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Marina Triner

POLI110DA: Professor Strong, TA: Rick Barrett

May 6, 2009

Eichmann and the Ethics of Responsibility: A New Theory of Democracy

In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hanna Arendt argues against elements of the Jerusalem

court’s verdict, providing her own justification for why Eichmann must be hanged. Her argument

draws on her theory of ‘action’ in the Human Condition, and thus depicts her larger

understanding of the conditions that make Being possible. By proclaiming “politics is not the

nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same” (375), Arendt means that contrary to the

basic assumptions of modern jurisprudence, a criminal’s intent is not the grounds for

prosecution; thus she eliminates a variety of common justifications for modern prosecution.

Arendt makes this claim to establish Eichmann’s offense as a formal crime, a crime against the

human way of existence in itself, making it impossible to punish. Eichmann’s crime was

committed against humanity as a whole as it was destructive to a condition of possibility for

human life. Though I agree with Arendt’s justification for Eichmann’s verdict, allowing

witnesses to speak for the defense in her own version of a trial could add to remembrance, thus

contributing to Arendt’s theory of ‘action’, though the witnesses would still be irrelevant to the

trial’s proceedings. I will argue that the death penalty, according to Arendt, should be a result of

Eichmann’s formal crime as one of interference with plurality and remembrance, and not as a

punitive measure.

In constructing her own reasoning for why Eichmann must be hanged, Arendt eliminates

a few common assumptions of modern jurisprudence, demonstrating the formality of Eichmann’s

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crime. As Arendt argues, there is a common assumption in modern legal systems that “intent to

do wrong is necessary for the commission of a crime” (373). By equating obedience and support

(375), the author aims to contest this. Unlike young children, individuals in the realm of politics

always exhibit support for the bureaucracy within which they obey, regardless of their intent.

Throughout Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt reviews Eichmann’s obedience, demonstrating a

lack of intent in supporting the eventual result (374). Rather, she concludes that Eichmann’s only

goal was to assure his personal advancement (379). While Eichmann disobeyed orders on very

few occasions, which his lawyers tried to use as evidence to show his innocence, Arendt finds

precisely these occasions as anomalies in midst of normal behavior (382). This obedience

coupled with a lack of intent does not equate to lack of support, however, because Eichmann’s

ideals do not change the consequence of his ‘unintentional’ actions. In her justification of

Eichmann’s death sentence, the author includes the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to explain that

although the entirety of Germany served as part of the bureaucratic death machine; Eichmann

can’t be dismissed as innocent (374), demonstrating the centrality of “individual moral

responsibility” (387). This individual responsibility in obeying and supporting a systematic

killing of millions constituted a formal crime against the every nature of the human life form.

Arendt’s explanation of plurality as essential to being human further illustrates her

reasoning for designating Eichmann’s crime as formal. Arendt builds a theory of human life out

of three fundamental concepts: labor, work, and action (Strong, 3 June). Out of the three,

‘action’, through word and deed, is most crucial to being human as it entails complete freedom,

or the ability to begin something entirely new and original (ibid), distinguishing human beings

from other forms of existence. While birth in itself is a large part of original creation, eliminating

human life also eliminates the ability to produce ‘action’, thus destroying a significant
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characteristic of being human. This idea begins to establish Eichmann’s crime as one related to

humanity at large, rather than a specific group of individuals. More importantly, each human

birth into the world allows for a unique individual contribution of creation, and the presence of

plurality continually reaffirms ‘action’ through acknowledgement (ibid). In other words, ‘action’

as a category that includes creation through uninhibited freedom demands plurality wherein

numerous individuals reaffirm the activity of one another and are themselves engaging

individually in creative and diverse creation. In his crime, Eichmann declared that he did not

want to share the earth with certain groups of people (375), thus disturbing plurality. Because of

this, his crime is not specific to Jews, homosexuals, Poles, etc, but a crime that disturbed the

human way of living, a formal crime. Though his removal from the earth can’t reverse his

actions in any way, no individual on earth can be expected to want to share the earth with

someone who aimed to remove a possibility condition for human existence (375). Nonetheless,

remedying such an offense is far beyond what human relations can do, and thus the formal nature

of the crime demands the death penalty.

Arendt further establishes Eichmann’s crime as formal by introducing the concepts of

narrative and remembrance as they relate to action. The meaning of action is also created through

retrospectively studying history and past creation (Strong, 3 June). When individuals reflect on

the past they attain new meaning for their acts and preserve them through remembrance. Such

activity is crucial because it assures constant renewal of ‘action’ and its preservation for

generations to come, so that others can build upon it. In such a process of conversation with

others, an individual both learns about himself and herself and learns about the community, thus

creating the political (Strong, 1 Apr.). In Truth and Politics, Arendt illustrates this concept of a

community in which each individual learns the opinions of others and thus orients himself or
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herself within a community of creators (556). It is in this community where constant

acknowledgement of words and deeds occurs so as to sustain the conditions for humanity to

exist. Thus, when the Nazis aimed to destroy all human evidence of genocide, they were making

sure that future generations would not be made aware of the crimes committed (Storng, 3 June).

