Emotive comments like "share the earth with you" are wonderful for academic debate or literature but have little value in concepts such as justice.

Eichmann would have been incarcerated for life almost certainly in semi-solitary confinement with only guards for company.  No one, not even his guards would have been 'sharing the earth with him'.

Eichmann was irredeemable and his idea of reconciliation somewhat perverse (I have read the whole of the transcripts of his interrogation) Eichmann even believed he had empathy with his chief interrogator, at times engaging him in what he thought was small talk between two 'policemen'.  

It really matters little whether Eichmann 'deserved' to be hanged, his execution did not provide closure or justice.  Long after he was gone there were still many ex-Nazis 'sharing the earth' with their victims, never mind the judges and prison warders.  

There are today very few of these people left and they are all frail and demented old men.  As for sharing the Earth, all the executions of all the evil people in history did not remove evil from humanity.  Hannah Arendt provided us with some insightful views on the banality of evil, as she called it but Eichmann's trial and execution did not eliminate him, it merely pointed out just how many more Eichmanns are out there.

Oh Barry, I totally agree with you.  This is a discussion that comes up all the time when there is a criminal who has done something so obscene it is hard to imagine anything bad enough.  But if we are morally superior to the likes of these animals, then killing them is beneath our moral development.  It is still thinking on the punishment/reward stages of moral development that we supposedly grow out of by the time we are 7 or 8 or so.  I don't say it is easy.  I am having problems in my country with the judgement of people like Vice President Cheney who not only encouraged but rewarded the same kinds of behaviors we kill people for if we are the victims.  And his verbal manipulations cannot mitigate the fact that what he did was torture and I believe that torture is bad for all mankind.  And we are in a war against groups who rape and murder children and young women as well as fighters and aid workers.  It is hard to rise above the ferrocious need to lash back.  But no matter how many people they kill, we gain no understanding of how they think, how their brains went wrong somewhere and how they came to believe in such heinous behavior.  There are maximum security prisons in parts of the US which allow almost no contact, no media, little physical activity etc and there is no possibility of parole (there really are irredeemable people).  That comes as close to appropriate as I can think of although there are even those who think that is torture because man is a social animal so prolonged social deprivation is enough to drive them crazy.  I guess if that is true, I would say, let them go crazy.  If they kill themselves, it is not me who did it as long as the deprivations were not so severe (like water dripping, sound, no light) etc which really do fall into the category of torture.  I would love to talk with others from other cultures although I don't promise it wouldn't get heated :)

Alexandra

The US has a mixed up (forgive the over generalised collective here) view of life and death.  On the one hand life is held to be sacred by the religious right who oppose abortions yet the same people advocate, even celebrate the taking of the life of a conscious individual.

It is correct there are some despicable people on this Earth but killing them never stopped the next one.  Hannah Arendt made a fundamental error in her analysis of the Eichmann trial and her justification for his execution is also flawed by its naivete.  

It was not possible to get rid of Eichmann by hanging him.  As a man he was a small minded and petty (even banal) bureaucrat)  As a Lt Col in the SS and a principal architect of the final solution he was a monster. A larger than life and terrifying serial killer. A symbol of evil itself.  All anyone has to do is look at the famous photo of him in his uniform (see below) to know that his hanging did not erase that.  It was the small minded man they hanged, the monster lives on.

The US Justice system has too tried to 'erase' evil people.  Ted Bundy and Timothy McVeigh for example.  We may not share the Earth with their physical form anymore but they are still with us none the less.  Their execution in some respects sealed them into the national psyche and made them icons of evil.  Far from erasing them it immortalised them.

They should have been locked away for ever and forgotten to die as pathetic derelicts in a maximum security jail.  The spectacle of their execution gave them just one last chance to grandstand and they left this world on their terms.  

We are left with Eichmann's legacy.  He got to make his point and as amoral and obscene as it was it is just as profound as Arendt's.  "I was only obeying orders" was the excuse but Eichmann never expressed regret, shame or sorrow for what he did.  There are still many who hold to the view "my country right or wrong" and we should never forget that they would still obey the orders were they ever given.

