After reading the material  I have posted on,I saw that Arendt  believed Eichmann was not psychotic or crazy.She said he “did not think”.It puzzle me because one factor above all would seem to me to be relevant.That if a senior Nazi had decided he  did not agree with the Final Solution or any policy of the Nazis he would have been shot and/or his family would have been attacked.So fear would have played a  major role even if he had wished to stop what he ws doing.A big factor that allows humans to murder others en masse like the witches is to define them as somehow not human.And secondly to criticize their behaviour when it is cause by the conditions they are forced to live in.Jews were moneylenders because Christians were not allowed to do it [ charging interest was not allowed them]Being  rather intelligent some Jews became wealthy and were criticised as being only interested in money,grasping and avaricious.Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.Now in the UK this is happening to the sick,poor and unemployed.Scapegoats are attacked when times are hard. Whenever people meet a murderer they are surprised how normal they look.And other people look weird but are in fact good and kind,maybe a little handicapped in some way or just eccentric.Judging by appearances is an error; and especially if they are first  impressions

Related articles

• On Hannah Arendt and “the Banality of Evil” (leiterreports.typepad.com)
• Hannah Arendt and the American Experience (sago.com)