Last week was the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp and, coincidentally, the release of a just-discovered appeal for mercy written by Adolf Eichmann just days before his execution for war crimes.
To Mister President!
I join the appeal of my defense lawyer and allow myself to point out the following:
The judges made a fundamental mistake in their judgment of me, because they are not able to empathize with the time and situation in which I found myself during the war years. The mistake was caused by the fact that at the time of my trial, only individual documents were presented, which, without being seen in connection with the general documents of the orders, gave an incorrect picture.
It is not true that I was personally of such a high rank as to be able to persecute, or that I myself was a persecutor in the pursuit of the Jews, in the face of such an abundant rule it is clear the judges in their ruling ignored the fact that I never served in such a high position as required to be involved independently in such decisive responsibilities. Nor did I give any order in my own name, but only ever acted “by order of.”
Even had I been as the judges assessed the driving, zealous force in the persecution of the Jews, such a thing would have been evident in my promotion and other awards. Yet I received no such advantages.
It is also incorrect that I never let myself be influenced by human emotions. Specifically after having witnessed the outrageous human atrocities, I immediately asked to be transferred. Also, during the police investigation I voluntarily revealed horrors that had been unknown until then, in order to help establish the indisputable truth.
I declare once again, as I did in the presence of the court: I detest as the greatest of crimes the horrors which were perpetrated against the Jews and think it right that the initiators of these terrible deeds will stand trial before the law now and in the future.
Notwithstanding, there is a need to draw a line between the leaders responsible and the people like me forced to serve as mere instruments in the hands of the leaders. I was not a responsible leader, and as such do not feel myself guilty.
I am not able to recognize the court’s ruling as just, and I ask, Your Honor Mr. President, to exercise your right to grant pardons, and order that the death penalty not be carried out.
Adolf Eichmann
Jerusalem, 29.5.1962
Eichmann’s appeal fell on deaf ears, and he was hanged a few days later.
Those of you whose knowledge of The Holocaust consists of a 45-minute lecture in high school would do well to watch the following video taken by the Russian troops that liberated Auschwitz.
if you have a really strong stomach, go watch this: Memory of the Camps.
Naturally, Eichmann’s appeal has provoked a lot of discussion. Predictably enough, Albert the Pious seized upon it to claim Original Sin! Original Sin! Y’all are no damn good!
That sentence demonstrates to us the human propensity, the enormous, almost unfathomable human capacity to delude ourselves about ourselves, to rationalize our own behavior, to create, as did Adam and Eve, fig leaves of a sort. We are better at creating fig leaves of moral argument in order to cover our own sin, to redefine it, to euphemize it, to call it something other than what it is, and to find ourselves not guilty. The release of this letter also brings to the forefront an enormous public conversation that took place about Adolf Eichmann not only in the 1960’s but far beyond.
The German-American philosopher, Hannah Arendt famously argued as an observer at the Eichmann trial that Eichmann was a mere functionary. She found the greatest moral alarm in that if Adolf Eichmann could turn into this murderous monster, anyone could. The Christian worldview tells us that there is truth in Arendt’s understanding. Any of us could turn into this kind of moral monster. As a matter of fact, the Scripture is abundantly clear about this very thing.
Arendt did not believe that Eichmann was a mere functionary, and she did not propose that he be relieved of moral responsibility. She argued that Eichmann believed it, that Eichmann perceived himself a mere drone carrying-out orders, and it is what she perceived as Eichmann’s amoral and indifferent obedience that she dismissed as ‘the banality of evil.’ She was not an Eichmann apologist.
Granted, this may be too subtle a distinction for a man who believes in talking snakes.
I believe that the near-universal loathing for the depredations of the Nazis undoes the Original Sin schtick; call it the argument from moral progress. The greatest part of humanity understands that what the Nazis did was morally objectionable, and rejects Eichmann’s appeal that he was just following orders (including, once again, Hannah Arendt). The greatest part of humanity understands that slavery was wrong. The greatest part of humanity, in the West at least, is opposed to treating women as chattel. A steadily-growing portion of humanity is opposed to stigmatizing gays, imprisoning children for life, allowing the poor to starve to death.
There is moral progress in the world; it is slow, it is uneven, it must constantly be defended — but it is real. And that gives the lie to the degradation of Original Sin.