Credit Jorge Colombo
In The New York Times Book Review, Steven Aschheim reviews Bettina Stangneth’s “Eichmann Before Jerusalem.” Mr. Aschheim writes:
Ever since his capture in the early 1960s, Otto Adolf Eichmann, who was in charge of Jewish affairs during the Third Reich, has been the subject of unsettled and passionate controversy — centered, above all, on Hannah Arendt’s portrait of him at his 1961 trial. Her “Eichmann in Jerusalem” in many ways mirrored Eichmann’s own self-presentation. She insisted that, contrary to expectations, the man in the dock was not some kind of demonic Nazi sadist but a thoughtless, relatively anonymous, nonideological bureaucrat dutifully executing orders for the emigration, deportation and murder of European Jewry. Arendt’s insights — that genocide and bureaucratic banality are not necessarily opposed, that fanatical anti-Semitism (or for that matter, any ideological predisposition) is not a sufficient precondition for mass murder — remain pertinent.
Yet as Bettina Stangneth demonstrates in “Eichmann Before Jerusalem,” her critical — albeit respectful — dialogue with Arendt, these insights most certainly do not apply to Eichmann himself.
On this week’s podcast, Ms. Stangneth talks about her book; Alexandra Alter has news from the literary world; Dana Stevens and Adam Kirsch discuss whether literature should be considered useful; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Pamela Paul is the host.