In the Hub of the Holocaust: Lipstadt's Eichmann Trial

Abstract

Lipstadt’s The Eichmann Trial synthesizes three themes: the overwhelming evidence that Eichmann was the operating manager of the Holocaust; a rejection of Hannah Arendt’s influential theses that Eichmann was but a cog in the bureaucratic machinery designed to murder European Jewry; and a refutation of Holocaust denial. Each of these three components of her book is done cogently.Lipstadt is a historian, and on the subject of Holocaust denial, perhaps the world’s leading historian, a position underscorred by her successful defense of a libel suit brought by Holocaust denier David Irving. Her perspective as a historian, however, causes her to unjustly criticize the prosecution in the Eichmann trial for “getting the history wrong.” Eichmann was charged with conspiracy in multiple counts. The admissibility of evidence in a conspiracy case is a function of the rules of agency since the law views a conspiracy as a partnership in crime. Thus, conduct in furtherance of the conspiracy is admissible against all the members of the conspiracy. These rules are not the same as rules governing a PhD thesis or an academic exercises in general.That observation should not, however, cloud the valuable purpose Lipstadt’s book serves. At a time when survivors of the Holocaust are diminishing rapidly, Lipstadt’s The Eichmann Trial is a welcome rendition of the greatest mass murder trial in world history.