Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

by Hannah Arendt

Dr. Servatius could no longer resist temptation and asked the obvious questions: “Why did all this bad luck fall upon the Jewish people?” and “Don’t you think that irrational motives are at the basis of the fate of this people? Beyond the understanding of a human being?” Is not there perhaps something like “the spirit of history, which brings history forward ... without the influence of men?” Is not Mr. Hausner basically in agreement with “the school of historical law”—an allusion to Hegel-and has he not shown that what “the leaders do will not always lead to the aim and destination they wanted? ... Here the intention was to destroy the Jewish people and the objective was not reached and a new flourishing State came into being.” The argument of the defense had now come perilously close to the newest anti-Semitic notion about the Elders of Zion, set forth in all seriousness a few weeks earlier in the Egyptian National Assembly by Deputy Foreign Minister Hussain Zulficar Sabri: Hitler was innocent of the slaughter of the Jews; he was a victim of the Zionists, who had “compelled him to perpetrate crimes that would eventually enable them to achieve their aim—the creation of the State of Israel.” Except that Dr. Servatius, following the philosophy of history expounded by the prosecutor, had put History in the place usually reserved for the Elders of Zion.