Your complimentary articles

You’ve read one of your two complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

You can register for a free account to have four complimentary articles per month. We will occasionally email you a newsletter, from which you can unsubscribe at any time. We do not sell personal data or otherwise disclose personal information to other organisations.

Classics

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt

Teresa Candeias reads Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem.

In May 1960, Adolf Eichmann, a former SS officer who had organised logistics for the Holocaust (the rail network, for instance), was captured in Buenos Aires and subsequently spirited away to Jerusalem by Israeli authorities. This action was undertaken to subject him to trial before the District Court of Jerusalem, where he would face charges linked to his complicity in crimes committed during World War II. Eichmann faced a comprehensive indictment of fifteen counts, alluding to violations of the Nazi and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law. Commencing on April 11, 1961, his trial unfolded under the jurisdiction of three judges, Moshe Landau, Benjamin Halevy, and Yitzhak Raveh.

For the German Jewish political philosopher Hannah Arendt, the trial epitomized an avenue for retrospection and historical reckoning. Since she was living in America, she proffered her expertise to William Shawn, the eminent editor-in-chief of The New Yorker, to cover the trial, He hired her, and she embraced the assignment with resounding enthusiasm.

She was intrigued not only by the trial itself but also by the person of Eichmann, an apparently unremarkable individual who dutifully executed orders and passively adhered to the norms of the system in which he was ensconced. Sh coined the phrase ‘the banality of evil’ to describe him; it conveys the notion of a strain of violence and cruelty so pervasive and habitual as to evade immediate recognition because of its ordinariness.

Eichmann on trial in Jerusalem 1961

Morality Under Trial

The initial chapter of Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) is dedicated to a vivid depiction of the courtroom setting where Eichmann’s faced trial, aptly captioned ‘The House of Justice’. Arendt’s discerning scrutiny portrays it as a meticulously choreographed stage, orchestrated with an almost theatrical precision to accomplish publicity objectives transcending the determination of the accused’s guilt or innocence.

Arendt then undertakes a succinct biography tracing Eichmann’s life and his role concerning ‘the Jewish question’, dissecting how malevolence evolved an unremarkable aspect for the defendant, so that he could no longer see how evil he was being, entwined as he was within a labyrinth of orders and administrative bureaucracy that left little room for individual initiative, imagination, or contemplation about the enormity of the crimes perpetrated.

Evidently, although admitting that he did was he was accused of doing, Eichmann nevertheless opted to assert his innocence to the court. He contended that within the contours of the Nazi legal apparatus he had committed no wrongdoing; that what he was accused of were not crimes but rather ‘acts of State’, over which no other State had legal jurisdiction (par in parem imperium non habet), and that his duty had been to obey (p.76). The German nation’s legislative framework was predicated on the directives of the Führer, so all his conduct towards the Holocaust was undertaken in the capacity of a law-abiding citizen. He argued that his obligations were dutifully discharged, encompassing not only obedience to commands but also adherence to the statutory framework (p.199). Eichmann further professed to have conducted his entire life in accordance with Kantian moral tenets, congruent with Immanuel Kant’s conceptualization of duty. He expounds that his dutiful stance resides in the notion that the tenets of his volition ought to be such that they could stand as principles of universal laws – which is one way of formulating Kant’s categorical imperative, or his fundamental moral law. Eichmann claims that he had delved into Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781), but then elaborates that following the moment he was entrusted with executing the Final Solution, critical thinking ceased, and his sole solace lay in the notion that he no longer commanded his actions and could not effect any modification of them.

Eichmann had expressed a hope for a just trial, but was disheartened by the court’s lack of acquiescence to his position or belief in his statements. He maintained that he had never harbored hatred for the Jewish people, nor had he ever desired the death of any human being. He asserted that he had never belonged to the circle of leaders and that his guilt stemmed only from his obedience (p.323).

But from Arendt’s perspective, Eichmann’s assertion that he was following Kantian morality was fallacious, as Kant’s moral philosophy is closely tied to rationality, and so to exercising the faculty of judgment, thus excluding blind obedience. Kant never sought to affirm any relinquishing of conscious choice as a response of duty. Rather, Kant’s notion of morality is, in contrast, predicated on the idea that individuals should transcend mere obedience to the law; they should transcend the realm of simple external dictates and instead align their volition with the fundamental principles that underlie the law (pp.200-201).

Hannah Arendt by Darren McAndrew 2026

The Legality of the Trial

Arendt goes on to highlight the deficiencies of the trial, in which several critical points were not thoroughly examined: for instance, the fact that Eichmann was being tried under retroactive law (law put in place after a now-criminalised action); the problems inherent to justice administered by the victors; lack of a clear definition of ‘crimes against humanity’; and along with this, lack of a precise identification of the new criminal category responsible for these kinds of offenses (p.353). She also emphasizes that the most notable deficiency in the Jerusalem trial arose from the court’s failure to admit defense witnesses.

Concerning the retroactivity of the law, Arendt highlights that it does infringe upon the formal aspects of the trial, yet not on the legal principle nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege – ‘no, crime, no punishment, without law’ – as this principle primarily holds when applied to actions already within the legislator’s knowledge but against which there is no law. On the contrary, in cases where an unknown crime comes to light, the demands of justice necessitate its adjudication under a new legal framework – a new law. Arendt argues that this principle suffered significant compromise within the Charter that established the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg (p.333). The trial’s focus on crimes against the Jewish people allowed for a clear distinction between war crimes (for example, shooting guerrillas, killing hostages) and inhumane acts (such as expelling or annihilating populations to facilitate colonization), but the Nuremberg Charter initially defined crimes against humanity as inhumane acts. However, eventually, the difference between inhumane acts and crimes against humanity was also clarified (p.355).

Arendt highlighted another flaw in the comparisons used by the courts. Courts typically regard orders from superiors as a substantial mitigating factor – she cites the example of soldiers indicted for homicide, where the influence of superior orders lessened their sentences to relatively brief imprisonments. She emphasizes though that this involved isolated cases and so was not directly comparable to Eichmann’s case, which extended over years and involved a succession of crimes (p.373).

Conclusion

Eichmann appeared to Arendt as a person devoid of moral considerations, driven to mechanically follow superior directives. Arendt concluded that he lacked critical thinking, as he unquestioningly executed orders without reflection. This leads to the concept of ‘the banality of evil’: Eichmann, a key figure in the Final Solution, is not depicted as a monstrous individual, but rather as a diligent bureaucrat unable to resist, or even think critically about, his received orders. This portrayal highlights the normalization of evil: the banality of evil, according to Arendt, signifies the evil person’s lack of thoughtful engagement, as opposed to exercising a deliberate intent for evil. This is evil that’s not aligned with a demented or demonic personality, but rather with an ordinary person following orders unthinkingly. This surely prompts reflection on the way that cultures promoting unthinking obedience can glorify evil regimes, deliberately or otherwise.

Teresa Candeias studied at the University of Lisbon and writes on philosophy of law.