Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

by Hannah Arendt

Then came Eichmann’s last statement: His hopes for justice were disappointed; the court had not believed him, though he had always done his best to tell the truth. The court did not understand him: he had never been a Jew-hater, and he had never willed the murder of human beings. His guilt came from his obedience, and obedience is praised as a virtue. His virtue had been abused by the Nazi leaders. But he was not one of the ruling clique, he was a victim, and only the leaders deserved punishment. (He did not go quite as far as many of the other low-ranking war criminals, who complained bitterly that they had been told never to worry about “responsibilities,” and that they were now unable to call those responsible to account because these had “escaped and deserted” them—by committing suicide, or by having been hanged.) “I am not the monster I am made out to be,” Eichmann said. “I am the victim of a fallacy.” He did not use the word “scapegoat,” but he confirmed what Servatius had said: it was his “profound conviction that [he] must suffer for the acts of others.” After two more days, on Friday, December 15, 1961, at nine o’clock in the morning, the death sentence was pronounced.