Translator's Preface/Kim Seon-wook
The Banality of Evil and Other-Centered Ethics/Jeong Hwa-yeol
A word to our readers

Chapter 1: The House of Justice
Chapter 2 Defendant
Chapter 3: Jewish Issues Experts
Chapter 4: The First Solution: Banishment
Chapter 5: The Second Solution: Acceptance
Chapter 6: The Final Solution: Genocide
Chapter 7: The Council of Anti-Imperialists, or Pontius Pilate
Chapter 8 Citizens' Obligations to Obey the Law
Chapter 9: Deportations from the Empire: Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate
Chapter 10: Migration from Western Europe: France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Italy
Chapter 11: Deportations from the Balkans: Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania
Chapter 12: Migration from Central Europe: Hungary and Slovakia
Chapter 13: Eastern Extermination Centers
Chapter 14 Evidence and Testimony
Chapter 15 Judgments, Appeals, and Executions

Epilogue
Reviews
References
Search

Hannah Arendt and the Banality of Evil

Hannah Arendt was a philosopher born in Germany.
During a time when Jewish persecution and political oppression were intensifying, he fled to the United States and lived without a nationality. Based on his experiences of being oppressed by the Nazis, he repeatedly completed works of political thought that analyzed the violent political phenomena of the 20th century, such as “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” and “The Crisis of the Republic.”
When news spread that Adolf Eichmann, the mastermind of the Holocaust, had been captured by the Israeli secret police and was being tried in Jerusalem, Arendt obtained a correspondent's license for The New Yorker and went to Jerusalem to observe the trial.
This is how this book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, was born.

Is he an ordinary human or a ruthless demon?

Eichmann was a key figure in the Nazi SS's massacre of Jews.
In 1942, he was responsible for planning and logistics of Nazi Germany's "Final Solution" (mass murder), identifying and rounding up over 6 million Jews and driving them into extermination camps.
Because of this, many people view Eichmann as a Jewish expert, a brutal murderer, and a demon who held the power over the lives and deaths of Jews.
However, the six psychiatrists who examined Eichmann assessed him as “not only normal but also in a desirable condition.”
Surprisingly, Eichmann did not hate Jews.
Rather, he had gotten a job thanks to his Jewish relatives, and he admired the Jewish leader Theodor Herzl so much that he even attended the 35th anniversary of his death.
He was a self-proclaimed supporter of Zionism (the movement for a Jewish homeland) and sought to put “solid ground under the feet of the Jews.”
Although he never killed a single person with his own hands, he was adept at handling the administrative functions of mass murder.
It was not the result of individual hatred or cruelty, but of uncritical compliance with the system and its commands.

Inability to think, inability to speak, inability to judge

Arendt does not view Eichmann as an ideological fanatic or a psychopath, but points out his shallowness and insensitivity.
Eichmann's memories were inaccurate about anything that didn't concern him, and his speech was full of clichés designed to convey a sense of triumph.
He was surprisingly insensitive to the suffering of others.
He actively followed the orders and values ​​of the Third Reich, that is, Hitler.
The massacre of Jews he perpetrated was an 'official act of state,' and this lack of moral judgment, which so annoyed judges and journalists, enabled him to send 'even my father to death if necessary.'

“…under the Nazi legal system that existed at the time, I had done nothing wrong… and since the charges were not crimes but ‘official acts of state,’ no other country could exercise jurisdiction over them, and obedience was… a duty… I simply committed acts that would ‘receive a medal if I won and be hanged if I lost.’” (p. 74)

Hannah Arendt, who saw this trial, proposed the concept of the “banality of evil,” saying, “If people who are incapable of thinking, speaking, and judging follow a given situation without critical thinking, the result can be a terrible disaster.”
Arendt says that anyone can become evil.
After the war, Eichmann learned that what he had once considered a duty was now called a crime.
And the new rules of judgment were accepted as if they were just new language rules.
Arendt warns that Eichmann's case is the most dangerous form of evil in modern society.

Uncritical obedience: Even the ordinary you can become evil.

Eichmann's image of himself as an irresponsible administrator is reminiscent of the bureaucrats and military officials who uncritically followed orders during the martial law situation in the winter of 2024.
When those who carry out orders abandon their own moral judgment and become mere “cogs in the wheel,” as Eichmann did when he carried out mass murder simply on orders, the very foundations of democracy and the rule of law are shaken.
Eichmann in Jerusalem warns not only of the dangers of authoritarian leadership, but also of the social failures that result from the loss of critical thinking.
As Arendt said, great evils arise from mindless conformity.