Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi SS officer who played a central role in organizing the Holocaust, coordinating the deportation of millions of Jews to concentration and extermination camps during World War II.
After the war, he fled to Argentina, where Israeli agents captured him in 1960.
His 1961 trial in Jerusalem became a landmark event, bringing Holocaust atrocities to global attention.
Philosopher Hannah Arendt's coverage of the trial introduced the phrase "the banality of evil" to describe how ordinary bureaucrats can perpetrate monstrous crimes.
Legal expulsion from country
- genocideSystematic annihilation of a people
- exterminationComplete destruction of a group
- concentration campsFacilities for mass detention
- AuschwitzNazi extermination camp
Nazi · Jewish · transports · death camps · bureaucracy · logistics · murder · atrocity
Monstrous acts by ordinary people
- obedienceCompliance with authority
- complicityShared criminal involvement
- ordinaryStandard, unremarkable
- bureaucratGovernment administrative official
thoughtlessness · moral blindness · functionary · conformity · responsibility · evil · conscience · judgment
German trial city
- war crimesIllegal acts during conflict
- denazificationEliminating fascist ideology institutionally
- fugitiveOne fleeing authorities
- postwarAfter hostilities end
ratline · escape · alias · hiding · documentation · testimony · archives · evidence
Triply sacred ancient capital
- 1961Early sixties year
- IsraelMiddle Eastern nation
- MossadIsraeli espionage service
- ArgentinaSouthern cone republic
capture · testimony · prosecution · verdict · execution · justice · kidnapping · Buenos Aires
deportation
Legal expulsion from country
- genocideSystematic annihilation of a people
- exterminationComplete destruction of a group
- concentration campsFacilities for mass detention
Auschwitz · Nazi · Jewish · transports · death camps · bureaucracy · logistics · murder · atrocity · Reich
banality of evil
Monstrous acts by ordinary people
- obedienceCompliance with authority
- complicityShared criminal involvement
- ordinaryStandard, unremarkable
bureaucrat · thoughtlessness · moral blindness · functionary · conformity · responsibility · evil · conscience · judgment · normalcy
Nuremberg
German trial city
- war crimesIllegal acts during conflict
- denazificationEliminating fascist ideology institutionally
- fugitiveOne fleeing authorities
postwar · ratline · escape · alias · hiding · documentation · testimony · archives · evidence · investigation
Jerusalem
Triply sacred ancient capital
Argentina · capture · testimony · prosecution · verdict · execution · justice · kidnapping · Buenos Aires · witnesses
EichmannOskar Schindler
rescuer · resistance fighter · liberator · resister · partisan
EichmannOskar Schindler
Eichmannconscientious objector
One refusing military service morally
whistleblower · dissident · refusenik · resistor · moral courage