David Cesarani - Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a "Desk Murderer"

I had tried to read Becoming Eichmann a few years ago, but wasn't able to get past the first chapter, and this time through it took a fair amount of work to get through the first half of the book. In it, Cesarani attempts to both trace Eichmann's life and path to becoming a central figure in the Holocaust and to challenge a number of prevailing myths about him and the Holocaust itself.


The first myth that Cesarani takes issue with is the idea that the Holocaust in its final form was the plan of both the Nazis and Eichmann from the beginning. He argues, backed by the evidence, that systematic killing was only considered as an option after expulsions had failed (which is an argument supported by the book on 20th century genocides that I read a few months back).

Cesarani also challenges the idea that Eichmann was the main organizer of the Holocaust. Instead, he argues that while Eichmann did play a major part in the prosecution of it, especially in the deportations of Jews to the concentration camps, he was not a policy maker. That does not excuse his actions, of course, but it does provide a more realistic picture of the situation.

His main argument, however, is one that emerges only towards the end of the book. Cesarani is extremely critical of Hannah Arendt's portrayal of Eichmann as a dispassionate bureaucrat uninterested in anything other than fulfilling his duty and advancing through the ranks. He argues rather effectively that Arendt's thesis ignores ample evidence of Eichmann's anti-Semitism as well as instances in which he was anything but dispassionate in completing his work. According to him, Arendt's research was flawed because she based it largely on a short period of observation in which Eichmann remained purposely calm and dispassionate while being interrogated, as part of his defence strategy. As part of this argument, he also disputes the work of Stanley Milgram, and states that the results of his studies on human obedience are not relevant to the Eichmann case. While I mostly agree with him about Arendt, I take some issue with him on Milgram. For one, some of his dismissals of Milgram's research seem weak. He states that some of the participants feared that they would not be paid if they did not continue to shock the subject. Not getting paid was perhaps the least of the fears of many of those who worked in concentration camps, where disobedience of orders would likely have gotten them transferred to units on the Eastern Front (this does not excuse their actions, but it is relevant nonetheless). Cesarani also argues that the volunteers in Milgram's experiments were following orders from a "scientist" in a white coat, who would have been seen as a legitimate authority figure. He believes that the volunteers would have been less likely to obey if the person giving orders was dressed in an SS uniform. This is almost certainly true, but that is because the volunteers were Americans in the 1950s and 1960s. Had the volunteers been Germans in the 1930s and 1940s, they would likely have obeyed the orders of a black-uniformed SS officer far more easily than those of a white-coated scientist. That being said, I do agree that the Milgram experiments are not necessarily applicable to Eichmann himself, but I do think that they are relevant to many of the direct participants in the Holocaust, something that Cesarani also dismisses. In the context of the Holocaust, Eichmann was not the "volunteer," he was the "scientist." The "volunteers" were the people who did the actual killing and were ordered to do so by their superiors, including Eichmann.

In terms of enjoyability I would rate Becoming Eichmann in two parts. The first 199 pages, up to the end of the war, are at times almost mind-numbingly boring. Eichmann's life was not overly exciting, and Cesarani's writing does little to spice it up. On top of that, when discussing the implementation of the Holocaust Becoming Eichmann is in many places almost unreadable due to Cesarani's tendency to jump around chronologically. Many parts of the book become confusing as Cesarani shifts suddenly to different parts of Europe and different time periods. The book from page 200 on, however, is excellent. When discussing Eichmann's life as a fugitive and then as a prisoner Cesarani narrates events chronologically, and his account of the trial was particularly interesting, especially his examination of the failures of the prosecution to mount a particularly effective argument and Eichmann's vacillation between effective testimony and bewildering lies.

Overall the book was fairly good, but if you have any working knowledge of the Holocaust I would recommend starting the book from page 200 and skipping the first 199.

James Owen - Nuremberg: Evil on Trial

I decided to read Nuremberg after the trial got only a short mention in All Hell Let Loose, which I read a few days ago. I knew the basics of the trial, of course, but wanted to know a bit more. The book was fairly interesting, as it is mostly a collection of trial transcripts and diaries written by the participants, with a few short descriptions interspersed by Owen. As a result of it being largely court transcripts, there are moments when the books drags a bit, but it was quite interesting nonetheless.


On a number of occasions Owen makes interesting points about how groundbreaking the trials truly were in terms of setting standards for war crimes and international tribunals. It required, as pointed out by Owen, an enormous amount of negotiation in order for the four powers to even agree on a set of charges, let alone who should face them and what the punishment should be (especially as the Soviet judges were determined to vote for the death penalty in all cases). It is also interesting to note that because the Allies rushed to get the trials started a number of important figures in the Nazi war effort were missed entirely (such as Adolf Eichmann) and in some cases were not even known until their involvement was mentioned at Nuremberg.

Perhaps the most riveting part of the book is the excerpts from the cross-examination of Goering by Robert Jackson, the lead American prosecutor. Jackson was woefully inadequate to the task of crossing swords with Goering, whose wits had recently been restored to full function after he was weened off of his dependance on drugs. Goering managed to avoid answering almost all of Jackson's questions, and Jackson couldn't seem to take control as Goering launched into long-winded defences of the Nazi regime and his part in it. It was actually somewhat uncomfortable to read as Goering took complete control (perhaps I'm too used to seeing defendants taken apart on the stand by Jack McCoy on Law and Order).

There were a number of interesting passages in the transcripts involving a considerable amount of hypocrisy. For example, in his memoirs that are quoted in Nuremberg, Albert Speer claims to have been angry at Goering for whitewashing Nazi crimes and lying about his involvement. Given Speer's own willful ignorance about anything within the regime that made him uncomfortable, this statement seems somewhat ridiculous. In a similar vein, it seems the height of hypocrisy for the Soviets to have presumed to judge the Nazis for crimes such as the execution of prisoners of war or the mistreatment of civilians, given the atrocious war crimes that they were guilty of themselves (especially the Katyn Forest massacre, in which they slaughtered over 20,000 Polish officers). The outrage affected by the Soviet prosecutors struck me as particularly ridiculous.

One thing that disappointed me about Nuremberg was that in several cases it skipped the testimony of defendants, notably Seyss-Inquart. Although it is likely that this was done because the testimony contained nothing of particular interest or import, it would have been nice to read their arguments in their own defence. The book also largely skips the transcripts of the cases against the various Nazi organizations that were on trial. I would have particularly liked to read the evidence the prosecutors gave against the Gestapo and the SS.

Despite missing a number of things that I would have liked to read, Nuremberg made particularly interesting reading. It contains enough background information on the crimes and people involved that it is accessible to all audiences, and I would highly recommend it.