Adolf Eichmann's Role In Upbringing Jews In The Holocaust

Stanley Milgram’s obedience study is known as the most famous study ever conducted. Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted an experiment that focused on the conflict between personal conscience and compliance to command. This experiment was conducted in 1961, a year following the court case of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram formulated the study to answer the question “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?” (Milgram, 1974). The investigation was to see whether Germans were specially obedient, under the circumstances, to dominant figures. This was a frequently said explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II.

The Holocaust was a horrific period in which millions of Jews were executed and worked to death by Nazi soldiers, who are also inhumane perpetrators. A perpetrator is someone who executes dangerous immoral acts or crimes. Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi soldier under the rule of Adolf Hitler. One can infer by his status that he was indeed a perpetrator. Eichmann’s reason for the death of so many innocent Jews was that he was simply following orders. He fulfilled his role of being a perpetrator by annihilating millions of Jews.

In The Perils of Obedience, Stanley Milgram introduces us to his experimental studies on the conflict between one’s own conscience and obedience to authority. From these experiments, Milgram discovered that a lot of people will obey a figure in authority; irrespective of the task given - even if it goes against their own moral belief and values. Milgram’s decision to conduct these experiments was to investigate the role of Adolf Eichmann (who played a major part in the Holocaust) and ascertain if his actions were based on the fact that he was just following orders; as most Germans accused of being guilty for war crimes commonly explained that they were only being obedient to persons in higher authority.

Milgram conducted an experiment on obedience to authority. His influence came from the second world war, where Nazi’s committed evil crimes and were part of the mass murder of thousands of Jews. Milgram wanted to know what influences people to do evil things like this, and whether it is due to ‘just following orders’ from an authority figure. Slater et al attempted to replicate Milgram’s (1963) study of obedience using a virtual environment. In this essay, I will discuss the similarities and differences between these studies, using evidence to support my points.

Hannah Arendt controversially discussed how banality, ordinariness and everyday life played an important role in the manifestation of the holocaust in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963). In 1961 Arendt reported on Eichmann’s trial in Israel for the New Yorker. Eichmann was a primary organiser of the holocaust and was tried for 15 charges, including crimes against humanity and the Jewish people. Arendt observed that Eichmann himself was not an impressive monster or some Cartesian Evil Genius one would expect to be responsible the murder of millions of people, in fact she described him as completely ordinary. Not only was he physically unimpressive, but he was declared psychologically to be completely normal by six psychologists.

For the most part, the theory that all people have aggressive instincts was wrong. Twenty-five out of forty subjects obeyed the scientist to the end, and two subjects went up to 325 and 450 volts. Those who shocked the victim at the most severe levels came from a brutal society. Some were aware of their harmful actions but could not let themselves disobey. They told themselves that they were listening and being good by doing so. It made light of the situation when they thought they were doing a great job. When told what the actual experiment was, the subjects were amazed, comparing it to the events of the holocaust. Milgram states, “I must conclude that Arendt’s conception of the banality of evil comes closer to the truth that one might dare imagine” (587). “Banality of evil” was a phrase used in the trial where Eichmann showed no guilt for his actions and claimed that he only partook in the events of the holocaust because he was doing his job.

Adolf Eichmann was highly involved with the creation and operation of the "final solution to the Jewish question". He produced the idea of the deportation of Jews into ghettos and helped to formulate and work the idea of labor camps also known as concentration camps, and went about concentrating Jews into these isolated areas with brutal efficiency. Adolf Eichmann took great pride in the role he played in the extermination of around about six million, mainly European Jews.

