PART 3 OF 5
[Laughing]
[Offers to carry Hannah's bags]
[Hannah Arendt] Hey. Kurt, no!
Think of your heart.
[Kurt Blumenfeld (1884-1963)] I know. I'm not getting any younger.
That's why I wish you wouldn't leave me so quickly.
[Hannah Arendt] I'm never very far from you.
Never.
[Kurt Blumenfeld (1884-1963)] [Pointing to trunk] What's in there?
[Hannah Arendt] Transcripts of the trial.
Six tapes of Eichmann's questioning.
[Kurt Blumenfeld (1884-1963)] I could have them shipped to New York.
[Hannah Arendt] I have to start reading at once.
[Hannah Arendt & Kurt Blumenfeld] [Big embrace]
[Kurt Blumenfeld (1884-1963)] Bring Heinrich along next time.
[Hannah Arendt & Kurt Blumenfeld] [Warmly wave goodbye to each other]
***
[Door opens]
[Hannah Arendt] [To Heinrich] You're home!
[They embrace]
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] [Chuckles]
[Hannah Arendt] Oh!
What about your classes?
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Canceled! I said it's an emergency.
[They embrace again]
[Hannah Arendt] Thank you, Freddy.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] [Gives Freddy a tip.]
[Freddy] Thank you.
[Hannah Arendt] [Sitting down] [Sighs] Ah!
How good to be home.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Four pounds.
Can't you see it?
[Hannah Arendt] [Laughs]
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] I starved myself for you.
[Hannah Arendt] Look at my homework over there.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] You're taking a few days off.
[Hannah Arendt] Stups, I have 2000 pages to read before the semester starts.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Don't exaggerate, Frau Professor.
[Hannah Arendt] [Pointing to roses] From Mary?
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] No.
From me.
[Chuckles]
[They embrace]
***
[Hannah Arendt] Stups! That's the wrong pile.
Miller begged me to take over another class.
Someone's ill or getting a divorce or something typically American like that.
My head's spinning as it is.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] You have to learn to say no. But only to others, of course.
Hannah.
[Phone rings]
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] [In English] Yes?
Ah. Here.
Hello, Mr. Shawn.
[Hannah Arendt] [Gasps] [Gestures she doesn't want to talk to him]
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Uh, she's not in right now. She should be back soon.
Yes, certainly. I will give her the message.
[Hannah Arendt] [In German] Well?
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] That polite Mr. Shawn didn't say as much,
but I guess he's curious to know when you'll deliver the articles.
[Hannah Arendt] There's not even a verdict yet.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Yes...
How dare that Mr. Shawn call you at all?
[Hannah Arendt] [Laughs]
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] I don't think he can imagine
that so celebrated a writer as you
is so busy fighting her papers and hasn't written a word.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] But Monsieur here would have finished the articles long ago.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Without a doubt.
[Hands her some files]
[Hannah Arendt] [Curtsies to him]
Thank you.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] [Bows to her]
Frau Professor.
***
[Hannah Arendt] [Typing]
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] You can also use my office.
[Hannah Arendt] [In French] You are too kind, sir!
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] You just have to move my pipe-stand.
[Hannah Arendt] [In German] Your doctor will like that.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] People in glass houses ...
[Hannah Arendt] [Typing away]
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] [Just leaving without bothering her further]
[Hannah Arendt] How can you leave me like that? No hug, no kiss?
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Never disturb a great philosopher when they're thinking.
[Hannah Arendt] But they can't think without kisses.
[Kisses him]
***
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] [To Freddy] You can put it here.
[Freddy] [Sets down the package]
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] Thank you, Freddy.
[Freddy] You're welcome.
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] [To Hannah] [In German] From Israel.
At least 500 new pages from the court.
I'll sort them for you later.
[Hannah Arendt] I'm so lucky to have you, Lotte.
I'd never be such good friends with my own daughter.
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] My father always says God gave us family,
but thank God we can choose our friends.
[Hannah Arendt] Well ...
[In English] Interesting theory.
