt, even if she criticizes a lot Arednt in her book, she concedes her some kinder words. For exemple she wrote that « though she was castigated as being anti-Israel, she believed that Israel was justified in kidnapping Eichmann  ». (3) Arendt even wrote « we abducted him from Argentina, Israel had as much right to sit in judgment on the crimes committed against their people, as the Poles had to judge crimes committed in Poland.» (4) Arendt also articulated what Israel’s critics ignored: / 1013

« there was no international court to preside, and no other country, Germany included, which wanted to host it. » (5) She notes that Arendt condemned the Vatican for its stance in 1944 as it lent its voice to that of others who demanded the halt of the Jewish deportations from Hungary, but stated at the same time that the demand did not derive from compassion. Arendt is also credited by Lipstadt for writing that the classic excuse : « I had no option’ was not true. » (1)Bruno Benthleim : in the newsier the new republic (2)Isabelle Delpla : Eichman ou les theories modernes (3,4,5) D. Lipstadt Conclusion : With today’s eyes: To finish i would like to emphasis some critics concerning the historical fact and the philosophical aspect. Today, we can analyzed the historical facts as a whole, thanks to the discovery of new archival documents, we can now say that Eichmann was not just a simple performer. Indeed, he was present several times on the Eastern Front during the Holocaust by bullets, actively engaged in Hungary towards the end of the war to carry out the last deportations despite the hesitations of Himmler himself. It is now obvious that the Obersturmbannführer SS didn’t just obeyed. It can be inferred that he really adhered to the Nazi idea that the Jews were a danger for the German people to eliminate. However it is not certain that this portrait invalidates the central thesis of the philosopher: caught in a criminal process that he did not initiate but to which he adhered, Adolf Eichmann made himself immensely guilty, not out of a desire to harm, but because he was unable to really think his actions and their significance. On the contrary, the theory about the responsibility of the Jewish councils could be substantiated, but not to the point of affirming that they actively participated in the deportation, the critic of Arendt is exaggerated. Concerning the philosophical approach, we can say that the totality Nazi have collapsed the totality of the European society. Indeed to Arendt a totalitarian regime is the perfect exemple of human conditioning according to her, it represents the unconditional adherence to rules of conduct prescribed by an era, a society, and thus totalitarian regimes could overthrow the fundamental command of occidental morality. So if we have to draw a lesson from the author’s thought it will be to doubt, and to follow the precept of Socrate, because the moral is volatile and only the doubt can allowed people to question their actions whether they are good or bad. In the end i join the Professor David Owen, of the University of Southampton, who wrote, « While Arendt`s thesis concerning the banality of evil is a fundamental insight for moral philosophy, she is almost certainly wrong about Eichmann. » (1) I thinks this sentence is a / 1113

fair summary about Arendt’s work, because even though her use of historical facts remains questionnable, her philosophical work stay unchanged and still relevant today. (1) David Owen ; In an essay in the New York time Sources : French : 1.Le monde : la banalité du mal : nouvel examen critique https://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2012/06/28/la-banalite-du-mal-nouvel-examen-critique_1725578_3260.html 2.   «  le temps  » eichman à jerusalem, le procès des malentendus https://www.letemps.ch/culture/eichmann-jerusalem-proces-malentendus 3. Isabelle Delpa : le mal en procès : eichmann ou les théories modernes : https://laviedesidees.fr/Retour-sur-le-proces-Eichmann.html 4. absence de pensée et de responsabilité chez Hannah Arendt https://www.raison-publique.fr/article606.html 5. Hannah Arendt et Haïm Gouri. Deux perceptions du procès Eichmann 6. Quand Hannah Arednt provoque une guerre civile chez les intellectuels new yorkais : https://www.nouvelobs.com/rue89/rue89-le-kiosque-de-new-york/20130728.RUE8180/quand-hannah-arendt-provoque-une-guerre-civile-chez-les-intellectuels-new-yorkais.html English : 1.The New-Yorker : Eichmann in Jerusalem part I 2.D. Lipsdadt https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/the-eichmann-trial-by-deborah-lipstadt/article4262370/ 3.The nation : The trial of hannah Arendt / 1213

4. The American Scholar : Hannah Arendt on trial : https://theamericanscholar.org/hannah-arendt-on-trial/#.XNklEafpPOQ 5. The Eichmann trial by E. Lipstadt : http://jcpa.org/article/eichmann-trial-deborah-e-lipstadt/
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