This is not to say she got it wrong, I think the banality of evil absolutely holds up in a number of readings of historical events. I just don't think Eichmann was a good example.
This is not to say she got it wrong, I think the banality of evil absolutely holds up in a number of readings of historical events. I just don't think Eichmann was a good example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_trial
> When he took the stand in his own defense, he portrayed himself as a mid-level functionary following orders.[32] He repeatedly claimed he was "merely a little cog in the machinery" of genocide, not a policymaker.
Speer was tried in Nuremberg. He indeed played a "I was just an emotional artist and I never knew anything about the Holocaust" game during that trial. Given that they weren't able to disprove his assertion that he left the Posen Speech early (that was a speech in 1943 where Himmler openly discussed the Holocaust), he got away with his life, though not with his freedom. He got a 20 year sentence and served it in the Spandau Prison.
(Also, he was present at the Posen Speech, which he later acknowledged in a letter.)
Eichman, on the other hand, was only caught in Argentina a long time after the war, and everyone who came into contact with him described him as a pathetic mediocre personality with a strong tendency to suck up to everyone stronger, including the very Israeli commandos and jailers who held him in custody.