Eichmann in Jerusalem

by

Hannah Arendt

German Foreign Office Term Analysis

The Third Reich’s diplomatic arm, which negotiated with occupied countries throughout Europe to push the deportation of Jews to extermination camps.

German Foreign Office Quotes in Eichmann in Jerusalem

The Eichmann in Jerusalem quotes below are all either spoken by German Foreign Office or refer to German Foreign Office. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Banality of Evil Theme Icon
).
Chapter 9 Quotes

Eichmann himself, after “consulting Poliakoff and Reitlinger,” produced seventeen multicolored charts, which contributed little to a better understanding of the intricate bureaucratic machinery of the Third Reich, although his general description—“everything was always in a state of continuous flux, a steady stream”—sounded plausible to the student of totalitarianism, who knows that the monolithic quality of this form of government is a myth.

Related Characters: Adolf Eichmann, Heinrich Himmler
Page Number: 152
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Politically and psychologically, the most interesting aspect of this incident is perhaps the role played by the German authorities in Denmark, their obvious sabotage of orders from Berlin. It is the only case we know of in which the Nazis met with open native resistance, and the result seems to have been that those exposed to it changed their minds. They themselves apparently no longer looked upon the extermination of a whole people as a matter of course. They had met resistance based on principle, and their “toughness” had melted like butter in the sun, they had even been able to show a few timid beginnings of genuine courage. That the ideal of “toughness,” except, perhaps, for a few half-demented brutes, was nothing but a myth of self-deception, concealing a ruthless desire for conformity at any price, was clearly revealed at the Nuremberg Trials, where the defendants accused and betrayed each other and assured the world that they “had always been against it” or claimed, as Eichmann was to do, that their best qualities had been “abused” by their superiors. (In Jerusalem, he accused “those in power” of having abused his “obedience.” “The subject of a good government is lucky, the subject of a bad government is unlucky. I had no luck.”) The atmosphere had changed, and although most of them must have known that they were doomed, not a single one of them had the guts to defend the Nazi ideology.

Related Characters: Adolf Eichmann
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:
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German Foreign Office Term Timeline in Eichmann in Jerusalem

The timeline below shows where the term German Foreign Office appears in Eichmann in Jerusalem. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 7: The Wannsee Conference, or Pontius Pilate
Conscience, Authority, and Totalitarianism Theme Icon
Justice and Legal Responsibility Theme Icon
Zionism and Nazism Theme Icon
The German Foreign Office negotiated with occupied countries to evacuate their Jews, and legal experts ensured that these deportees... (full context)
Chapter 11: Deportations from the Balkans—Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Rumania
Conscience, Authority, and Totalitarianism Theme Icon
Justice and Legal Responsibility Theme Icon
...suffocated. Rumanian concentration camps were far crueler than Germany’s, and Eichmann even sent encouraged the German Foreign Office to shut them down. (full context)