Mass atrocity, ordinary evil, and Hannah Arendt

About this book

"Is it possible that the soldiers of wartime mass atrocities - Adolph Eichmann in Nazi Germany and Alfred Astiz in Argentina's Dirty War, for example - act under conditions that prevent them from recognizing their crimes? In the aftermath of catastrophic, state-sponsored mass murder, how are criminal courts to respond to those who either gave or carried out the military orders that seem unequivocally criminal?". "This book adresses political theorist Hannah Arendt's controversial argument that perpetrators of mass crimes are completely unaware of their wrongdoing, and therefore existing criminal laws do not adequately address these defendants. Mark Osiel applies Arendt's ideas about the kind of people who implement bureaucratized large-scale atrocities to Argentina's Dirty War of the 1970s, and he also delves into the social conditions that could elicit such reprehensible conduct. He focuses on Argentine naval captain Astiz, who led one of the most notorius abduction squads, to discover how this soldier and other junior officers could justify the murders of more than ten thousand suspected "subversives.""--BOOK JACKET.