“I am not and I have never been an antisemite,” said German SS officer Adolph Eichmann in Israel in 1960 to his government interrogator, Avner W. Less, the Chief Inspector for the Israel Police Department.
Eichmann’s chief responsibility under the Nazi regime was to plan and carry out logistics for mass deportations of Jews and Roma to concentration work and death camps.
SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Adolf Eichmann, head of office Referat IV B4 of the German Gestapo, collaborated with Hungarian authorities to send approximately 600,000 Jews of Hungary (and areas of Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia) to their deaths at Auschwitz and other camps. Eichmann eventually gained control of all forced Jewish emigration from Nazi-controlled areas.
The Nazis first loaded people into transport vans used to suffocate prisoners by connecting hoses in which carbon dioxide was pumped. Since high Nazi officials saw this method as inefficient, officials had ordered the construction of gas chambers at some of the German concentration camps with the use of highly toxic Zyklon B.
It was first used at Auschwitz concentration camp outside Warsaw, Poland on 3 September 1941 to kill a group of 600 Soviet prisoners of war and approximately 250 sick Polish prisoners. Though Eichmann personally did not visit the gas chambers, he was fully aware of their purposes.
The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, known as Mossad, received reliable intelligence that the notorious chief architect of the extermination of European Jews and other groups targeted as subhuman (untermenschlich) had escaped Germany and was in hiding with his wife and four sons under an assumed identity in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered Massad officers in 1960 to fly to Buenos Aires and secretly abduct and transport Eichmann to Israel, where he would stand trial for his crimes.
Avner W. Less was given the task of interrogating Eichmann. For nine months, Less was the only person other than Eichmann’s attorney who was granted permission to talk with the prisoner. Less recorded him nearly daily for a total of 275 hours that resulted in 77 transcripts totaling 3,564 pages. All of them were read by Eichmann, who certified their accuracy. Less testified at the trial what Eichmann had divulged about his crimes.
The court found Eichmann guilty in 1961 of crimes against humanity and other charges. The Israeli Supreme Court upheld the court’s decision of death by hanging, and Eichmann was executed on 1 June 1962.
Avner W. Less later published excerpts from his interrogations of Eichmann in his 1983 book Eichmann Interrogated.
Malignant Narcissism:
The famed social psychologist, Erich Seligmann Fromm (1900-1980), a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the United States became associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Fromm went on to write several books examining human character and human personality.
Fromm sought to understand the mind of tyrants, and especially, the personality types of the Nazi high command. He coined the term “malignant narcissism” in 1964 as a theoretical personality disorder to distinguish conceptually from typical narcissistic personality disorder.
Fromm’s theoretical personality type includes the existence of antisocial behavior, egosyntonic aggression or sadism, and a paranoid orientation while still holding some capability for feelings of loyalty.
With this form of aggression or sadism, the person not only lacks feelings of guilt or remorse but may also find genuine pleasure from inflicting mental or physical pain on others.
Fromm characterized malignant narcissism as a form of solipsistic narcissism, in which the individual takes pride in their own inherent traits, and does not require a connection to other people or to reality.
Solipsism, in philosophy, holds that only one’s own mind is sure to exist while anything outside of this is unsure and uncertain. Stated somewhat differently, the external world and minds outside of one’s own cannot be known and might not exist.
History Rhymes:
“No, no, I’m not a racist,” said Donald Trump in January 2018, to a press gathering in Florida after legislators alerted reporters that he had referred to some foreign countries as “shitholes” at a bipartisan meeting on immigration the week before.
“I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed,” he continued. “That I can tell you.”
He reiterated on July 30, 2019: “I am the least racist person there is anywhere in the world,” Trump said in a session with reporters.
While some historians warn that history often repeats itself when people do not know or understand their own and world history, the writer and humorist, Mark Twain, disagreed in what is attributed to him as: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
While Twain may have claimed that historical events do not recur identically, echoes of the past return in differing forms and guises.
Avner W. Less recorded an interview in 1983 looking back at his impressions of Eichmann and the trial. He was asked to share his thoughts about the future, and about whether he had any guidelines for potentially preventing the rise of personalities like Adolf Eichmann.
To this question, he responded: “The only thing that can save the world from another Eichmann is a true democracy. We must stand up for democracy.”
In developing and keeping what he termed as a “true democracy,” Less stressed several key points.
First, a true democracy must include the active participation of all residents in their own governance. True democracies ensure that all people have and maintain their freedom of speech, and society ensures freedom of the press to encourage open dialogue.
It also demands real transparency and accountability of all elected officials. In true democracies, the rule of law is upheld no matter what one’s station is in society in order to maintain justice for all.
Also crucial is equal representation of diverse voices and constituencies. Foundational to a true democracy is the protection of individual rights and personal freedoms: the protection of minority rights to prevent oppression and discrimination.
An educated and highly aware public is essential for informed civic engagement and the promotion of free and fair elections to empower citizens. A true democracy fosters civic education to inform citizens about their rights and responsibilities.
And these democratic systems must continually adjust and adapt to changing societal values and needs.
As rhymes or echoes of history resound today in the United States and in other backsliding democracies in the world, Erick Fromm’s precision in distinguishing “malignant narcissism” from typical narcissistic personality disorder and Avner W. Less’s suggestions for developing and maintaining “true democracies” can possibly prevent the promotion of future Adolf Eichmann’s from holding extreme and absolute power positions.
We in the United States still have a chance to get back on the path toward a true democracy.
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