[In German] You think I'd have chosen Charlotte?
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] Oh, I forgot. She called earlier.
She wanted Heinrich's new number at Bard.
[Hannah Arendt] Did you give it to her?
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] Unfortunately, I couldn't find it.
[Hannah Arendt] [Groans]
Careful, Lotte. She's a psychoanalyst and can probably read your mind ...
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] Should I take these away again?
[Hannah Arendt] Please.
Thanks.
***
[Hannah Arendt] [Reading]
[Man] They slept as if dead.
Someone came in and called out:
Quick now, the SS are coming back.
I had two friends beside me.
[Several voices overlapping]
[Man #2] Once a week the infamous Dr. Mengele selection was held.
The rumor that Dr. Mengele had arrived was enough
to spread fear and terror throughout the camp.
[Man #3] ... confess his guilt ...
If there had been more
of what I term civil courage,
then some things would have turned out differently.
[Remembering]
[PHILOSOPHY FACULTY PROF. DR. M. HEIDEGGER]
[Young Hannah Arendt] [Knocks on his door]
[Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)] Miss Arendt.
[Clock ticking]
[Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)] You say you want me to teach you how to think.
[Young Hannah Arendt] [Nods her head yes]
[Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)] Thinking
is a lonely business.
[Young Hannah Arendt] [Smiles]
***
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Every time I even write a sex scene, I have you horribly on my conscience,
as if you're tugging at my elbow saying, "Stop."
[Hannah Arendt] I have no problem with sex.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] I'm afraid you'll think I'm an exhibitionist or something.
[Hannah Arendt] Well, you are.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] [Chuckles]
[Hannah Arendt] But you've written your first book without a hint of memoir.
It's pure fiction, is it?
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Is that a left-handed compliment or just straight criticism?
[Hannah Arendt] No!
I think you've written beautifully balanced sentences
and I think at times it's hilariously funny.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] You have never been this positive. Did you hate all my other books?
[Hannah Arendt] Mary!
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Well!
[Hannah Arendt] You can't take a compliment.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] No.
[Professor Thomas Miller] [Running by] Hannah!
[In German] You are my heroine!
[In English] I thank you.
The German Department thanks you.
We all thank you.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Oh, God. Ask him for a raise.
[Hannah Arendt] [Chuckles]
***
[Hannah Arendt] [In German] You see,
Western tradition
mistakenly assumes
that the greatest evils of mankind
arise from selfishness.
But in our century, evil has proven to be more radical
than was previously thought.
And we now know
that the truest evil,
the radical evil,
has nothing to do
with selfishness or any such understandable, sinful motives.
Instead, it is based on the following phenomenon:
making human beings superfluous as human beings.
The entire concentration camp system was designed
to convince the prisoners
they were unnecessary
before they were murdered.
In the concentration camps men were taught
that punishment was not connected to a crime,
that exploitation wouldn't profit anyone,
and that work produced no results.
The camp is a place
where every activity and human impulse
is senseless.
Where, in other words, senselessness is daily produced anew.
Fascist ideology, whatever its specific predicates, repudiates human reason and exalts irrationalism and irrationalist violence, often in the form of wanton military aggression and imperialism. A fascist mass movement is the most aggressive form of militant irrationalism. From Mussolini's Romanita through Hitler's Herrenvolk to the Great Russian master race conception of "Moscow the Third Rome," fascist ideology is based on notions of racial superiority and race hatred, extreme chauvinism, and blood and soil mysticism. Fascism is neo-pagan and ferociously hostile to Augustinian Christianity, as can be shown from Mussolini's early career and from Hitler's private conversations. This same neo-paganism is perfectly expressed in the predilection of Russian totalitarianism for the Russian Orthodox Church. In the Western world, fascism can be correctly called the politics of cultural despair.
--
Project Democracy's Program -- The Fascist Corporate State, by Webster Griffin Tarpley
So, to summarize:
If it is true
that in the final stage of totalitarianism,
an absolute evil emerges,
absolute as it no longer relates to human motives,
then it is equally true
that without it,
without totalitarianism,
we would never have known
the truly radical nature of evil.
