Eichmann trial: Difference between revisions

In 1960, the major [[Holocaust]] perpetrator [[Adolf Eichmann]] was captured in Argentina by Israeli agents and brought to Israel to stand trial.{{sfn|Bazyler|Scheppach|2012|p=438}} His trial, which opened on 11 April 1961, was televised and broadcast internationally, intended to educate about the crimes committed against Jews, which had been secondary to the [[Nuremberg trials]].{{sfn|Bazyler|Scheppach|2012|p=439}} Prosecutor and [[Attorney General of Israel|Attorney General]] [[Gideon Hausner]] also tried to challenge the portrayal of Jewish functionaries that had emerged in the earlier trials, showing them at worst as victims forced to carry out Nazi decrees while minimizing the "gray zone" of morally questionable behavior.{{sfn|Porat|2019|p=173}} Hausner later wrote that available archival documents "would have sufficed to get Eichmann sentenced ten times over"; nevertheless, he summoned more than 100 witnesses, most of them whowhom had never met the defendant, for didactic purposes.{{sfn|Porat|2019|p=174}} Defense attorney [[Robert Servatius]] refused the offers of twelve survivors who agreed to testify for the defense, exposing what they considered immoral behavior by other Jews.{{sfn|Porat|2019|p=180}} Political philosopher [[Hannah Arendt]] reported on the trial in her book ''[[Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil]]''. The book had enormous impact in popular culture, but its ideas [[Eichmann in Jerusalem#Reception|have become increasingly controversial]].