I don't disagree at all Barry.  That is why I think total isolation from the rest of humankind may be the only answer.  It has always amazed me at the failure of the so called "right to Life" people who have no problem with killing millions of people if they don't agree with us (let's go to war with almost anyone) (not that I think we have a choice if we are to defend humanity), the death penalty, torture.  It is just appalling.  These people were the people, including Americans, who closed their eyes to what was going on in Germany until it was their freedoms and lives that were endangered.  They hated and some still do hate the Jews (God if I know why) almost as much as Hitler.  Just as today, brown and black young men can be choked or shot down helpless to defend themselves in our streets and almost half the country could give a damn.  And that is the best light I can put on it.  See I am even more reactionary.  I think the willingness to withhold a living wage, to provide medical care, to provide educations that would allow these same young men a chance to get out of crime ridden inner cities has little to do with beliefs in economic systems.  At least not on the part of the 99% who don't control the wealth.  They have a totally different albeit no less repugnant reason...their own avarice.  But the rest...how can you not see racism in our failure to provide for the future of our nation by educating our population in such a way that we can take advantage of the growth and advancement of us all.

And its not just the US.  I live here and get up in arms here but at least I have the ability to do that.  What about Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, billions in China, almost all of North Korea, Syria, the entire middle East.  My lord, how did so many great achievements come from a culture that slices the clitoris off of young girls, that chops heads off for almost any reason at all, that keeps 50% of the population under control, uneducated, impoverished, to be beaten or stoned on the whim of some male.  True ignorance has to include being willing to raise all your children in abject poverty in order to subjugate one gender.  Just think about how much progress could be made to remove children from poverty if their mothers were encouraged to get educations and jobs and to use their creativity.  

What in heavens name are so many so afraid of?

"Of course Eichmann is not the only one who should be put to death for his crimes."

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-120-03.html

According to the testimony of Dieter Wisliceny, one of Eichmann's subordinates who was discussing the number of Jews killed Eichmann once said to him that "he would leap into his grave laughing" because he was responsible for the transport of so many.

While Eichmann denied this under interrogation there is every reason to believe that the comments were correctly reported by Wisliceny.  Wisliceny was hanged for his part in the final solution in Czechoslovakia in 1948.    

There is little doubt that Eichmann's execution was in some way symbolic.  It is the only instance of a judicial execution taking place in Israel and the preceding trial was meant to be cathartic.  In terms of symbolic closure it signally failed.  Eichmann continued throughout his interrogation and trial to present himself not as a principal figure in the final solution but simply as a small cog in a large machine.  The concept of befehlnotstand was constantly referred to as was adherence to his officers oath.

To some extent this was convincing, even Arendt herself referred to this mentality as "the banality of evil".  Eichmann was a consummate bureaucrat but he was not banal.  His role at Wanssee and his ruthless pursuit of his goals, right down to the extent of learning Hebrew and studying Zionism showed that.  He was a hugely powerful figure in the 3rd Reich in spite of his relatively low rank of Oberturmbannfuhrer.  He held sway over SS and government officials far higher in rank than his own and was feared by fellow Nazis.  Hardly the profile of banality. 

The symbolism of the capture, interrogation, trial and execution of Eichmann, even the exaggerated involvement of Simon Wiesenthal failed to bring closure to the, at that time very many survivors of the death camps.  If anything it merely pointed out the relative failure of the authorities to bring the perpetrators of the holocaust to justice.  Many high ranking Nazi war criminals escaped justice and some were even feted as heroes, such as Werner von Braun.

The leniency handed out to Albert Speer, largely because he admitted (or at least pretended contrition) is a case in point.  Speer as head of the Org. Todt was also responsible for the deaths of huge numbers of slave labourers under his control. He escaped the death penalty in spite of his obvious involvement in systematic murder. 

