EICHMAN AND HEIDEGGER.

EICHMANN AND HEIDEGGER. Hannah Arendt famously used the phrase “the banality of evil” in the title of her book about Adolf Eichmann’s trial for war crimes, EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM: A REPORT ON THE BANALITY OF EVIL. Eichman claimed that he had always tried to follow Kant’s categorical imperative. In her book Arendt shows that Eichman misunderstood Kant. She also remarked, according to this wikipedia article, on “Eichmann’s inability to think for himself” and that “Eichmann was in fact a highly unintelligent person.” These comments by Arendt cry out for a comparison of Eichman with the moral judgments of the brilliant philosopher Heidegger. I don’t know whether Hannah Arendt ever made such a comparison, whether in print or in her private thoughts.