In part the phrase refers to Eichmann's deportment at the trial as the man displayed neither guilt for his actions nor hatred for those trying him, claiming he bore no responsibility because he was simply "doing his job."

From this document, many concluded that situations such as the Holocaust can make even the most ordinary of people commit horrendous crimes with the proper incentives, but Arendt adamantly disagreed with this interpretation, as Eichmann was voluntarily following the Führerprinzip.

Humanly speaking, no more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation.Arendt mentions, as a case in point, Denmark: One is tempted to recommend the story as required reading in political science for all students who wish to learn something about the enormous power potential inherent in non-violent action and in resistance to an opponent possessing vastly superior means of violence.

It was not just that the people of Denmark refused to assist in implementing the Final Solution, as the peoples of so many other conquered nations had been persuaded to do (or had been eager to do) — but also, that when the Reich cracked down and decided to do the job itself it found that its own personnel in Denmark had been infected by this and were unable to overcome their human aversion with the appropriate ruthlessness, as their peers in more cooperative areas had.On Eichmann's personality, Arendt concludes: Despite all the efforts of the prosecution, everybody could see that this man was not a "monster," but it was difficult indeed not to suspect that he was a clown.

[15] Her thesis is that Eichmann was actually not a fanatic or a sociopath, but instead an average and mundane person who relied on clichéd defenses rather than thinking for himself,[16] was motivated by professional promotion rather than ideology, and believed in success which he considered the chief standard of "good society".

[18] Many mid-20th century pundits were favorable to the concept,[19][20] which has been called "one of the most memorable phrases of 20th-century intellectual life,"[21] and it features in many contemporary debates about morality and justice,[16][22] as well as in the workings of truth and reconciliation commissions.

[23] Others see the popularization of the concept as a valuable warrant against walking negligently into horror, as the evil of banality, in which failure to interrogate received wisdom results in individual and systemic weakness and decline.

[25][26] In her writings, Arendt expressed her objections to the prosecution's refusal to address the cooperation of the leaders of the Judenräte (Jewish councils) with the Nazis.

To the accusation of not having advised the Jews to flee rather than passively surrender to the Germans, Freudiger replied that about half of the fugitives would have been captured and killed.

[29] Indeed she goes to great lengths in order to show the mind-numbingly terrifying ways in which the Judenräte were coerced and intimidated into their roles, and how the Nazis made examples of populations that resisted: how they were tortured for days on end as they were murdered etc.

[30] Her response to this libel against her work in the Gunther Gaus interview is brief enough that it may be quoted in full here:[31] ARENDT:...Nowhere in my book did I reproach the Jewish people with nonresistance.

[34][35] She responded to the initial criticism in a postscript to the book: The controversy began by calling attention to the conduct of the Jewish people during the years of the Final Solution, thus following up the question, first raised by the Israeli prosecutor, of whether the Jews could or should have defended themselves.

This was the unexpected conclusion certain reviewers chose to draw from the "image" of a book, created by certain interest groups, in which I allegedly had claimed that the Jews had murdered themselves.

[36]Stanley Milgram, who would conduct controversial experiments on obedience, maintains that "Arendt became the object of considerable scorn, even calumny" because she highlighted Eichmann's "banality" and "normalcy", and accepted Eichmann's claim that he did not have evil intents or motives to commit such horrors; nor did he have a thought to the immorality and evil of his actions, or indeed, display, as the prosecution depicted, that he was a sadistic "monster".

Thus, he alleges that Arendt's opinion that his motives were "banal" and non-ideological and that he had abdicated his autonomy of choice by obeying Hitler's orders without question may stand on weak foundations.

According to Cesarani, in a letter to the noted German philosopher Karl Jaspers she stated that Hausner was "a typical Galician Jew... constantly making mistakes.

"[41] Cesarani says that some of her opinions of Jews of Middle Eastern origin verged on racism; she described the Israeli crowds in her letter to Karl Jaspers: "My first impression: On top, the judges, the best of German Jewry.

She utilized the Sassen Papers and accounts of Eichmann while in Argentina to prove that he was proud of his position as a powerful Nazi and the murders that this allowed him to commit.

Lipstadt further contends that Arendt "wanted the trial to explicate how these societies succeeded in getting others to do their atrocious biddings" and so framed her analysis in a way which would agree with this pursuit.

[45] However, Arendt has also been praised for being among the first to point out that intellectuals, such as Eichmann and other leaders of the Einsatzgruppen, were in fact more accepted in the Third Reich despite Nazi Germany's persistent use of anti-intellectual propaganda.

[7] During a 2013 review of historian Christian Ingrao's book Believe and Destroy, which pointed out that Hitler was more accepting of intellectuals with German ancestry and that at least 80 German intellectuals assisted his "SS War Machine,"[7][50] Los Angeles Review of Books journalist Jan Mieszkowski praised Arendt for being "well aware that there was a place for the thinking man in the Third Reich.