Language:
English
Year of publication:
1992
Titel der Quelle:
History of European Ideas
Angaben zur Quelle:
14,2 (1992) 213-226
Keywords:
Arendt, Hannah,
;
Eichmann, Adolf,
;
Holocaust (Jewish theology)
;
War crime trials
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
Develops Arendt's analysis of the human type who can organize and manage genocide (i.e. the "desk killer", exemplified by Adolf Eichmann) by complementing it with other theories of modernity, such as Max Weber's dynamic of universal bureaucratization. Contends that a high level bureaucrat, whose characteristics include the predominance of functional reason to the exclusion of reflective judgment, is a specific type produced by modernity. It is this type of person (rather than the killer) who is essential for the implementation of mass murder when that is the state policy.
Note:
Appeared also in "The Netherlands and Nazi Genocide", 1992.
URL:
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