What time is it?
Ah.
The second hour has begun. You know what that means.
[Student brings her a cigarette]
Thank you.
[Lights her cigarette]
Thank you.
[Student Enrico] May I ask you a personal question?
[Hannah Arendt] You can try.
[Student Enrico] Were you in a camp?
[Hannah Arendt] I had the opportunity
to spend some time in a French detention camp called Gurs.
[Student Elisabeth] [In English] But weren't the French on your side?
[Hannah Arendt] [In German] In the beginning. They took us in.
But when the Germans invaded France on May 10, 1940,
our French friends put us into detention camps.
We became a new kind of human being,
put into concentration camps by our enemies
and into detention camps by our friends.
[Student Enrico] How did you escape?
[Hannah Arendt] [In English] My husband and I were lucky to receive a visa to America.
[In German] A visa. Not a passport. We were stateless for 18 years.
[Student Enrico] And what was your first impression of America?
[Hannah Arendt] [In English] Paradise.
***
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] [Looking at a book]
[Grabs his head]
[Gasps, Groans]
[Falls on floor]
[tries to get up, breathing heavily]
[Falls back down]
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] [Running across the campus]
[Hannah Arendt] [In German] Do you understand?
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Hannah!
[Hannah Arendt] [In English] Just a moment, please.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] [Holding Hannah's shoulders]
[Hannah Arendt] How did you find --
Who found --
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Charlotte.
[Hannah Arendt] My class. They are waiting.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] I'll take over.
[Hannah Arendt] No, but, Mary, it's --
It's advanced German class.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] They will be delighted to speak English again. Go. Go. Go.
***
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] [Breathing heavily]
[Hannah Arendt] [Sobs]
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Dearest.
Don't cry.
[Hannah Arendt] I spoke to the doctor.
He said you only have a fifty percent chance.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Don't forget the other fifty percent.
[Knock on door]
[Door opens]
[Nurse comes in]
[Door closes]
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] What were you speaking to your students about?
[Hannah Arendt] About us.
***
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] [In English] I understand.
Thank you for the message.
Yes.
Hannah?
[Hannah Arendt] Yes.
[Sink water running]
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] They're hanging Eichmann.
[Hannah Arendt] And so they should.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] They should?
But that's not justice.
[Hannah Arendt] The punishment's not enough?
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] The punishment can only give an appearance of justice.
[Hannah Arendt] There are no real punishments for his deeds.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] That's why it'd be braver to let him live.
Now the verdict's in,
you can stop avoiding your New Yorker friends.
[Hannah Arendt] Not until you've recovered.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] You haven't written a line since my slight collapse.
[Hannah Arendt] Wrong. I've made some notes.
A brain aneurysm isn't a "slight collapse" either.
You could have died.
[Hans Jonas (1903-1993)] But Eichmann is a monster.
And when I say monster, I don't mean Satan.
You don't need to be smart or powerful to behave like a monster.
[Hannah Arendt] You're being too simplistic.
What's new about the Eichmann phenomenon
is that there are so many just like him.
He's a terrifyingly normal human being.
[Hans Jonas (1903-1993)] Not all normal people were head of department 4B-4
at the Reich Security Office
charged with the extermination of Europe's Jews.
[Hannah Arendt] You're right there.
But he considered himself an obedient servant of Germany
who had to obey the Fuhrer's orders.
"My loyalty is my honor."
The Fuhrer's orders became the law.
He didn't feel guilty in the sense of the indictment.
He behaved according to the law.
[Hans Jonas (1903-1993)] It's been proven that Eichmann pursued the Final Solution
even after Himmler had long since forbidden it.
And why? He wanted to finish his work.
The brief discussion of eugenics in Britain which forms the first part of this chapter was necessary in order to emphasise the fact that 'eugenics' was really an umbrella term for a rich variety of ideas. It also serves the purpose of reminding us that, although we concentrate on it for good reason, the history of eugenics in Germany is by no means unique; indeed, it borrowed some of its ideas from abroad.
