English
German Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962) was the direct responsible for the labeled by himself The Final Solution (to the Jew problem), word that the Nazi systematic extermination plan was known for the Jewish population during the second world war. Eichmann himself took personal concern with a painstakingly terrifying efficiency of the transportations of the Jews to the extermination and concentration camps.
Since his execution in Israel in 1961 his figure has been one of the most complex and controversial of all the Nazi murderers due to the amazing simplicity of his personality, at least in appearance. That is the opinion expressed in the well known book by Hannah Arednt Eichmann in Jerusalem, a study of evils banality. Arednt was astonished with Eichmann pusillanimous intellectuality and that a man with such a low capability of thought could have been one of history´s prevalent mass murderers. This along with the reiterative insistence from Eichmann that he was a government employee that only obeyed orders, took the philosopher to elaborate a theory that the acts of Eichmann could have been due to the power of coercion and subjugation which any citizen can be a victim of in a regime of totalitarianism. Arendt was not the only one to point out that one of the most perturbing aspects of Eichmann, is that far from being a monster he was a simple human being and as so he was like the rest of us, capable of committing the worst atrocities feeling at the same time that all he was doing was obeying orders without any kind of measurement of feelings or personal hostility;
Precisely the insistence of Eichmann of accusing the governor of abusing his innocence “I had to obey the laws of war and the ones of my flag, I didn´t chase the Jews with avidity nor pleasure, it was the government who did it. Only the government could decide to initiate this persecution, -in those day obedience was demanded– was he told Michel Onfray in his book “the dream of Eichmann” and to denounce the fact that Kantian ethic system (Eichmann declared during his trial that he had read Kant and didn´t understand it very well) concretely the aspects relative to law and obedience, the categorical imperative and the solemn promise and the states philosophy and the right that it serves perfectly to justify Eichmann arguments for in the system, disobedience is something always impossible
Now, 50 years after his trial in Israel, the known to many as the bureaucrat of horror, You can visit the exposition until the endings of May in the Berlin Documentation Center, Topography of Terror: “The Trial, Adolf Eichmann in court” (http://www.topographie.de/en/topography-of-terror/nc/1/)
Paul Oilzum
This is an exhibition, accompained by a series of meetings with experts and witnesses that remembers through a complete documentary register this capital trial the reconstruction of the genocide by the nazis. If you´re interested in history visit it when you rent apartments in Berlin
Translated by: Marc