44 pages • 1 hour read
Hannah ArendtEichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1963A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Wannsee Conference, or Pontius Pilate”
In January of 1942, the Wannsee Conference commences because if the Final Solution is to be fully implemented, “it needed the active cooperation of all Ministries and of the whole Civil Service” (112). Heydrich expects difficulties in convincing the conferees, but in less than an hour and a half, lunch adjourns, drinks are served, and “members of the various branches of the Civil Service did not merely express opinions but made concrete propositions” as to how to effectively carry out the execution of Hitler’s Final Solution (113).
The prominent people in attendance of the conference dispel any doubts Eichmann harbors about the violence of this final solution, thus soothing his conscience since he sees no one around who opposes the solution. According to Eichmann, what comes next goes smoothly: “In country after country, the Jews had to register, were forced to wear the yellow badge for easy identification, were assembled and deported, the various shipments being directed to one or another of the extermination centers in the East, depending on their relative capacity at the moment” (114). Making Jews “stateless” achieves two important tactics: “it made it impossible for any country to inquire into their fate, and it enabled the state in which they were resident to confiscate their property” (115).
One of the central reasons the operations run so smoothly, according to both Eichmann and Arendt, is the cooperation of the Jews: “Without Jewish help in administrative and police work […] there would have been either complete chaos or an impossibly severe drain on German manpower” (117). Arendt goes on to say that “[t]o a Jew this role of the Jewish leaders in the destruction of their own people is undoubtedly the darkest chapter of the whole dark story” (117). From compiling lists of persons and their properties to believing Jewish policemen would offer comfort as they escort fellow Jews to the trains, Arendt spends ample time on the details of the Jewish cooperation, pointing out that the prosecution avoids focusing on these details as it would have shifted the responsibility of naming the individuals onto the Jews, diminishing the strength of their argument against Eichmann’s decision-making power. Former Jewish resistance fighters are called to testify, which “dissipated the haunting specter of universal cooperation” (123).
Chapter 8 Summary: “Duties of a Law-Abiding Citizen”
In 1944, Eichmann and his team are sent to Budapest to deal with three hundred thousand Jews. Himmler also dispenses one of Eichmann’s enemies, Kurt Becher, assigning Becher a special mission to “obtain control of major Jewish businesses,” namely “the Manfred Weiss steel combine” (142). In order to obtain control of the steel company, Becher arranges for forty-five members of the Weiss family to emigrate to Portugal. Eichmann feels Becher’s work will interfere with his own by causing him ill favor on the part of the Hungarians who expect to confiscate any Jewish property on their land once the three hundred thousand Jews have been forcibly evacuated. Becher, with Himmler’s blessing, negotiated deals that “consisted in fixing a price for the life of each Jew rescued,” thus creating a new line of “business” toward the end of the war (143). Around this time, a “moderate wing” forms in the S.S., Himmler among them, who want “to put an end to the whole Final Solution” (144). Eichmann sabotages any orders he receives from Himmler because they run “directly counter to the Führer’s order” (147). Eichmann reasons that since Hitler’s orders are law, “he not only obeyed orders, he also obeyed the law” (135). This same reasoning that Eichmann believes justified his actions “damned him in the eyes of the judges” (137). The laws were unjust and immoral, sadistic and evil, yet Eichmann obeys them anyway.
Chapters 7-8 Analysis
In order for the Final Solution to work, Hitler needs not only members of the Party to cooperate, but members of the Ministries and the Civil Service as well. Such members gather at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, and although Heydrich expects “difficulty” when presenting the terms of the proposed plan, no difficulties are had by anyone at the conference. Eichmann notes that not only do participants agree to the terms, they go so far as to make proposals of their own as to how best to run the Final Solution program. With that, Eichmann claims that everyone around him was in agreement, and with no voices of dissent to guide him otherwise, he, too, commits himself to the implementation of the Final Solution.
The cooperation of the upper-class elite may have surprised Eichmann, but the cooperation that most troubles Arendt is that of the Jews themselves. Much preparation and organization had to be done on the part of the Jews for the execution of the Final Solution to run so smoothly. It is a point Arendt discusses at length in order to illustrate how completely the Nazi regime had deteriorated the moral fiber of both orchestrators and victims alike. The court continues to question Eichmann’s conscience, perhaps understanding that without dissension, he might be wooed into believing he was doing nothing wrong as he organizes the transportation of millions of Jews to death camps that he had witnessed first-hand. But Eichmann’s testimony that Hitler’s word was law at the time convinces himself that he had no other option but to obey and convinces the judges that he is nothing other than guilty.
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