either side object to a jury.

that leans
towardthe blue-ribbon side.

of an appresiable number; of Negroes

and PuertoRicansfromthearray,
the alleged failure 'of ,the Jury Clerk
NUMEROUS criminal cases tried in to obtain a good cross section of the
community,and
the resulting prevarious Fedeial District Courts have
been appealed on the basis of alleg- ponderance ,of members of the
.< owner-managemeqt" group.
edlyunrepresentativearray.Other
appeals have been pegged on charges
The negative decision on the apof a bad trial jury itself. Only,in rare peal said, In part:
instances-when
dellberate exclusion
Defendantshave no vested right i n
of la,rge groups of persons could be
any particularmethod of [jury] ' selectlon, so Iong as the resulting arl-ay
proved-have the appeals been sucbe not the product of mtentional and
cessful.
systematicdiscriminatlon.
, and the United
Clrcuitcourts
States Supreme Court have held reOnce on the array of qualified canp-eatedlym that a fairtrial does not didates,acitizen
can be called to
depend on proportionalrepresentaserve
frequently,
occasionally, or
tion of all sectors of society. One of never. Hecannptbe
called more
the best-known cases involved a often 'than every two years. His name
group of ,Communists convicted un- is strickenfromthearrayonlyin
der the Smith Act. The appeal was theevent
of death,incapacitating
based on threepoints:the
absence illness, removal from the district, as-

sumption of anoccupatioq
on the
exemptlist,convictlon
of a felony,
or passing of his seventieth.'b'irthday.
Thisfacet
of thesystem
causes
t h e same persons t b be called time
aftertime.Additiohs
tothearray
are made gradually, as the need develops, thus allowing for great selectivlty. The suggestion has been made
of the.array
that large
segments
should be replaced periodically. This
proposal meets with little sympathy
from the bench.
In fact,acommittee
of federal
judges now concluding a study of the
jury system for the Judicial Conferadence of' the UnitedStates,an
visory group of federal jurists, finds
llttle of substance to criticize in the
presentoperatlons.
The outlook is
for an inclefmite continhation of the
status quo.

by Stuart Palmer
SIX MILLION Jews, including one

million children, were killed by the

Germans
and
clearly
Adolf Eichmann played a continuingpart
in
thesemurders.This
was not mass
murder;there is no suchthing.Indlvlduals die separately, one by one.
T r y t o envision themurder of one
uniquehuman
being every -minute
of everydayfor
eleven and a half
yearsandyou
will have some idea
of the magnitude of this violence.
The fundamental questionhere is
not whether Argentina's rights
were
violated byIsrael,notwhether
internatlonalor Israelilaw allows for
a trial of Elchmann,andcertainly
not whether
Eichmann
is guilty.
Even if one adopts the view that he
was acting under ordersfromHeydrich, HlmmlcrandHltIer,there
is
deflnlteevidence that hewent beyond those orders. He was not ordered to cause the deathof twenty-seven
1945,
British fliers a t Terezin
in
but he did so.
1
The fundamentalquestion is how
men can, proceed so that children do

STUART PALMER teaches sociology at t h e University of N e w H a m p

shbe.

August 20, 1960

not grow up to be Hitlers and Eichmanns.

IN 1906, in the Ruhr, in the city of

Solingen, Karl Adolf Eichmann was
born, the eldest of four sons. His
parents were middle class, his father
an electrical engineer: There is some
evidence that the mother was a domineering, aggressive womanand the
father a weak, dependent and passive
man.
When
Karl
Adolf was four
years old, his mother died while givingbirth to the youngest son. T h e
father moved, with' the fourchildren,
to the Austriancity of Linz.Eventually, the father remarried.
I n LinzandVienna
the teen-age
Karl Adolf, or Adolf as he was later
known, made friends with Jews,
seemed t o like thewarmth of the
Jewish middle-class way of life. At
the sametime,hebeganattending
National Socialist gatherings. He
heard Hitler speak,wasimpressed,
then in 1931 joined' the Nazl Party
6f Austria. At that point a low-paid
salesman .for an oil company, Eichmann was attractedbythe
actioncentered approach, i f the developing
Nazis.
Because of his friendship with Jew-

ish families, Eichmann spoke Yiddish.

Also, he was frequently judged because of facial structure and coloring
to be a Jew. As he left a bar one evening in that same year of 1931, youpg
followers of Hitler accosted him,
'beat
him
into
semi-consciousness,
Recovered, hebrokewithhis
Jewish friends and joinedagroup
of
young toughs who spent their spare
time in Jew-baiting.
'It was during this period, also,.
sufthat he felI fromamotorcycle,
fered injuries of the headandwas
hospitalized for several weeks. It is
interesting that in a resent study, by
the author, of fifty-one United States
murderers, head injuries,. dominating
mothers- and passive fathers were
found be
to
relatively common
among the murderers."
Erchmann moved toGermany in
1933, became a regular party worker, then an S.S. member, soon was a
sergeant. Two years later he married
Veronica Liebl, who is his wife today. S.S. GeneralReinhardt
Heydrich spotted him as a potential leader of the assault on the Jews and, in

:>A Stady of A I w - d e r . B y Stuart

Palmer. Thomas P. Crowell,. $4.95.

91

1941 Eichmann. was p1ac.d in- command o the Jewish Central Emigration offlcg? t h e Rosition fromwhich
he directed the killings of t h e six
millionpersons. ,
His
.Nazi
superiors
considered
Eichmann a genius- of organization.
New methods of death were perfected,, new methods of disposing of the
bodies were painstakingly deyeloped
He traveled
under
hls
guidance.
widely, arrangingforconsignments
of Iews, checking carefully the various ph;ases. of theoperation,noting
the efficency of his subordinates.

