All this has often been argued, and especially by those who will not rest until they have discovered an “Eichmann in every one of us.” If the defendant is taken as a symbol and the trial as a pretext to bring up matters which are apparently more interesting than the guilt or innocence of one person, then consistency demands that we bow to the assertion made by Eichmann and his lawyer: that he was brought to book because a scapegoat was needed, not only for the German Federal Republic, but also for the events as a whole and for what made them possible—that is, for anti-Semitism and totalitarian
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