The Banality of Evil

How did the Jewish genocide happen? Why did it happen? Why Jews? Why Germans? What was the role of other states? To what extent were the Allies responsible? How did Jewish leaders cooperate with those who prepared the end of their people? Why did Jews go to their deaths willingly? Based on these questions, Hannah Arendt, a renowned German philosopher and political scientist known in our country especially for her work on totalitarianism, examines the trial in Jerusalem of Karl Adolf Eichmann, the SS officer responsible for sending millions of Jews to concentration camps and death during Nazi Germany.

Arendt points out that Adolf Eichmann, presented as the architect of the Jewish genocide, was a normal, even frighteningly normal person, rather than a sadistic monster, and emphasizes how evil became commonplace with the loss of the ability to think and reason. Based on the Eichmann trial, she reveals one of the turning points in human history and the total moral collapse experienced during this period.