The Eichmann Problem

 THE EICHMANN PROBLEM

Adolf Eichmann was a German high official who was executed by the State of Israel for his part in the Holocaust. 

Eichmann co-ordinated the details of  the ' final solution' to the Jewish question( it was not known that the final solution was mass execution). He organised the identification,  assembly,

and transportation of Jews from all over Europe to their final destinations- the extradition camps.

Following the Second World War , he escaped from a prison camp in the USA and began living under an assumed name in Argentina. He was arrested by the Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service from Buenos Aires on May 11,1960 and they smuggled him out of the country to try him in Israel, a country which only came into existence three years after the Holocaust. His trial is controversial because the Israeli government was making laws as the trial proceeded ( including the death penalty). He was being tried by a country that didn't exist , in a legal system that didn't exist when he committed the ' crimes'. They defined crimes that had not been previously defined in the Israeli Legal Code to execute him. 

According to about 500 journalists from all around the world who were present during the proceedings Eichmann was ' a thin balding man of 55 who looked more like a bank clerk than a butcher and resembled a stork more than a soldier.' Eichmann was essentially an obedient bureaucrat who merely carried out his assigned duties. He even professed personal discomfort at hearing the workings of a gassing installation. He is recorded on tape saying , " I was horrified . My nerves aren't strong enough . I can't listen to such things-such things , without they affecting me . "  Eichmann was  convicted on 15 counts on crimes  against humanity , war, crimes against Jewish people and membership in a criminal institution . The judges declared him not guilty of personally killing anyone and not guilty of overseeing and controlling the activities of Einsatzgruppen . He was deemed responsible for the dreadful conditions of people on board the deportation train.

I see Eichmann as somebody who didn't care about what he was transporting . It didn't matter to him if they were live people or goods. He was a mere manager . Another question  often raised is about his own moral fabric and why didn't he defy the orders given to him . According to me, we shouldn't forget that his master was ' Adolf Hitler' and any deviance from Hitler's orders would have been  personally detrimental  for  Eichmann. 

The Milgram experiment was conducted in 1961 by psychologist Stanley Milgram, and was designed to measure the lengths that people would go to in obedience to authority figures, even if the acts they were instructed to carry out were clearly harmful to others.

Subjects were told to play the role of teacher and administer electric shocks to the learner, an actor who was out of sight and ostensibly in another room, every time they answered a question incorrectly. In reality, no one was actually being shocked. The learner, purposely answering questions wrongly, was made to sound like they were in a great deal of pain as the intensity of the shocks increased with each incorrect answer. Despite these protests many subjects continued to administer shocks when an authority figure, the 'experimenter,' urged them to. Eventually, 65% of subjects administered what would be lethal electric shocks, the highest level of 450 volts.

The results showed that ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being. Obedience to authority is simply ingrained in us all, from the way we are brought up as children.

What would you have done if you were Eichmann?
I leave it up to your judgement to conclude whether Eichmann was rightly executed or not and to contemplate if the Israeli government delivered justice or took revenge.






Inspiration and Sources : Simply Psychology ( for the Milgram experiment ) , www. Britannica.com, www.wikipedia.com and Professor Ian Shapiro.