ABSTRACT
Chapters 9–12 mark an import shift in the narrative structure of Arendt’s report of the Eichmann trial. Until now, Arendt has been concerned primarily with Eichmann’s motivations for accepting his role in the Final Solution, the politics of the trial and questions of collaboration or resistance to authority. In Chapter 9, Eichmann is introduced as the most important bureaucrat in the deportation process and as someone who has assimilated any moral or emotional problems he might have felt about the brutality of the Final Solution. Arendt (2006a: 153) captured the vacuous state of Eichmann’s character in one of the most frequently quoted sentences in her book: ‘[W]hat for Eichmann was a job, with its daily routine, its ups and downs, was for the Jews quite literally the end of the world.’