By destroying these individuals they destroyed a political space of creation that made up the very

possibility condition necessary for human existence. Thus, as a man who was obedient and

responsible for the results of the Nazi regime, Eichmann committed a formal crime.

While a punishment is part of human existence, the death penalty cannot punish

Eichmann’s formal crime. Arendt states that Eichmann’s behavior “transcends the realm of

human affairs” (Strong, 3 June). It does so because it destroys the realm of humanity. In detailing

why Eichmann must be hanged, Arendt simply concludes by stating that no one should be

expected to want to share the earth with him (375). She never once mentions his death sentence

as a punitive measure against his actions. This is done because Arendt does not believe that

hanging Eichmann could provide a resolution for his behavior or alleviate those who suffered

from it. Because Eichmann’s actions threatened to destroy the condition that distinguished

humanity from other forms of existence, it is impossible to punish him, as his actions destroy the

human power to do so. Punishment itself is a part of humanity, and when humanity is destroyed,

this faculty is not available. One cannot be punished in the absence of plurality, an absence that

invalidates the human form of existence as such. As a response to Eichmann’s formal crimes,

human beings simply do not wish to share the earth with him, and therefore he must be hanged

(375). Punishing Eichmann is impossible as he has been responsible for the destruction of those

same conditions, namely plurality and the political public space, that make it possible for human

beings to punish others as part of a distinctly human sphere of existence.

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Despite the consistency in Arendt’s argument concerning her justification for Eichmann’s

fate, the idea of allowing witnesses from the Holocaust speak about their experiences could

contribute to remembrance in profound ways, unrelated as they are to the actual trial. Though she

believes it is beyond human power to punish Eichmann, she does argue that generally, reflection

on past human action is a necessary part of human existence (Strong, 3 June). While the Nazis

threatened to remove that possibility completely, they were unsuccessful in destroying all

remnants of the Holocaust. These remnants include many of the witnesses presented by the

prosecution during the trial, who Arendt condemns as unimportant to the proceedings, because of

the formality of the crime (372). This is consistent with her overall argument. However, it might

be of some use to bring some of the individuals that remain to tell the story of those ‘actions’ that

the Nazis tried to erase. Though this would be no means provide a remedy to the atrocities, nor

would it relate to Eichmann’s eventual verdict, it would allow for a partial remembrance to

occur, a remembrance that had almost been destroyed. Regardless of whether Eichmann was

tried in a Jewish or international court, these witnesses could celebrate their own narratives,

continuing human existence by refusing to eliminate a huge party of history from within the

human narrative. I see great validity in her claim of not being able to punish Eichmann for his

crimes, as well as her argument about the formality of Eichmann’s crimes. However, allowing

these witnesses to participate in Arendt’s version of a trial would not be contradictory to her

theory, though it would surely not add validity to the trial itself. It would simply serve to attempt

to reconstruct important parts of ‘action’ through the freedom of discussing past history, thus

contributing to the human condition.

Arendt’s controversial work that criticizes important elements of the Jerusalem court’s

ruling on Eichmann provides a theory on human existence in itself. By depicting Eichmann’s

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behavior as disruptive to the human form of life as such, Arendt removes the possibility of

judging this crime on the basis of specific acts against specific peoples. She does not deny the

atrocities caused to these groups, but puts them in a wider context that places them as violations

against human Being. Because Eichmann destroys a part of plurality and the human public

sphere in which remembrance occurs, he must also be eliminated from the human realm. The

inability of humans to punish Eichmann is a logical conclusion to the fact that Eichmann

destroys human power and human existence in profound ways. Though by no means can a trial

restore human plurality or make up for Eichmann’s horrific actions, it can in some way

contribute to remembrance by using witnesses as the only remnants of an event that attempted to

destroy human existence and human evidence of that same destruction. These witnesses would

not be of use to the trial, nonetheless, they could contribute an important elements of humanity to

human existence as a whole.

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Works Cited

Arendt, Hannah. The Portable Hannah Arendt. Ed. Peter Baehr. New York: Penguin Classics,

2003.

Strong, Tracy. “Hanna Arendt.” Freedom and Discipline: Political Thought in the Twentieth

Century. University of California, San Diego. La Jolla. 2 June 2009.

Strong, Tracy. “The Appeal of the Community.” Freedom and Discipline: Political Thought in

the Twentieth Century. University of California, San Diego. La Jolla. 1 Apr. 2009.