Hannah Arendt used the phrase “banality of evil” to describe Eichmann’s surprisingly underwhelming appearance, which outraged her audience. “Most people still assumed that murder was committed by monsters or demons.” (xiv) The portrayal of Nazis as the ultimate evil represents the portrayal of the German army as the pinnacle of masculinity, an idea explored throughout the war.
In class, we discussed the idea of the “feminization of Jews” in concentration camps. Mainly, this was achieved through forced nakedness, rape, beating, etc. A binary that existed between the German army and the Jewish victims; by feminizing the Jews, Germans were seen as more masculine which increased their power and prestige. Ernst Jünger, a famous German WWI veteran turned writer, once wrote about the concept of the totality machine. The idea revolved around self-improvement in order to better the army as a whole. The National Socialists clung to this idea, seeing individuality and distinguishing from others as trivial. Each person functioned as a small part of a common goal, to be viewed as a strong and unwavering machine.
The Nazi party was seen as monstrous because of all the crimes they had committed inside concentration camps. Eichmann was the face of the Nazis in his televised trial and was blamed for most of the evils that took place, even though he was only a small part of the Nazi machine. While the party was perceived as being strong and masculine, Eichmann was almost the exact opposite. This surprised Arendt, noting, “he personified neither hatred or madness nor an insatiable thirst for blood” (xiii). While this may have spawned outrage and criticism from Arendt’s readers, her shock simply displays the falseness of the idea of the Nazis as the pinnacle of masculinity, contrasted with the feminization of the Jews.
Gender, Torture, State in Crisis 