Hanna Arendt

Hannah Arendt on thinking is central in most of her writing. For Arendt, thinking is a tool that can bring awareness to their actions. To reiterate her literature so that we can understand Hannah Arendt, the lack of not thinking begets Eichmann. So, Eichmann was a cynical person who was a pivotal organizer of the Holocaust. But to actualize such Holocaust to exterminate a particular race from the face of the earth is quite more than just a cynical person whose motive is only self-interest. Such movements like the Nazi party, whose ideologue was to exterminate a particular race through a sense of belonging, like Eichmann, to a cause; to whom he belonged had much more to do with wanting to belong to a group but the reason for not thinking. Hence, Eichmann was devoted to a movement without the thinking faculty, though an ideology, his devotion led him to exterminate Jews. Eichmann was a failure in his personal life before joining the Nazis; so, I will argue that he stopped thinking because of his lack of identity and his failures. Because he stopped thinking, I will argue how For Arendt, Eichmann found his inspirations in Zionism; and his lack of identity, he later saw himself as an idealist devoted to a cause. Thus, introducing the moral, legal, and even social conscience paradox. I will first introduce the “not thinking” phenomenon with Eichmann in which he found himself guilty not before the law but before God, but I will explain how for Arendt, Eichmann finds himself guilty before God with the “final solution.” The “final solution” was a policy in the Nazi regime used to exterminate Jews in World War II. I will then describe how Eichmann attempted to clear his name, but he had full knowledge of his criminal acts. Instead, Eichmann would have had a bad conscience if he refused to follow his orders, so psychiatrists tested him and found that he was a “certified” average person. Third, I will describe how the courts and even Arendt could not account for such certification. He started a new position and started reading a Zionist text where he found his inspiration. Eichmann found such text inspirational because of the devotion to Zionism. But how much commitment as an idealist, like Eichmann, brings forth the “not thinking”? Along the way, I will explain how Eichmann’s lack of identity influenced him to join the Nazis to start his life over. I will describe how Arendt sees Eichmann as an idealist.

    To explore Hannah Arendt, first, I think we can explore her phenomenon of “not thinking” with Eichmann. Arendt introduces the paradox of the conscience; Eichmann pleaded not guilty in the sense of the indictments, that is fifteen counts that encompass "crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes." “Stood accused on fifteen counts: “together with others” he had committed crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes during the whole period of the Nazi regime and especially during the period of the Second World War.” (Eichmann in Jerusalem, chapter II). Servatius explains that “Eichmann feels guilty before God, not before the law.” Although his expression seems paradoxical at first, to not be guilty before the law but before God. We can understand the reason Eichmann expressed himself in such a way with a Nazi policy called the “final solution.” The “final solution” was a policy to exterminate Jews during World War II, “final solution” was a code name to murder Jews, which was carried out as a policy in the Nazi state. Eichmann was one of the first lower-ranking officers to know about the “final solution” because the plan was only discussed in secrecy and in coded language to prevent other officers from connecting the higher rank officials’ actions. But Eichmann saw “the destruction machinery”; he even visited the killing centers, so Eichmann, knew the deeds and the legal responsibilities. Furthermore, the defense for Eichmann makes an argument not of crimes but “acts of state” instead of “acts done under superior orders”. “That what he was accused of were not crimes but “acts of state”, over which no other state has jurisdiction (par in parem imperium non habet.) that it had been his duty to obey and that, in Servatius’ words, he had committed acts “for which you are decorated if you win and go the gallows if you lose.” (Eichmann in Jerusalem, chapter II) Although, at first, Eichmann was unpleased with the “final solution,” he replaced his moral conscience with legal and even social conscience to obey the orders from his superiors. The moral conscience now is distinct from the legal question, whether he knowingly killed but somehow committed such mass murder without knowing that mass murder is inherently evil. (or at least he remembers that his initial instinct that it was) Even if the “final solution” was a legal policy according to the Nazi state, Eichmann expressed why he is not guilty before the law but before God.

