About Eichmann: The evil of mediocrity or the executioner

Author: Hu Bugui

"Vera, you have to think this way: what if one of the many bombs of the war took me away? Fate has given us so many extra years that we must thank for it. ”

If you don't look at the background of this farewell letter, it must be very moving. But if the letter came from the hand of a Holocaust executioner, and he had not seen his wife's family for seven years during his fourteen years on the run, I am afraid that there would be some traces of mischief.

The author of the farewell letter was Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi official during World War II, one of the "Adolfs" (the other being Adolf Hitler) who was responsible for the holocaust implementation of the "final plan" and the Jews trembling. On May 31, 1962, on the eve of his hanging in Israel, he wrote this farewell letter to his wife, Vera Eichmann. The recently published book Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Holocaust Executioner Under the Mask of Mediocrity focuses on the SS First Strike Brigade Leader who terrified Jews during World War II. The book was written by the German philosopher Bettina Schonnenert, who spent many years studying national socialist philosophy and Adolf Eichmann and writing about the history of anti-Semitism in the 18th century.

Speaking of Adolf Eichmann, there is another book that cannot be ignored – "Eichmann in Jerusalem". The latter was created in 1963, the year after Eichmann's death, and was written by the German Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt based on the Jerusalem Trial. In the book, Arendt proposes the concept of "the evil of mediocrity," arguing that Eichmann was merely a civil servant serving orders, a small cog in the operation of the Third Reich, who "never realized what he had done."

Decades later, Bettina offers a very different perspective in Eichmann Before Jerusalem. She portrays Eichmann as an unrepentant murderer, a sophisticated manipulator who lives triumphantly in disguise and eagerly plans for the future of the far right after the war.

Needless to say, both books play an extremely important role in the study of Eichmann's phenomenon. But the two men's very different views make one wonder what Eichmann did, how he left such two images on the world, and what happened to the far-right Nazis after the war.

In the 1960s, information about Eichmann was very limited, and the textual material and audio recordings disclosed by the Sassen Interview at that time were very limited, coupled with Eichmann's cunning remarks about reversing black and white during the trial, led Arendt to credulously believe in Eichmann's low posture, and everyone thought that the latter was a very ordinary normal person. Today, although this view is being abandoned, Arendt's work, with its philosophical political reflection, still has an important enlightening effect.

With decades of research, compilations of literature and reference materials available, as well as the material left over from the most important Sasson interviews, the true image of Eichmann is becoming recognized, and Bettina's view is gaining general acceptance that Eichmann is not a dispensable cog, but a self-aware evil executioner.

In "Eichmann Before Jerusalem", it can be seen that Bettina consulted a large number of historical materials and first-hand information, like a detective looking for clues in various materials, "peeling the onion" and finally presenting to the reader an Eichmann after World War II and before Jerusalem. So we see that before the start of the Second World War, Eichmann's name had become a symbol. He was extremely adept at shaping his own image, so that his name was closely associated with the Holocaust, "Eichmann could never have killed 6 million Jews alone... Whenever the extermination of the Jews is discussed, Eichmann is one of the most important names." This kind of publicity made this not-so-high-ranking first-class assault brigade commander the target of the Jewish pursuit after the war.

After World War II, Eichmann was captured by the United States, escaped and lived in the steppes of northern Germany for several years before fleeing to Argentina. It is worth mentioning that after World War II, Argentina became the base of many far-right Nazis and was sheltered by then-Argentine President Perón. There, there is not only an independent "Eichmann escape", but also a glimpse of the far-right Nazi sentiment that has not been extinguished after the war for a long time. It was those who desperately wanted the Nazis to return and deeply admired Hitler that prompted Eichmann to launch an astonishing "second cause" in Argentina. Today, the Nazis, who once repressed repression, have gradually disappeared in despair, but they are still a reminder of the fanatical extremists.

The material that inspired Bettina was 73 tapes and more than 1,300 pages of notes from the Sassan's Interview. While in Argentina, Eichmann and william Sassen, a former member of the SS war correspondent corps, held an interview meeting for several years, the so-called "Sassen Interview". In interviews, Eichmann has spoken off his anti-Semitic ideas and inadvertently revealed the shocking truth about the Holocaust. While disguising his former SS image, he called himself Eichmann in a high-profile interview with Sassen and proud that he knew a lot about the Holocaust. Even in Buenos Aires, more than 10,000 kilometers from Berlin, he never stopped his fantasies about National Socialism and the extermination of Jews, and even wrote an open letter to then-German Chancellor Adenauer in 1956, making anti-Semitic remarks. Later, these materials became irrefutable evidence for Eichmann in the Jerusalem trial. And this proves that Eichmann cannot be a "small gear" who knows nothing.

On May 11, 1960, Eichmann was arrested by Israeli intelligence in Argentina. He was arrested not only because of the extensive work done by Israeli, German and other intelligence services during his fourteen years on the run, but also because of his high-profile actions and remarks that made "everyone know where he is.")

In a historical sense, the book combs through a large number of first-hand sources, showing a comprehensive Eichmann - a cunning and suspicious and heinous executioner, a proud national socialist, but also a kind father, a family-oriented husband, a simple worker, and an "idol" in a false trap.

It is certainly a merit for Bettina to comb through such meticulous content in the voluminous literature, but it is inevitable to fall into the misunderstanding of the first point of view in search of a large number of materials to support the point of view. And such a detailed content, combined with the author's point of view and a large number of historical materials, also makes the book seem slightly lengthy and trivial.

But for both the post-World War II world and to us today, Eichmann and the Eichmann phenomenon deserve vigilance, which is the meaning of Bettina's book. For Arendt, Eichmann may mean silence in the face of darkness, mediocrity in the face of tyranny. But for Bettina, Eichmann meant the fundamental evils of unrepentant thoughts, the extremes of demagogy.

As the German Federal Intelligence Service wrote, "Please carefully collect everything about Eichmann, we still need it". What it means for us today is to recognize that history of good and evil and to be wary of all extreme currents of thought that may make a comeback. (Hu Bugui)