Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

by Hannah Arendt

Suez adventure,

Adventure? War.

Nor did it occur to them that these atrocities might be somehow connected with the Allies’ demand for unconditional surrender, which they felt free to criticize as both “nationalistic” and “unreasonable,” inspired by blind hatred.

So that instead of saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!

in which the word for “murder” was replaced by the phrase “to grant a mercy death.”

The prosecution, unable to understand a mass murderer who had never killed (and who in this particular instance probably did not even have the guts to kill), was constantly trying to prove individual murder.