Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

Eichmann’s conscience is on trial as much as the man himself. Rather than entering the proceedings with the assumption that any person who participated in the Holocaust must not have a conscience, Arendt traces and analyzes any evidence that speaks to Eichmann’s conscience, to both its existence and its quality. After having been transferred to an undesirable location as a salesman, Eichmann soon joins the Nazi Party, more, Arendt suggests, out of boredom than any particular motivation. Eichmann, at the point of joining the Party, had not even read Mein Kampf, the central text delineating the Party’s beliefs, which shows Eichmann sought out a job rather than an ideology. As he rises through the ranks, Eichmann claims that his conscience could only have been bad had he not performed his duties well. His one break with his definition of conscience occurs with his first mass expulsion assignment, when Eichmann sends Jews to a camp not yet prepared for executions rather than to one that is prepared. Arendt argues this is the first and last time Eichmann’s conscience ever aligned with any goodness.

Also, under Arendt’s scrutiny is the conscience of the masses. She spends ample time detailing how other countries participated either directly or indirectly in the events of the Holocaust, whose devastating willingness or caustic silence cost millions of Jews their lives.