Eichmann states he did not kill anyone, nor did he order to kill another person, but he was only carrying out the law. So, Eichmann is only guilty of “aiding and abetting” the Holocaust; he confesses it is “one of the greatest crimes in the history of humanity. Temporarily, the prosecution team attempts to prove that Eichmann killed people by focusing on a handwritten note by a German official. Instead, Jews were already being shot; Eichmann claimed that the document was forged, regardless he did not have the authority to order the generals of the army who coordinated the shootings. Eichmann thought of himself as a "law-abiding citizen" following the Nazi regime’s highest law of all, which is Hitler's orders. Eichmann did not deny what he had done; rather than pretending to be against it; instead, Eichmann did what he did. He even proposed to hang himself in public as a warning example for all anti-Semites. “He did not want to be one of those who now pretended that "they had always been against it," whereas in fact they had been very eager to do what they were told to do. However, times change, and he, like Professor Maunz, had "arrived at different insights." What he had done, he did not want to deny it; rather, he proposed "to hang myself in public as a warning example for all anti-Semites on this earth." By this he did not mean to say that he regretted anything: "Repentance is for little children.” (Eichmann in Jerusalem, chapter II) Eichmann attempted to clarify why he did not meet the indictments, which he suggested he had full knowledge of such criminal acts according to his deeds as a base motive. Instead, Eichmann believed he had no base motive, and instead, he would have a bad conscience if he refused to follow his orders. Eichmann placed his whole reason and absolute faith in the country’s leader; instead of relying on his moral convictions, he did not even consider what he was doing in its entirety. That is to ship millions of people to their death camps. In return, once he put his absolute faith in a regime, like the Nazis, also, the obedience he had towards his superiors, Eichmann stopped thinking for himself. This was hard to take, psychiatrist hold, according to them, Eichmann as an average certified person.

Arendt introduces the conscience paradox, the courts that found such certification remarkably difficult to grasp, without no hate against Jews, but plenty of private reasons for not being a Jew-hater. Hence, the courts did not believe him; in fact, the courts were too conscious to admit that an average person could be incapable of telling right from wrong. “Alas, nobody believed him. The prosecutor did not believe him, because that was not his job. Counsel for the defense paid no attention because he, unlike Eichmann, was, to all appearances, not interested in questions of conscience. And the judges did not believe him, because they were too good, and perhaps also too conscious of the very foundations of their profession, to admit that an average, "normal" person, neither feeble-minded nor indoctrinated nor cynical, could be perfectly incapable of telling right from wrong.” (Eichmann in Jerusalem, chap. II) The courts instead proceeded with a conclusion filled with lies; by doing so, they have missed the most significant moral and legal challenges of the case. In return, these issues sketch a puzzling problem, Eichmann was “normal,” granting the facts that he followed the Nazi law, but “normal” should imply that he was acting criminally. In fact, only ‘exceptions’ can be acknowledged as normalcy, in return, it created a dilemma for the courts which they could not resolve or escape. “They preferred to conclude from occasional lies that he was a liar - and missed the greatest moral and even legal challenge of the whole case. Their case rested on the assumption that the defendant, like all "normal persons," must have been aware of the criminal nature of his acts, and Eichmann was indeed normal insofar as he was "no exception within the Nazi regime." However, under the conditions of the Third Reich only "exceptions" could be expected to react "normally." This simple truth of the matter created a dilemma for the judges which they could neither resolve nor escape.” (Eichmann in Jerusalem chap. II) Earlier in his life, Eichmann could not do anything for himself, but his family still supported him. After Eichmann lost joy in working at the Vacuum Oil Company and was then fired, he joined the Nazi Party. His tendency as a “joiner” showed his difficulty in conceiving identity independent from a larger group. So, he joined the Nazi Party without reading its platform. Regardless of his earlier failures if anyone had asked him, he would have preferred being hanged than living his life as an ordinary salesperson. The Nazis offered him to be part of history but specifically to start his life career from scratch. Eichmann joined the Nazis to find acceptance instead of any political reasons or tendencies. By accepting such an offer through no fault of his own because of his uprising and his life. The Nazis offered him a dull and cut-dry job like his personality. “And if, to his greatest "grief and sorrow," he never advanced beyond the grade of S.S. Obersturmbannführer (a rank equivalent to lieutenant colonel) - in short, if, with the exception of the year in Vienna, his life was beset with frustrations, he never forgot what the alternative would have been. Not only in Argentina, leading the unhappy existence of a refugee, but also in the courtroom in Jerusalem, with his life as good as forfeited, he might still have preferred - if anybody had asked him - to be hanged as Obersturmbannführer a.D. (in retirement) rather than living out his life quietly and normally as a traveling salesman for the Vacuum Oil Company. The beginnings of Eichmann's new career were not very promising.” (Eichmann in Jerusalem chap. II) Eichmann joined the Nazis because he was looking for identity and status, to be part of something historically. Eichmann lacked identity, which became relevant for Hannah Arendt.

