Eichmann, Bureaucracy and the Holocaust by Jonathan Stonehouse Read Free Book Online

86-3; Life Magazine). However, Eichmann did not reckon with the relative independence of Hungary's leader, Admiral Horthy, who ordered a halt to deportations in July 1944 and threw a spanner in the works of the extermination process. Per contra , it seems that Horthy did not reckon with the determination of Eichmann, who in a bid to circumvent this order detained the entire Jewish Council in his offices (in order to prevent them from contacting Horthy) while he organised a final deportation via road to Rakocsba and then Auschwitz (Burleigh, 2000, p.773-4).
     
    Of all Eichmann's activities this is by far the most cited example, apparently demonstrating his hatred of the Jews, his preference for dead Jews over live ones, and willingness to utilise "deception tactics of the most evil kind" (Krausnick in Krausnick et al, 1968, p.93). Indeed, for Burleigh this is the account that "makes some baulk at the triteness of the term 'banality of evil' to describe such people, for it does not quite convey the willingness of those concerned to circumvent or surmount each and every obstacle" (2000, p.774). Yet however unconvincing Arendt's term may be the fact remains that this example seems peculiarly consistent with Weber's schema and Bauman's description of "technical morality". Eichmann's primary concern was to conduct his Hungarian operation with a new level of efficiency in order to set new standards of excellence. Furthermore, his willingness to disobey Horthy's order and continue the deportations smacks of someone following a general order, someone for whom the general rules and regulations take precedence over the personal whims of superiors (Bendix, 1977, p.425). Horthy's personal order, indicating his private distaste for the Final Solution, thus clashed with the general order for the destruction of all European Jews. By allowing favouritism and arbitrariness to enter into the decision-making process it also violated a sacred bureaucratic principle: sine ira et studio *. As monstrous as it sounds, key virtues of the bureaucrat and bureaucratic form again demonstrate a potential to produce irrational consequences, once more contributing to Eichmann's willingness to aid mass murder rather than suffer the humiliation and guilt of failing to do his job well.
     
    * Without ill-will or favour
     
    A number of incidents involving individuals are also worth citing in this context, these being decisions made by Eichmann* as regards the fate of specific individuals and key points of contention for the prosecution. The first of these concerns a July 1943 memo to Von Thadden of the German foreign office, in which Eichmann expresses his concern that Jews of foreign (i.e. neutral) nationality were still living in the Reich, despite having received orders to leave Germany. It seems that instructions to leave were to come via the respective governments of these foreign Jews, although it appears that the relevant authorities had failed to issue them. Here, then, Eichmann is seeking a new ruling to guarantee their departure by August at the latest, on the grounds that their continued presence represents a violation of the "general measures" (Hilberg, 1961, pp.290-1). Similarly, Eichmann refuses Röthke's request for an exemption for Polish-born inventor Abraham Weiss, stating that as Weiss' patents already belonged to the Reich "there is no further interest in the affair and he should be dealt with in accordance with the general measures" (Gilbert, 1979, pp.153-4). On another occasion, Eichmann contacts Hahn of the German Foreign Office to protest Luther's decision to release the Bondy children from Theresienstadt**, noting the tendentious nature of their Swedish naturalisation - this being the reason for their release - and protesting this "special treatment" (Browning, 1978, p.157). A little earlier, during October and November 1941, and in response to the Foreign Office's need for a decision on the fate of Lily Satzkis and Flora Bucher, two