It is curious and even ironic that Eichmann was largely unknown until his capture and trial.  He maintained a shadowy and secretive life with the 3rd Reich and contrary to post war conspiracy theories had no role in organisations established to protect former Nazis (most of which were the product of fevered imaginations).  He led a modest and quiet life as Ricardo Klement and would have remained relatively unknown if the capture, trial and hanging had not thrust him into the limelight.

There is no doubt that Eichmann deserved his fate but it served only to grant limited retribution.  It brought no closure or justice while other Nazis went unpunished and the executions of all the war criminals after WW2 did nothing to prevent war crime from persisting up to the present.

There's no question Eichmann deserved to be killed.

But did we deserve to kill him?

And at least he could die believing he had, to some degree, inculcated the world with his "values."  His death was proof.

Eichmann was not a hard case.  Osama bin Laden was a hard case.

I think Beccaria got it right.  Bin Laden had to be killed because he was more dangerous alive than dead.  The predictable consequences of trying to incarcerate him off the battlefield would have been the deaths of many hostages taken by many disturbed people to secure his release.

Had he contested his guilt, even holding him long enough to try him would have been difficult...but necessary.  His public gloating justified the extrajudicial nature of his execution.

The hard case is not the bureaucrat.  The hard case is the human being who has the power to lead mass homicide from a prison.  Hitler, had he lived, might have presented that difficulty, but that's speculation because the tactic of suicidal terrorism was not as front and center then as it is today.  Had suicide vests even been invented then?

Barry Turner and Alexandra Castle advert to a number of the concerns that I had in mind when I asked: ‘How should Adolf Eichmann have been punished?’  (For the purposes of this discussion, Eichmann is a convenient representative of those offenders whose crimes against humanity were enabled by their strategic position in a criminal organization.)

The ‘Banality of Evil’:   Hannah Arendt concluded that Eichmann was a ‘normal’ man, whose crimes were not a consequence of any remarkable personal capacity for evil, but an expression of his obedient compliance, as a diligent and ambitious bureaucrat, with the orders he was given. There is ample evidence that Eichmann was far more than a mere bureaucrat.  Bettina Stangneth (Eichmann Before Jerusalem, 2014) among others, presents him as an intelligent and enthusiastic agent in the implementation of the policy of genocide. But, does it matter whether or not Eichmann was a mere cog in the machinery?  Distinctions in terms of culpability can be drawn, no doubt.  (Marcelo Soares provides a helpful reference to Dr Robert Servatius’ defence of Eichmann.) Stangneth’s Eichmann is more blameworthy than Arendt’s bureaucrat, for she presents him as an independent agent in his execution of the policy of extermination.  Though these distinctions among degrees of culpability can be drawn, they cut little ice in determining an appropriate response to crimes of the magnitude involved in Eichmann’s participation in the Holocaust.    

Punishment: Criminal punishment inflicted by the state in a liberal polity offers the offender the possibility of eventual reconciliation with the community in whose name the sentence is imposed.  Arendt thought that Eichmann should be eliminated rather than punished: there could be no question of reconciliation. That the case of Eichmann went beyond any question of punishment was the point of her conclusion that that no-one could be expected to ‘share the earth’ with him. (Her conclusion has a poignant resonance.  Eichmann was hanged, his body cremated and his ashes scattered at sea.)  But if Eichmann is not to be executed and ‘punishment’ is inappropriate, what is to be done with him?