One of the most shocking of these ideas is that of the gas chamber. There are very few advocates of mass-murder of any sort, particularly not by gassing, to be found in the literature on eugenics. But it seems that in the British consciousness, fuelled by the hyperbole of the press, there was concern that this was exactly the end to which eugenics would lead. From the reassurances to be found in the writings of those who defended eugenics, it seems clear that the idea of the 'lethal chamber', though never set out in any detail, was a widely propagated one from which eugenicists had to distance themselves. At work here we see the defenders of traditional values fighting to ridicule the eugenicists, who in the years before 1918 were at the forefront of progressive thought.
It is unclear where the phrase comes from. Yet the fact that Arnold White felt the need to mention it in an article which later became part of his highly influential book which was cited above, Efficiency and Empire (1901), is revealing. Railing against the same sort of weak character that Ludovici later chose as his target, one which took unnecessary pity on the weak, White wrote the following:
There is no sign of a reaction against the cant that loads the dissolute poor with favours, while brave men and women who refuse to be proselytised prefer to die of hunger in a garret rather than sue for alms. In changing our present methods, however, we must carry with us public opinion. Flippant people of lazy mind talk lightly of the 'lethal chamber,' as though diseased Demos, half conscious of his own physical unfitness, but electorally omnipotent, would permit a curtailment of his pleasures or the abridgement of his liberty. [28]
When White wrote these words in 1899 this sort of defence was necessary, for his advocacy of 'efficiency' could easily be caricatured as being a call for some kind of mechanised or engineered society, inimical to the tradition of 'British liberty'. This is far from being a proposal to establish gas chambers, but a hyperbolic way of demonstrating the acceptably considered opinions of his own book. But today the passage is striking for another reason. Here, forty years before the operation of the first Nazi gas chamber, White introduces the notion of a 'lethal chamber' into his text in the apparently safe knowledge that his readers will know what he is talking about.
Some years later the phrase reappears in another book by White. In a collection of articles produced for the Referee under the pen-name Vanoc, White devoted a whole section to race-regeneration and related matters. In one article, 'Race Culture', he defended the advantages to be won from a policy of eugenics:
I admit that the word 'Eugenics' is repellent, but the thing is essential to our existence. To produce sound minds in sound bodies by impressing on all classes the dignity, the privileges, and the responsibilities of British parenthood is the race-improver's aim. Naturally we are misrepresented ... It is not a fact that Scotland Yard will be invoked to effect the union of the fit, and it is also an error to believe that the plans and specifications for County Council lethal-chambers have yet been prepared. [29]
Again the implication is that word has been spread that this is precisely what the county councils intend to do; at least, the eugenicists have been the butt of jokes accusing them of unrealistic and dangerous dreams of social engineering, what A.F. Tredgold, a member of the Eugenics Education Society's council, called 'dark mutterings regarding "lethal chambers"', mutterings that White for one felt the need to dismiss as absurd. [30]
The term 'lethal chamber' also appears in the work of Caleb Williams Saleeby, the influential member of the Eugenics Society whose books have already been discussed. Because of his position, Saleeby undoubtedly felt more vulnerable than most to the attacks of anti-eugenicists; hence he felt obliged to distance himself from the wilder accusations levelled against his new science. 'Thus,' he wrote,
we need mention, only to condemn, suggestions for 'painless extinction', lethal chambers of carbonic acid, and so forth. As I incessantly have to repeat, eugenics has nothing to do with killing; natural selection acts by death, but eugenic selection by birth ... No form of actual or constructive murder (such as the permission of infant mortality) has any place here, for all these proposals to kill miss the vital point, which involves the distinction between the right to live and the right to become a parent. [31]
Once again, it is clear that Saleeby is responding to those who have sought to besmirch the good name of eugenics by imputing to it intentions of the most abhorrent variety.