T-herq, are those who will say that

Eichmanl? is a monster and should
be exterminated. There are those who
wilI rask.why should the Jews be expected t o bebetterthanother
people; that is, why shauld the Jews
avoid capital
punishment
in the
Elchpann case? And there are those
who will s a y t h a t t o ask for underspnding of Eicllmann is t o ask too
mucl;. Understanding of human beingsdoes not seem to, be a popular
ooa1. Whencrimes
of violence are
?
Involved, and these in almost overp-owering numbers, t h e desire to undel-stand
becomes
even less wideThe smallerchildren usually cried
I
spread.
I - beFause of the strangeness of being
L
B
u
t
what
more
effective,
way
is
undressed . . . , but when ther
there
of
trying
t
o
reduce
a
problem,
mothers or members of the SpecIal
in ,this case iriolence, than to pnderDetachment comforted them, they
became calm and entered the gas
standwhatproduces
it! If individchambers, playing or Joking with one
uals let thit ,very
violence sway them
another and carrying their toys.
from therationaltotheemotional,
\ ,
I noticed t h a t womenwho either
then the result is only a strengthen,guessed or knew what awaited them
ing of the vicious circle.
nevertheless
found
the courage to
Let me be more direct about this:
.joke with the children t o encourage
terrible
as Eichmannscrimeswere,
them, despite the mortal terror visible
if
one
is
going
t o insistonbeing
in their own eyes.
on
negatively emotional about him,
Onewoman approached me as she
puttinghimbeyond
the sphere of
walked past ?nd, pointing to her four
childrp who ylere manfully help+
human beings, on putting him bethe smallest ones over- the rough
yond understanding, then the whole
ground, whispered: How can YOU
to achievereasonhumanattempt
bring yourself t o k1ll such beautiful,
able,non-violent,productive
okder
darling chlldren? Have you no heart
probably cannot hrevail.
WITH
the
story
briefly
told,
the
at all??
Eichmanncouldbeincarcerited,
fundamentalquestionremains:How
in thecontext of
This was written by Rudolf Hoess, can men proceed so t h a t children do studiedcarefully
his cultural , and social background.
commandant of ane of Eichmanns n6t grow up to be Hitlers and EichCertainly, i t is doubtful that his reHe wasconvicted of manns? What could be doneabout
deathcamps.
demption as a constructive human
war ,crimes at Nuremberg and then
the Eichmann case t h a t wouldfurbeing
could beachieved;butthe
of his ther this end?
ordered- to writeanaccount
atternpt-&dd
in itself be symbolicactivities,
which
was
published
in
Elchmann could beunderstood.
ally
important.
Once it is admitted
1960 as- Commandant of Azcsclzwitz There could be a massive att,empt t o
i s beyond
that
any
human
being
by the WorIdPublishing Company.- seek out the social, cultural,*psychoredemption,
then
failure
in
the genEichrpann is supposed to have said logical factorswhichdrovehis
aceral effort t o reduce broad-scale huin 1944, I shall leap into my grave tions. What were the cultural forces
laughingbecause t h e feeIing t h a t I a t work m Germany which allowed man problems is- admitted.
Staggeringlymonstrous
as Eichhave the death of f w e million people
a situation to developwhere a HitlerandanEichmann
filled a need rnanns actions have been, there were
o~n~y consciencewill beformea
source of extraordlnary satisfaction. in the members of the society? And
causesforthoseactionsandthey
Those whoknewhim
welldescribe
needed they were, or they would not c3anbe comprehended. Like it pr not,
Eichmannasa
composed,businesshave
flourished.
W h a t experiences it may be well t q keep in mind t h a t
a two-year-old
Elchmanns
As a molded
personality? Eichmannwasonce
like,. firmyetcourteousman.
child h e had been exceedingly withWhat was thenature of this per- who played in the sand as my child
drawn b u t in his years of power he
sonality that couldfill t h a t need in iS doing now. T h e case of Eichmann
is anindiis the grand oppprtunity to put cqnwas .sociable, drank heavily, b u t n o t Germansociety?Here
spuctive rat,ional action
ahead
of
to, the extent that his efficiency was vidualcasestudywithinasocietal
iEpajyFd, had a reputation for sexual case study, both of which are of t h e destructive se1f:defeating emotional:
utmost significance if we are ever t o ism in the human march towardnonlust@.
of -the violence. I n all likelihood t h a t pppormake strides toward solution
, At present,
evidenceconcerning
tunity will not be grasped.
Eichp,anns
basis
personality
is problem of l p y V i o I ~ n . qdevelops.
1

scant a t best. Tentative speculatioa

is that 11. was and is higlllyIntelligent, extrelnely. insecure. ridden with
repressedaggression.
Thereare in:
dications that he is compulsiveand
beset by strong,latenthomosexual
tendencies.
. Wlth the wars end Eichmann went
in hiding near Linz. Soon he changed
his tactrs, impersonated a h f t z u n f f e
privateand
allowed himself t o be
capturedbyUnitedStatestroops,
In 1946 heescaped,hid
in thefor-
ests, went to-Romk and Madrid, to
BuenosAires.
Wo,rkingfirst as an
engmeering supervisqr and then as a
clerk in an auto,assembly plant, he
earned a small reputationfor. effi:
ciency. Hecalled
himself Ricardo
Flementz. His wife and childrin had
rejolned him and in the tpwq of San
Fernando,outside of Buenos Aires,
he budt a smaI1 home. He became a
commuter. .
And then on May
11, 1960, Ekhmannwascapturednearhishome
by Israeli cqmmandos. H e is reported to have said, I realize there is
no point in continuing to evade; justice. I declare myself willing TO proceed to IsraeI and to stand trial-be:
. . I want
fore a competent court.
at last to achleve inner
peace.