Eichmann started a new position that required him to read Zionist text; in return, he became a vowed Zionist. He continued to read about Zionism, which appealed to him as an “ideal” like himself—what that means Zionist would live and die for their ideas. “(He was what Eichmann pretended to be, an engineer by profession), required him to read Theodor Herzl's Der Judenstaat, the famous Zionist classic, which converted Eichmann promptly and forever to Zionism. This seems to have been the first serious book he ever read and it made a lasting impression on him. From then on, as he repeated over and over, he thought of hardly anything but a "political solution" (as opposed to the later "physical solution," the first meaning expulsion and the second extermination) and how to "get some firm ground under the feet of the Jews." (It may be worth mentioning that, as late as 1939, he seems to have protested against desecrators of Herzl's grave in Vienna, and there are reports of his presence in civilian clothes at the commemoration of the thirty-fifth anniversary of Herzl's death.” (Eichmann in Jerusalem, chap. III) Here, I think Arendt described Eichmann as an “idealist”, with the notion of pretending to be “someone you are not”, that is, a professional engineer, and the prompt to “Zionism forever.” We know that Eichmann was not a Jew-hater and was devoted to the Nazis. Furthermore, he would rather die as an example to all Anti-Semites. Instead of denying what he did, killing Jews, he did not deny it; instead, Eichmann preferred to follow the orders from his superiors. So, I think Arendt suggests that Eichmann was an “idealist”–meaning that Zionism appealed to Eichmann because Zionists would live and die for their ideas as described earlier. For Arendt, Eichmann was too concerned with status, as a devoted nationalist, the role he had with the Nazis was his only source of identity and pride, but that leaves the position for a person to “stop thinking.” Placing his moral, legal, and even his social conscience to a devotion like he did with the Nazi regime. He stopped thinking. By getting lost in the regime, he was just a “law-abiding citizen” who only recited words and followed orders; the “non-thinking” faculty now becomes unnoticed in Eichmann. “So Eichmann's opportunities for feeling like Pontius Pilate were many, and as the months and the years went by, he lost the need to feel anything at all. This was the way things were, this was the new law of the land, based on the Führer's order; whatever he did he did, as far as he could see, as a law-abiding citizen.” (Eichmann in Jerusalem, Chap. 8) When Eichmann stopped thinking, he inverted the usual beliefs of criminal wrongdoings, with the fact that such transgressions seem to be a normal thing to do, which I think Hannah Arendt is suggesting. Not only just that, but Arendt also suggests that because he failed in terms of his personal life, the appeal to Zionism is rather quite crucial to Eichmann to carry on with his mission, along the way he no longer was thinking. But as an "idealist," one requires the thinking part, but Eichmann has combined his moral, legal, and social conscience to a particular cause. That in return Eichmann is no longer conscious of himself, especially not to others.

Eichmann was devoted to a movement, like the Nazis, without the thinking faculty, though an ideology, but a mindless extermination against a particular race. First, I introduced the “not thinking” phenomenon in Eichmann; Eichmann found himself guilty not before the law but before God. I then described how Eichmann attempted to clear his name, but he had full knowledge of his criminal acts. Instead, Eichmann was devoted to the Nazi regime, he followed the orders from his superiors, and would rather follow the orders from his superiors, then have a bad conscience. The psychiatrists found Eichmann to be an average person with no psychological issues. Third, I described how the courts and even Arendt could not account for such certification. In addition, I explained how Eichmann lacked identity, so Eichmann joined the Nazis to start his life over. I then described how Arendt sees Eichmann as an idealist. When he started a new position, Eichmann started reading Zionist text where he found his inspiration. Eichmann discovered the devotion to the idea itself, in return, the devotion brought forth the “not thinking” faculty in Eichmann.