60 years after the historic trial of Adolf Eichmann, sentenced to die by hanging for being the mastermind of the Holocaust

Inside a transparent cage, located in a corner of the courtroom, Adolf Eichmann attended the subsequent trial for crimes committed during World War II. With the same coldness that a ruthless hitman shoots his victims, indifferent, heard the 15 charges against him and the terrible testimonies of the survivors. As the world shook with the tales, emotion was non-existent in the armored glass cabin.

On April 11, 1961, in Jerusalem, another chapter of the horror set up by the Nazis began to close. And it was special, an event that put the world on hold. Not just because of the technological advancement that the use of simultaneous translation meant for the first time. But because another unprecedented event also occurred: one of the leaders of the Holocaust was tried in Israel.

Always with the headphones, Eichmann listened impassively. As if the crystal cube separated him, no longer from possible aggressions, from some impulsive follower of the law of reprisals, but from reality. And it was evident by the time the interviewee was him. The rest of the time he was wrapped up in thought or searched through his papers for a stupid, unconvincing answer.

The captured beast, the fierce genocide, turned out to be weak, lacking in intellectual brilliance, gray and confused logic. A mediocre being. A man who could be sitting at the table next door in a bar or who wouldn’t attract attention if he was passed on the street. A man who had sat in many Argentinian bars, drinking many coffees, for too many years.

Eichmann was not a fierce, brutal, inhuman being. However, he committed violent, brutal and inhumane crimes. Millions of crimes. Of murders.

Hundreds of envoys from the world’s leading media attended the process. Between them a woman stood out. He had been sent by New Yorker but he was not a journalist. Was Hannah arendt, German Jewish philosopher.

Arendt, as a result of his presence at the trial, wrote a wonderful and profound, essential book: Eichmann in Jerusalem.

Without concessions, with irony, lucidity and absolute honesty, Hannah Arendt dissected Eichmann and his judges like no one else.

Maybe she was the only one who saw Eichmann’s true nature. She, like anyone else, without fear, with implacable frankness, did not crawl in common places. He called things by name. With his stubborn lucidity.

Arendt, in earlier work, had spoken of the Radical Evil. From his contact with the Eichmann affair changed his mind. So much so that the subtitle of his work was A study of the banality of evil.

Evil for Arendt cannot be radical, only extreme. It can grow disproportionately and spread around the world. But it still lacks depth.

“It spreads like a fungus on the surface. It is a challenge to thought – argues Arendt – because thought tries to reach a certain depth, to go to the roots and, at the very moment when it deals with evil, it is disappointed because it cannot find anything. . It’s banality. Only the good has depth and can be radical ”.

Before its creation, it was known that not only Eichmann would be judged. The Israeli government would use each of the hearings to expose the world to a final version of the the extermination perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jewish people.

The opening remarks of the sessions, delivered by the fiscal Hausner, they forcefully established it: “Where I stand before you judges of Israel today to prosecute Adolf Eichmann, I am not alone; With me, there are six million complainants here right now. But they don’t have the opportunity to introduce themselves in person, point a vengeful index finger at the window and cry out to whoever sits inside: I accuse. (…) This is why I will be his spokesperson, and in his name I will write this terrible indictment ”.

The prosecutor and his associates, although with strong legal arguments, expressed the political opinion of the Israeli government, in particular of Ben Gurion, the Prime Minister: they focused on the suffering of the Jewish people rather than the actions and responsibilities of Eichmann.

However, the judges did not submit to political pressure and never lost sight of the main objective of the process: to establish the possible guilt of the accused and the extent of that guilt.

Eichmann, thanks to the intervention of his judges, was able to fully exercise his legitimate right of defense. He and his defender, the Dr Servatius, they expressed themselves with absolute freedom before the Court.

Frequently, the president of the jury put an end to the excesses of the prosecutor or corrected flaws in the translation of witness statements.

The great difficulty for the judges was to disentangle the nature of these crimes. How to act impartially in the face of abjection, in the face of the atrocious, in the face of unimaginable crimes? Who is the murderer? The one with the gun? The one giving the orders? The one who obeys? Where are the limits of obedience? Who is responsible?