‘Sharing the Earth’ with Eichmann:  Barry and Alexandra both seem to agree with Arendt that Eichmann is not an appropriate subject for anything that could be described as ‘punishment’ in a liberal polity. In his first response to my question, Barry remarked that ‘Eichmann would have been incarcerated for life almost certainly in semi-solitary confinement, with only guards for company’. That is certainly a possible response. But my question had to do with what should happen, not with what could happen in some unspecified jurisdiction. His second response suggests, however, that he considers that lifelong solitary confinement is also the right response, consistent with justice. Alexandra agrees, instancing the severity of the privative regimes of some US maximum security prisons. The obvious problem with this solution is that it seems indistinguishable from torture, commonly defined as the ‘intentional infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering’ whether for punishment or other purposes, by public officials in pursuance of state policy.  Let us be very practical about Barry and Alexandra’s recommendations.  Is the prisoner to be allowed any contact with others, news of his family or contact with them, books, writing materials, adequate exercise and other minimal necessities? If not, the cumulative effect of these deprivations over the remaining years of his life can be expected to result in mental and physical illness and deterioration of the capacity to care for himself. Presumably his disabilities will be treated by prison doctors, psychiatrists and members of other helping professions assigned to his maintenance.   Each of these public officials will ‘share the world’ with the prisoner, often in the most intimate ways.  There is cause for serious concern when state officials are employed to administer ‘penalties’ (for want of a better word) that involve the deliberate infliction of serious physical and mental suffering and consequential harms on their charges.

Punishment and Social Defence:  Eichmann was the representative of a defeated regime; he had little if any capacity to cause or inspire further atrocities in 1961.  Steve Russell agrees with the Israeli courts that he ‘deserved death’.  He asks the far more difficult question:  ‘But did we deserve to kill him?’ I take Steve to mean that execution, with or without judicial process, might be a justifiable necessity for social defence against impending harms that could be inspired by an iconic leader, such as Osama Bin Laden or, perhaps, an Adolf Hitler.  Justifiable necessity for social defence can also justify the privative practices of the ‘supermax’ prisons instanced by Alexandra when criminals retain their capacity to commit, organize, direct or inspire crimes even after they have been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment.  The problems involved in distinguishing between punishment for past crimes and social defence against an offender who represents a continuing threat are formidable; as Steve says, these are ‘hard cases’.  But Eichmann was not that kind of hard case.  If he is not executed and does not represent any continuing risk of harm, there seems no alternative to imposing punishment of the same kind and degree as that reserved for the familiar category of ‘worst case murderers’.  It is difficult to imagine any justification for special forms of torment that might be reserved for those who commit ‘crimes against humanity’

Agreed entirely,  Saving special forms of torment for war criminals, child killers, cop killers, serial killers etc. is not only no deterrent to others in those categories  it adopts the same kind of sadistic traits as they themselves.  An example only of 'eye for eye' type revenge based justice.   

While revenge may be 'justified' it leads the situation often associated with eye for eye and tooth for tooth justice.  Everyone ends up blind and eating soup for the rest of their lives.

Hannah Arendt is often portrayed as having some kind of special insight which is not really justified.  She, quite understandably recorded the Holocaust in highly emotionally charged language.  It was moving and poignant but about Eichmann not accurate.  

According to Captain Avner Less, his interrogator he was vain and insensitive and although superficially polite and even friendly he was aggressive, evasive and incapable of accepting any culpability in the crimes he is associated with.  These are today recognised as some of the classic indicators of psychopathy.  Psychopaths often do present as ordinary and even banal but that is an incorrect interpretation of their behaviour.  

Few if any of the Nazi war criminals were insane in the psychotic sense but virtually all would today be classified as personality disordered.  While this term itself is a glib and superficial label it explains the man far better than simply labelling him banal and ordinary.  Eichmann was not ordinary in any sense of the word.  None of those who carved out 'successful' careers in the 3rd Reich were ordinary.  Ordinary people rarely reach high rank even in states with liberal polity let alone the kind of state Nazi Germany was.

I return to my main point about executing Eichmann.  It is not out of liberality that I conclude that the execution was wrong.  It is not out of sympathy with him it is that if failed to achieve anything in terms of closure for his victims.  Whether he deserved to die is also irrelevant.  His death only made it clear that so many of his contemporaries would never face justice and that those who lost family in the holocaust would 'share the world' with them indefinitely.  

