What impressed me most about the film was the original black and white clip of Adolf Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem. The director skillfully combined them with the plot of the film to restore the trial of the century to the greatest extent possible. Eichmann did not have any sense of shame and repentance when defending his crimes, but appeared clear-minded and plausible, "I am just a person who executes the orders of the superiors. I am an innocent gun, aiming and firing I wasn't the one with the gun!" In fact, his actions as the school officer responsible for transporting Jews to the camps did not seem to be directly related to the brutal crimes that took place in the camps. His calm expression was in stark contrast to the grief-stricken victims in the dock. This scene made Arendt, who was present in the interview and recorded, ponder. Back in the U.S., she concluded in her report: "He just doesn't think!"
However, I have a hard time agreeing with Arendt's conclusion. As a healthy and intelligent person, how did Eichmann become a person who can't think? If he can't think, can he be promoted to lieutenant colonel in the SS? As Arendt's mentor and lover, Heidegger also joined the Nazis and persecuted his Jewish colleagues. In the film, he and Arendt sighed as they walked in the woods: "Politics, I'm a naive person." This is the only time he has talked to someone about his Nazi experience. The rest of the time he kept mum about it. Could it be that Heidegger could not think too? Conscience and courage completely give way to fear, regardless of whether a person thinks or not. In fact, human beings will self-deceive and spontaneously follow the crowd, obey and please the powerful, eager to become a part of the powerful group (I also wrote a crotch application when I was in school [Joyful]), purely out of self-protection instinct. As Fromm said, we think we are thinking, feeling, and expecting, but those are just false thinking, false feeling, and false expectations.
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