From Hannah Arendt: The Last Interview and Other Conversations:

“WHAT REMAINS? THE LANGUAGE REMAINS”: A CONVERSATION WITH GÜNTER GAUS
ZUR PERSON, ZDF TV, GERMANY
OCTOBER 28, 1964
TRANSLATED BY JOAN STAMBAUGH

GAUS: You studied in Marburg, Heidelberg, and Freiberg with professors Heidegger, Bultmann, and Jaspers; with a major in philosophy and minors in theology and Greek. How did you come to choose these subjects?

ARENDT: You know, I have often thought about that. I can only say that I always knew I would study philosophy. Ever since I was fourteen years old.

GAUS: Why?

ARENDT: I read Kant. You can ask, Why did you read Kant? For me the question was somehow: I can either study philosophy or I can drown myself, so to speak. But not because I didn’t love life! No! As I said before—I had this need to understand … The need to understand was there very early. You see, all the books were in the library at home; one simply took them from the shelves.

“EICHMANN WAS OUTRAGEOUSLY STUPID”
INTERVIEW BY JOACHIM FEST
DAS THEMA, SWR TV, GERMANY
NOVEMBER 9, 1964
TRANSLATED BY ANDREW BROWN

FEST: But to what extent is there a deeper problem lurking here? To what extent can people living in totalitarian circumstances still be held responsible? This doesn’t apply just to the Eichmann type, it applies in the same way to the Judenräte on the other side.

ARENDT: Just a moment before I answer that question. Look, it’s a really amazing phenomenon: none of these people expressed any remorse. Yes, Frankc did, obviously; perhaps Heydrich on his deathbed—so they say; Leye …

FEST: Yes, in Frank’s case I’d say it was a purely emotional remorse. He then retracted it straightaway in his concluding speech to the court.

ARENDT: Yes!

FEST: It was a very ambiguous feeling.

ARENDT: So I can say, “No one expressed remorse.

FEST: Basically, at any rate, it can’t be definitely proved in a single case.

ARENDT: And, as is well known, Eichmann said, “Remorse is for little children.” No one expressed remorse. On the other hand, we should imagine that when nobody expresses remorse, there ought to be at least one person who stands up for his actions and says, “Yes, actually, we did do it, for this and that reason, I still think the same way today. We lost. Whether we won or lost doesn’t affect the cause itself.” In actual fact, the case collapsed like a wet dishrag. And nobody did stand up. Nobody put forward any defense. And this seems quite crucial for the phenomenon you touched on just now—obedience. Don’t you think? In other words: they just wanted to go along. They’re ready to go along with everything. When someone says to them, “You’re only one of us if you commit murder with us”—fine. When they’re told, “You’re only one of us if you never commit murder”—that’s fine too. Right? That’s the way I see it.

FEST: That is so true—indeed, Eichmann stated, when he was imprisoned by the Americans, that he’d been glad to submit to somebody else’s leadership again. And the peculiar way he was ready to tell the court or rather the interrogation, the preliminary interrogation, everything he knew, is probably to be interpreted in the same way as his readiness to give absolute obedience to any current authority, right to the limit of what was possible—his readiness to submit to any authority.

ARENDT: Incredible. He felt wonderfully happy in Jerusalem. There’s no question about it, is there? The superior was Landau, everyone could see that, and then came various other ranks down to Herr Captain Less, whom he used—as Herr Mulisch rightly said—as a father confessor. He said, “Captain, I’ll willingly say everything.” Of course, he wanted to cut a fine figure too. At any rate, tell his life story. Anyway, the question of responsibility—shall we get back to that?

FEST: Yes, please.

ARENDT: You see, when we put people on trial, we ascribe responsibility to them. And we have a right to do so, from the legal standpoint … We have the right, since the alternative was not martyrdom. There was a alternative, on both sides: you didn’t have to go along, you could make up your own mind. “Thanks anyway, but … I’m not going along. I’m not risking my life, I’m trying to get away, I’m trying to see if I can slip off.” Isn’t that right? “But I’m not going along with anyone. And if I should be forced to go along, then I’ll take my own life.” This possibility existed. It meant not saying “we,” but “I”—judging for oneself. And judging for oneself is what people did do, everywhere, at every level of the populace: religious people and nonreligious people, old and young, educated and uneducated, nobles and bourgeois and very many workers, an amazing number of workers, especially in Berlin, where I was able to watch it happening. Those who did go along always justified themselves the same way, as we can see. They always said, “We only stayed on so that things wouldn’t get any worse.” Right? But, well—this justification should be rejected once and for all—it couldn’t have got any worse.