Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

by Hannah Arendt

In Jerusalem, confronted with documentary proof of his extraordinary loyalty to Hitler and the Führer’s order, Eichmann tried a number of times to explain that during the Third Reich “the Führer’s words had the force of law” (Führerworte haben Gesetzeskraft), which meant, among other things, that if the order came directly from Hitler it did not have to be in writing. He tried to explain that this was why he had never asked for a written order from Hitler (no such document relating to the Final Solution has ever been found; probably it never existed), but had demanded to see a written order from Himmler. To be sure, this was a fantastic state of affairs, and whole libraries of very “learned” juridical comment have been written, all demonstrating that the Führer’s words, his oral pronouncements, were the basic law of the land. Within this “legal” framework, every order contrary in letter or spirit to a word spoken by Hitler was, by definition, unlawful. Eichmann’s position, therefore, showed a most unpleasant resemblance to that of the often-cited soldier who, acting in a normal legal framework, refuses to carry out orders that run counter to his ordinary experience of lawfulness and hence can be recognized by him as criminal.