The timing of these replies from the eugenicists is no surprise: on 3 March 1910 Bernard Shaw, one of the more wayward supporters of eugenics with his notion of a 'democracy of supermen', delivered a lecture to the Eugenics Education Society. Confirming the fears of those who wished the Society to develop a reputation as a serious scientific institution, Shaw's talk resulted in the press ridiculing eugenicists as advocates of 'free love' and 'lethal chambers'.
Such an outcome was not entirely unforeseeable, given Shaw's well-known volatility. Indeed, a week before the talk, at a time when relations between the Galton Laboratory and the Eugenics Society were already strained, Karl Pearson wrote to the aged Francis Galton, with the hope 'that he will be under self-control and not be too extravagant'. [32] The hope was to be misplaced. One month before Shaw's talk a lecture by C. W. Wilson to the Birmingham Rationalist Association on the subject of eugenics gave rise to 'much wild and absurd talk about lethal chambers, the right to live, and forcible marriages'. [33] In the case of someone so famously outspoken as Shaw, the outcome was sure to be far greater negative publicity. Either the press believed Shaw to be serious, and vilified him, or recognised the tongue-in-cheek nature of his lecture, and underscored it.
Shaw (as reported by the Daily Express) spoke of revising the normative view of the sacredness of human life, abolishing marriage and 'going further in the direction of political revolution than the most extreme Socialist at present advocates in public'. The most shocking part of his speech, came, however, when he turned to the implementation of eugenic measures:
We should find ourselves committed to killing a great many people whom we now leave living, and to leave living a great many people whom we at present kill. We should have to get rid of all ideas about capital punishment.
A part of eugenic politics would finally land us in an extensive use of the lethal chamber. A great many people would have to be put out of existence simply because it wastes other people's time to look after them.
The Daily Express was outraged, apologising to its readers for printing such material, only justifying it by stating that it 'indicates the lengths to which the Socialists, of whom Mr. Bernard Shaw is a leader, will go'. [34]
Other newspapers were equally repulsed by Shaw's talk, though most reported it drily, without comment, other than that which was implied in the headline 'Lethal Chamber essential to Eugenics' as used by the Daily News and the Birmingham Daily Mail. This latter paper, though, was not unduly worried by Shaw's prognostications: 'This is all very shocking, but it is also Shavian, and as some centuries must elapse before Society has fitted itself for such a wildly "ideal" doctrine as this, no one need trouble himself seriously about it.' Among the many other papers that reported the talk, only The Globe and the Evening News also recognised it as a skit on the dreams of the eugenicists, although the Illustrated London News offered a reading that saw Shaw as driving the final nail into the coffin of eugenics, ending with the thought that 'The only daring suggestion for the improvement of the human race that Eugenics suggests to us is that the world would be a jollier place if there were fewer cranks in it.' [35]
It was because of these attacks in the press that the eugenicists sought to employ the language of the 'lethal chamber' in order to make their actual views appear more reasonable, a policy of stealing their enemies' weapons, so to speak. Hence a widely reported series of lectures at Bedford College for Women, which sought to dispel such 'wild' rumours. The Yorkshire Daily Post had this to say about a talk by Dean Inge:
Nothing has been more noticeable of recent years than the advance of the study of eugenics. Some have seized hold of this to advocate the abolition of the marriage tie, the institution of a State lethal chamber, and other equally absurd ideas. It was therefore timely that the Bedford College for Women should arrange a course of lectures to put the science in the right perspective. [36]
A few days later, the Daily Sketch reported that Dr Saleeby had 'wiped down' Shaw in his comments on Shaw's speech; and in response to J.W. Slaughter's speech of 21 March the Manchester Dispatch wrote the following:
The way of the parent must be made easy, but apart from this we must exterminate the undesirable sections of humanity. The establishment of lethal chambers and the resort to surgical measures are, however, the plans of 'wild eugenicists' in the opinion of Dr. Slaughter. These undesirables must be kept apart from the community -- kept in comfort, not treated harshly -- and with safeguards against the reproduction of the species. [37]
Unsurprisingly, the strategy of referring to the worst excesses of anti-eugenics caricaturists in order to appear reasonable was one that seems to have had limited success. Saleeby tried it once again before the war, but even after 1918, when eugenicists in Britain increasingly accepted the arguments of the progressive-minded environmentalists, eugenics largely failed to influence policy (the exception being the debate over the sterilisation of mental defectives). [38] But in 1914, just before the outbreak of war, Saleeby sought to defend the inherent moderation of eugenics in its pure form:
Since Galton's death eugenics has been used as an agent of class prejudice, an argument against love, a reason for cruel and wicked surgical operations, for defending the neglect of infancy, and for wild talk about lethal chambers and stud farms. Such prostitutions of eugenics are the very substance of irreligion, and a materialistic 'philosophy' is at the heart of them. [39]
Remarkably, Saleeby's twin nightmare of 'lethal chambers and stud farms' sum up the two aspects of Nazi eugenics policy: the 'negative' policy of genocide -- the Holocaust -- and the 'positive' policy of the Lebensborn, Himmler's nascent project to promote 'sound breeding' among SS members (although in reality there never were SS stud farms, as we have been encouraged to believe by popular literature).