From an admirable sentence stands out an admirable sentence. “The degree of responsibility – said the judges – increases as we move away from the man who holds the fatal instrument in his hands.”

Judging the genocide, beyond the obvious moral condemnation, is not easy from a legal point of view. Determining the nature and authorship of these crimes, not previously contemplated in law, nor imagined by any legislator – although today it seems incredible – posed a legal challenge before Nuremberg. The known legal categories were insufficient.

Eichmann wielded his basic defensive axes ad nauseam. He obeyed orders. Nothing more. On the other hand, he argued, his actions could not be judged by another country, by any country: his acts were acts of state. He was only responsible for carrying out, and with extreme efficiency, what was the law in his country, in Germany of which Eichmann was an official. The, the word of the Führer was law, not just for Eichmann.

From his place in the Nazi bureaucratic structure, Adolf Eichmann successively organized the expulsion of the Jews from Germany, their deportation from the territories occupied by the Nazis and the transfer of millions of Jews to death camps.

In addition, he hosted fifteen senior Nazi officials at the so-called Wansee Conference. There, with Eichmann, as secretary, working the minutes of the meeting, leaving a file for posterity, it was decided to establish “The final solution”.

They were massacre: for the victims. For the large number of murderers too. And Eichmann, among the murderers, held an important place. It was he who sent them to their death.

Trains left for the death camps daily with 2,500 or 3,000 Jews crammed into the freight cars.. He didn’t just deal with trains. In the lawsuit, they were provided in the form of circular evidence and orders issued by Eichmann and his office forcing local authorities in each territory so that Jews of different nationalities would immediately be subjected to the “necessary measures “.

Eichmann knew the fate that awaited the passengers of his trains. There are records of your multiple visits to Auschwitz and other areas. July 31, 1941, Heydrich called him to his office and said: “The Führer ordered the physical extermination of the Jews.”

During the trial, Eichmann attempted to evade his responsibility by hiding behind some sort of due obedience. He argued that it was just a small cog in a big machine.

He also claimed that if he had left his post someone else would have accepted him. This may be true, but it does not in any way exonerate you from your actions. In addition to being shown to be a principal, not just a receiver, what hides this argument is that what Eichmann was trying to say was that being all guilty, no one is guilty. Luck, nothing but the best nazi hierarchies (who by that time were already dead). Thus, he disdains personal responsibility, the possibility of free choice exercised by Eichmann.

As Hanna Arendt wrote: “(…) He supported and implemented a policy of refusing to share the land with the Jewish people and the peoples of a number of other nations.”

In the sentence, the judges held that “It has been proven beyond any doubt that the accused acted on the basis of total identification with orders and a staunch desire to achieve criminal objectives.”

He was sentenced to die by hanging.

Early in the morning of May 31, 1962. The Israeli government announced that it was rejecting all requests for clemency received by the detainee.

In the cell, he and a bottle of wine, his last wish.

A Protestant minister arrives. Offer you read the bible together. Eichmann refuses. He prefers to be alone for the few minutes of his life.

Do not Cry. He takes short sips and keeps his gaze fixed on one of the walls.

They come to get him. He keeps his head up high on his way to the gallows. He thinks he wasn’t ready yet. Two days earlier, the Supreme Court had dismissed his appeal. Only his footsteps and those of the guards escorting him can be heard in the hallway. He meets several people on the way, but he does not look at them.

On reaching the gallows, they offer him a balaclava. “I don’t need it,” he replies. Her legs are tied at the ankles and knees. He asks that his ties loosen. He wants to stay up. He wants to die with dignity. What he doesn’t know, what he doesn’t realize, is that some violent deaths cover the victim with glory. Others of infamy. Like Eichmann’s.

His life, and why not his death, are covered with infamy.

Nothing, no vain theatrical attitude, will be able to honor any of his acts. Even less his last pathetic words: “In a very short time, gentlemen, we will see each other again. This is the fate of all men. Long live Germany! Long live Argentina! Long live Austria! I will never forget you!”.

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