Adolf Eichmann, the head of the Gestapo department directly involved in the «final solution of the Jewish question», managed to escape to Latin America after the war, but in 1960 he was captured by the Israeli intelligence Mossad, put on trial and sentenced to death.
Hannah Arendt, the famous philosopher, a student of Heidegger and Jaspers, was also present at the trial. Hanna covered the Eichmann trial for The New Yorker and based her reporting on this book. Examining in detail the personality mutations under the conditions of totalitarianism using the example of Eichmann, she shows the «banality» of the Gestapo — undoubtedly a very «effective manager» who perfectly established the mechanism for the extermination of millions of Jews. One of the details of the portrait: he spoke exclusively in cliché phrases. “The bureaucratic style is the only language available to me,” he apologized. And Eichmann’s last words before his execution («he ascended the scaffold with the greatest dignity») were also nothing but a cliché. «Under the gallows, he «experienced the rise» and forgot that this was his own funeral.»
Europe, 424 p.