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Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt & the Banality of Evil

Georgia Arkell reconsiders Arendt’s explosive report on the trial of Eichmann.

On the evening of 11th May 1960, the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad grabbed Adolf Eichmann off a street in a quiet district of Buenos Aires. Eichmann, formerly an SS officer and administrator, had been the key figure in organising the transportation of millions of Jews across Europe to the Nazi concentration camps. It was no wonder that Mossad wanted a word with him.

Upon capture, he was flown to Israel, and taken to trial on the 11th April 1961. The New Yorker commissioned the German Jewish political thinker Hannah Arendt to cover the trial.

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