Hannah Arendt Final Speech / Discorso finale di Hannah Arendt
LA CCG NUMERO 35000 / AWS NUMBER 35000
Language: English
Perhaps just for today, you will allow me to smoke –immediately. When the New Yorker sent me to report on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, I assumed that the court room had only one interest, to fulfil the demands of justice. This was not a simple task because the court that tried Eichmann was confronted with a crime that could not found in the law books. The criminal whose call is unknown in any court prior to the Nuremberg Trials. But still the court had to define Eichmann as a man on trial for his deeds. There was no system on trial, no history, no-ism, not even anti-Semitism but only a person. The Treiben with a Nazi criminal like Eichmann was that he insisted on the renouncing on personal qualities as if there was nobody left, either to be punished or forgiven. He protested time and again contrary to the prosecution´s assertions that he had never done anything out of his own initiatives, that he had no intensions whatsoever, good or bad, that he had only obeyed orders. This typical Nazi claim makes it clear that the greatest evil in the world is the evil committed by nobodies, even committed by men without motive, without convictions, without wicked hearts or demonic wills but by human beings who refuse to be persons. It is this phenomenon that I have called the banality of evil.
(Interrupted by a judgement panel)
Ms Arendt, you are avoiding the most important part of the controversy. You claimed that less Jews would have died if their leaders had cooperated.
This issue came up in the trial I reported on it and I have to clarify the roles of the Jewish leader who directly participated in the Eichmann’s activities.
You blame the Jewish people for their own destruction.
I never blame the Jewish people. Resistance was impossible. But perhaps there is something between resistance and cooperation. And only in that sense I say some of the Jewish leaders might have behaved differently. It is profoundly important to ask this question because the role of the Jewish leaders gives the most striking insight into the totality of the moral collapse of Nazi in respectful European society, and not only in German but also in most all countries, not only among the prosecutors, but also among the victims.
(Another question from the audience)
The persecution was aimed at the Jews. Why do you describe Eichmann’s offences as a crime against humanity?
Because Jews are human –the very starters that Nazi tried to deny them. A crime against them is a crime against humanity by its definition. I am, of course, as you know, a Jew. And I have been attacked for being a self-being Jew who defends the Nazis and scorns their own people. This is not an argument. That was a character assassination. I wrote no defence of Eichmann but I did to reconcile the shocking mediocrity of this man with his staggering deeds.
Trying to understand is not the same of forgiveness, I see it as my responsibility to understand if this is the responsibility for anyone who dares to take up this subject. Since Socrates and Plato, we usually call thinking to be engaged in the silent dialogue between me and myself. In refusing to be a person, Eichmann utterly surrendered that single most defining human quality –that of being able to think. In consequence he is incapable of making normal judgments. This inability to think creates the ability for many ordinary men to commit evil deeds in a gigantic scale, those of which we all have never seen before.
It is true I have considered these questions in a philosophical name. The manifestation of the wind of thought is not knowledge but ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly. And I hope that thinking gives people the strength to prevent catastrophes in these rare moments when the chips are down.
Thank you!
(Interrupted by a judgement panel)
Ms Arendt, you are avoiding the most important part of the controversy. You claimed that less Jews would have died if their leaders had cooperated.
This issue came up in the trial I reported on it and I have to clarify the roles of the Jewish leader who directly participated in the Eichmann’s activities.
You blame the Jewish people for their own destruction.
I never blame the Jewish people. Resistance was impossible. But perhaps there is something between resistance and cooperation. And only in that sense I say some of the Jewish leaders might have behaved differently. It is profoundly important to ask this question because the role of the Jewish leaders gives the most striking insight into the totality of the moral collapse of Nazi in respectful European society, and not only in German but also in most all countries, not only among the prosecutors, but also among the victims.
(Another question from the audience)
The persecution was aimed at the Jews. Why do you describe Eichmann’s offences as a crime against humanity?
Because Jews are human –the very starters that Nazi tried to deny them. A crime against them is a crime against humanity by its definition. I am, of course, as you know, a Jew. And I have been attacked for being a self-being Jew who defends the Nazis and scorns their own people. This is not an argument. That was a character assassination. I wrote no defence of Eichmann but I did to reconcile the shocking mediocrity of this man with his staggering deeds.
Trying to understand is not the same of forgiveness, I see it as my responsibility to understand if this is the responsibility for anyone who dares to take up this subject. Since Socrates and Plato, we usually call thinking to be engaged in the silent dialogue between me and myself. In refusing to be a person, Eichmann utterly surrendered that single most defining human quality –that of being able to think. In consequence he is incapable of making normal judgments. This inability to think creates the ability for many ordinary men to commit evil deeds in a gigantic scale, those of which we all have never seen before.
It is true I have considered these questions in a philosophical name. The manifestation of the wind of thought is not knowledge but ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly. And I hope that thinking gives people the strength to prevent catastrophes in these rare moments when the chips are down.
Thank you!
×
![]()
Note for non-Italian users: Sorry, though the interface of this website is translated into English, most commentaries and biographies are in Italian and/or in other languages like French, German, Spanish, Russian etc.