The point of this is no more than to point out that in England, decades before the Nazis began gassing Jews to death by the million, the fantasy of the lethal chamber was already being mooted. In the early years of eugenics, it was not uncommon for its advocates to recommend that 'The surest, the simplest, the kindest, and most humane means for preventing reproduction among those whom we deem unworthy of this high privilege, is a gentle, painless death; and this should be administered not as a punishment, but as an expression of enlightened pity for the victims ... ' [40] In the literature cited here, the term 'lethal chamber' serves less a fantastic than a rhetorical quality: defending eugenics against its denigrators. But there is no doubt that the reason for the term's continued use is to be found in the imaginative shock which it presents to the person who hears or reads it. Why then were people so shocked during the war, when the news of the mass-murders began to seep out of the occupied eastern territories, or after the war, when the newsreels confirmed what so many had wanted to disbelieve?
The answer might be the fact that the term 'lethal chamber' passes out of common parlance in interwar Britain. I have already noted that the wilder claims for eugenics gradually fell from favour after 1918; there are few references to lethal chambers after that point. Nevertheless, the idea only died slowly. In 1919 an investigation into male prostitution elicited this comment from W.J.H. Brodrick:
The professional boys are about the most degraded being you could find. They have no talk except obscenity; no ideas except unnatural vice; they are usually diseased and a pest and a nuisance to everybody with whom they come into contact. Personally I should be glad to see them put in a lethal chamber and have done with it. [41]
Shaw returned to the theme in 1922, this time with slightly more reasoned backing for his assertions, in his preface to Sidney and Beatrice Webb's English Local Government, under the heading of 'The Lethal Chamber'. On the question of 'incorrigible villains', Shaw argued that the 'most obvious course is to kill them'. In response to the predicted objection that the state should not be setting an example of killing, Shaw argued that imprisonment already did this:
imprisonment is as irrevocable as hanging. Each is a method for taking a criminal's life; and when he prefers hanging or suicide to imprisonment for life, as he sometimes does, he says, in effect, that he had rather you took his life all at once, painlessly, than minute by minute in a long-drawn-out torture.
Although Shaw was not as outspoken here as in his infamous 1910 speech, his conclusions were probably all the more worrying for that:
The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it ... If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions. If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way. Is it any wonder that some of us are driven to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the hard cases which are at present made the excuse for dragging all the other cases down to their level, and the only solution that will create a sense of full social responsibility in modern populations? [42]
Probably the most public reference to the notion of the lethal chamber can be found in a book by Leonard Darwin, second youngest and longest-surviving son of Charles Darwin, and president of the Eugenics Society. In his 1926 book The Need for Eugenic Reform he devoted a whole sub-chapter to the idea of the lethal chamber as one of the possibilities for the elimination of the unfit. He objected to the lethal chamber for these reasons:
From the moral point of view, it would tend to associate the idea of murder with that of social progress, and would consequently tend to increase the number of murders. From the racial point of view, it would, as in the case of excessive punishments, be less willingly adopted than other more humane methods and, therefore, less effective. And from the individual point of view, it would cause great distress of mind to many through the fear not only that they themselves would be thus 'eliminated', but also that that might be the fate of some beloved relative ... Certainly 'scientific baby murder' cannot be tolerated, and in regard to eugenic reform generally, we must never attempt to act through the agency of the death rate, but only through that of the birth rate.