I am unsure why the killing of Osama Bin Laden is compared to the execution of Eichmann.  While both may have been hideous examples humanity that is the only thing they have in common.  Bin Laden was never interrogated, never faced trial and was shot in a military action where all knew that capturing him alive was highly unlikely.  Eichmann's capture presented nothing like the circumstances of raiding a compound full of armed bodyguards.  Conspiracy theories apart Bin Laden would never have spoken in such detail about his activities as Eichmann did.

We all share the world with psychopaths and some have the misfortune to meet them face to face.  When we catch the most dangerous ones we incarcerate them with other psychopaths and we deny them basic human rights, not as punishment but for protection of society.   

As for 'crimes against humanity' and whether we can judge such matters I have asked a RG question on whether the Nuremberg Doctrine was a failure.  I would be grateful for any observations. 

I promised myself I would not get too embroiled in this topic because I have too much to do.  And I am going to just say one thing then, let it go for a while.  I have to honestly say that I find the German's who turned in their Jewish neighbors and the Americans at IBM who through the use of the punch card made rounding up Jews were equally guilty.  I have a wonderful friend and attorney from Germany and the other day we were looking at some of her pictures of her family and it dawned on me that these pictures had been taken during the 2nd WW.  They knew what was going on, just like Chamberlain knew and for that matter so did Roosevelt.  How could they get the blood off of their hands?  And more recently there are the hundreds of thousands who George W. Bush and  Cheney and  crew, not only did not apologize for the torture used on these captives.  Not only did they not apologize but Cheney even went so far as to say he would take all of the prisoners held when they had done nothing  if it meant letting even 1 guilty person free.  No wonder he sneers.  I almost wish I believed in a Hell concept because then at least I could expect him to get hiis punishment elsewhere

Hanging or banishing Eichmann for life is just one part of the entire story. The real part is actually outside the Eichmann trial. How do we we propose to deal with the demon called racial prejudice?

We have enough UN conventions, resolutions, declarations and national laws across the face of the earth expressly and impliedly banishing racial prejudice. Yet, it is the most visible facet of our life everywhere. The real enemy of peace therefore are not the Eichmanns of the earth; it is the political use of race, color, language, creed, ethnicity, religion and caste. Unless we find a common voice against it, Eichmann will continue to live in perpetuity and we will be chasing mirages of justice.

PUNISHMENT serves three functions: (i) retribution (revenge), (ii) restitution, and (iii) deterrence. If the purpose of the punish is to seek retribution for the wrong committed, the accused---now adjudged guilty---is punished for the sake avenging those who had been wronged. If the punishment is to seek restitution, the wrong doer must compensate those who had been wronged plus additional penalties as the state may imposed and deemed necessary. If the punishment is for the purpose of deterring other members of society from repeating the same or similar act, heavy penalty, such as life imprisonment or the death penalty is used---whether death penalty is an acceptable form of penalty, people may debate.

CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY generally involves heinous acts whose effect and consequences reverberate throughout human society of the present time and future generations, such crime is generally accorded with the death penalty. By such punishment, it is hoped that all three functions of punishment are served.

REDEMPTION assumes that the wrong doer may be redeemed, i.e. made good again and re-introduced into society. for people who had been adjudicated guilty of crimes against humanity generally would find it difficult to be re-introduced into society and lead a normal life. Certain crimes and criminals are beyond redemption.

RECONCILIATION is an impossible task to accomplish by the wrong doer since many of the victims had died. Those who survive may individually reconcile with the wrong doer, but none would be able to reconcile on behalf of those who are not here to speak for themselves. certain crimes are beyond reconciliation.

I think penalty in modern thinking has to be a reflection of who we are as a civilized society not what the criminals are and what they have done. There is no substitute or balancing act for the heinous crimes cold blooded criminals commit, as their crimes are inner desires of a thoughtful process with evil satisfaction  while the penalty is just eliminating them (which they have already decided to be that with happiness) but  the magnanimity and virtues of  civility  should transcend the acts of criminals and put the society in a better position and higher latitude of humane judgement, which the criminals lack.