Teaching is a profession that is very influential. I.L. Kandel describes how education is an instrument of social control and he was right. When Adolf Hitler came into the power of Germany the entire educational system tried to transform the youth into non-Aryan hating, militaristic, strong, and very obedient members of the Nazi society. If a government can control the educational system, it can most likely control society a lot more easily. However, some of the nationalistic views that many of the main Nazis had were brought to them during World War I in the classroom. Many classrooms celebrated the military aspect of war

When you hear the words “World War Two,” you may immediately think of the powerful Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler. However, there was a lesser known Adolf during that time, and his last name was Eichmann. Nevertheless, he was just as malevolent as Hitler. You may be asking yourself, “who is Adolf Eichmann?” Adolf Eichmann was one of the world's most notorious Nazis during WWII, and to understand this you will see how he was first introduced to the Nazi party, the plans he conducted during the war, where he escaped to postwar, who tracked him down and caught him, his time in captivity, the return plan, how his glory days came to an end in the Eichmann trial, and how the world reacted to the mayhem he brought about.

The control that Hitler had on his fallowers was based on the physiological behavior that occurs when someone who has power is viewed as someone who is correct and their actions and beliefs are justifies. Stanley Milgram from Yale University conducted a research to test obedience to a toxic leader. The results show that when someone is given an order by a person in a higher power, there’s a high chance that people will do what ever they are told even if its hurting another person. The experiment consisted of a person with a white coat who was supposed to represent the researcher. The “researcher” asked volunteers to give electrical shocks to a person every time they got a question wrong. The volunteers also needed to increase the amount of electrical current until they reached a deathly amount, which the majority of the volunteers gave to the person. Even when the volunteers hear the other person screaming and asking to be released, they continued since they researcher told them to continue until they were told to stop. Based on this research we can see how much of a physiological influence a person with power has on its

When individuals are being instructed, when the instructions come from someone of a higher authority they are usually acted upon. In the study of the trial of Adolf Eichmann one can clearly see this concept being demonstarated. Since Hitler was an authority figure over Adolf , he therefore listened to everything he was told to do. Adolf listened to Hitler whether what he was instructed to do was morally wrong or went against his better judgement. When it came to taking instructions Eichmann simply followed through because he was being told to do it from a person of authority. Eichmann was thoughtless in his actions, which is said to lead to evil because it does not allow is to see things from others perspectives ( ). In relation to the trial

Although Karl appeared to be a murderer since he killed so many innocent Jews during World War II, he deserved forgiveness because the scientific experiment explains that Karl’s behaviors were led by human being. The most two related experiments to shows Karl’s actions in psychological ways are taken by Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo. In Milgram’s experiment, it showed that subordinates would have a tough time if they go against orders. More specifically, Milgram displayed the data that twenty five out of forty subjects choose to fully obey the order even though their actions would be harmful for learners (Milgram 64). This experiment displayed a persuasive evidence to show that people attend to follow the command from the authority; even the order might have conflict with their humanity. Just like in Karl’s case, he served for Nazi’s evil ideology which was so powerful and authoritative. He must follow the command from Nazis

Discovery of the Nazi death camps at the end of World War II sent shockwaves throughout the entire world and brought to question how civilized humans could participate in the atrocity of what is now known as the Holocaust. Although from the beginning, it was clear Nazi’s believed Jews and other races were inferior to the Aryan race, the idea of genocide was not their original intent. How then were German soldiers able to exterminate Jews without question? Christopher Browning in his book Ordinary Men dives into the human psyche to try and recreate the possibilities in which the German soldier were able to carry out these horrifying acts.

(106) Eichmann makes such claims of being victimized, stating he stopped being the “master of his own deeds” (136), and became the “victim of a fallacy.” (248) In this way, he also denies that he is free. The greatest human freedom is the ability to choose one's attitude and one's actions, which Eichmann relinquished by asserting that he lacked a choice, and therefore carried no burden of responsibility.

Throughout the years obedience has had an enormous effect on human history. It has caused nations to rise and fall, prosper and suffer; yet it has also brought destruction among innocent people. The Jewish holocaust is one of the best publicized examples of the perils of obedience. Hitler caused otherwise normal people to commit atrocious acts, acts that greatly reduced the number of Jewish people. Philip Zimbardo, a professor of psychology at Stanford university, questions to what extent will a person allow themselves to be imprisoned by obeying others commands; Andrew Wolfson, a senior investigative reporter working for the Louisville Courier Journal, similarly discusses how a young adult was brutalized because of our