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ALPHABET OF JUSTICE
425
or officialese, ("Amtsprache is my only language," he said)-and was
thus provided with a stock of phrases and explanations which shielded
him
from any other reality. (As Franc;;ois Bondy has said, in a most
memorable phrase,
"der Stil ist der Unmensch .")
Eichmann became the Nazi expert on Jewish organizations. Before
the war, during the phase of the "first solution," he "saved" thousands
of Jews by co-operating with the Zionists to speed the able Jews out of
Germany. "It was not until the outbreak of the war, on September
1, 1939, that the Nazi regime became openly totalitarian and openly
criminal," Miss Arendt writes. The point
is
crucial, for the war closed
off all exits for the Jews, it allowed Hlitler to put into effect his "final
solution," and it created a different psychological atmosphere-of
fatalism and even resignation- about death ; as Eichmann put it,
"dead people are seen everywhere" and "everyone looked forward to
his own death with indifference...."
The decision
to
press for the "final solution" was taken at the
Wannsee conference in January 1942. It necessitated the active co–
operation of all ministers and the entire civil service. As Eichmann
said: Here the most prominent people, the Popes of the Third Reich,
the elite of the civil service were vying with each other to take the lead.
"At that moment, I sensed a kind of Pontius Pilate feeling, for I felt
free of all guilt."
But can people actively engaged in murder find release or assuasion
so easily? How do they handle the frightening emotions generated by
a blood ritual? For primitive peoples there is always the communal
purgation, but modem men need subtler deceptions. They handle it,
as Eichmann and the Nazis did-and here, I think, Miss Arendt's
at her most brilliant-by "distancing" themselves from the events, by
the use of "language rules"
(S
prachregelung ) .
In the first war decree of Hitler, for example, the word for
"murder" was replaced by the phrase
"to
grant a mercy death." And
in the "objective" language of the Nazis, concentration camps were
discussed in terms of "economy"; killing was a "medical matter." All
official correspondence was subject to these "language rules" and as Miss
Arendt point out, "it is rare to find documents in which such bald words
as
'extermination,' 'liquidation,' or 'killing' occur. The prescribed code
names for killing were 'final solution,' 'evacuation'
(Aussiedlung),
and
'special treatment'
(Sonderbehandlung)."
Deportation was called
"change of residence" and
in
the case of Theresienstadt, the special
camp for privileged Jews, "resettlement."
We have here (as with some aspects of modem linguistic philo-