Also condemning sterilisation, Darwin favoured 'conception control' above all. [43] But it is the fact that he felt the need to devote not inconsiderable space to the lethal chamber that is so interesting; even in the interwar years, it seems that the idea still existed, at least to the extent that those who wanted eugenics to be taken seriously had to prove their distaste for it. Even a radical hereditarian like Charles Armstrong -- who believed that 'It is chiefly "humanitarian" legislation that is now deliberately destroying our fine stock' -- felt it necessary to stress in the rush to 'diminish the dangerous fertility of the unfit' that it was sterilisation rather than the other two options of segregation or the lethal chamber that was preferable. [44]
The only other reference I have found for the interwar period appears in the fringe context of an Imperial Fascist League meeting in 1937. Richard Thurlow, in his ground-breaking book Fascism in Britain, gives the details: Henry Hamilton Beamish, vice-president of the IFL (and founder of the Britons in 1918) gave a talk entitled 'National Socialism (Racial Fascism) in Practice in Germany' in which he lauded Hitler's Germany for having identified 'the enemy'. He then added, as Thurlow notes, 'with chilling prophecy', that 'it would be the task of a great leader, Hitler for preference, to march into Russia in the next five years and place one half of the population in the lethal chamber and the other half in the zoo'. [45]
The use of the phrase by an extremist like Beamish would not be so interesting were it not for the fact that it clearly has an intellectual heritage going back to the turn of the century. By the 1930s Beamish already -- in England, at any rate -- sounded like the champion of a lost cause; but in Germany the cause was of course gaining ground. Before the First World War, the work of Galton and his successor Karl Pearson had long since argued for the importance of genetic over environmental factors in determining human heredity; by the time of Beamish's lecture in 1937 or Ludovici's published plans for selective breeding programmes, such an extreme, one-sided position was, scientifically speaking, outdated. G. R. Searle is certainly correct to state that demands for the use of the lethal chamber 'were never seriously put forward by British eugenists'; [46] nevertheless, the whole language of racial deterioration, elimination of the unfit, and scientific, objective and hence unalterable descriptions of the evils of miscegenation, hybridisation and degeneration fed deftly into the programmes of racists. Besides, the idea of the lethal chamber was certainly kept alive precisely by those same eugenicists who sought to fight off any association with it, just as it was in the imaginative literature of H.G. Wells, who in 1933 fantasised about a gas attack on Berlin in 1940, describing in detail the corpses laid out on Unter den Linden, a scene whose ironic value needs no comment today, since it bears so uncanny a resemblance to descriptions of bodies in the Nazi gas chambers. [47]
These ideas ultimately penetrated rather more deeply in Germany than in Britain. George Mosse has shown the considerable success with which the Archiv fur Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie (Journal for Racial and Social Biology), founded in 1904, propagated Galton's and Pearson's ideas. It followed with especial interest developments at Pearson's Francis Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics, founded at University College London in the same year. [48]
While eugenics, or at least the laws of heredity in relation to race, had become scientifically acceptable by 1914, it was to be in 1930s Germany rather than in Britain that the language of the Volkskorper became the basis for a state-sanctioned programme of 'national purification'. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of this chapter, and have anyway been discussed many times over elsewhere. Here I want only to ask, since the field of eugenics was established in Britain, and was eagerly taken on board by German scientists, might it not also be the case that the notion of the 'lethal chamber', which had existed in British literature on eugenics since the turn of the century, also fed into the fantasies which eventually led to the gas chambers? If so, and far more research would be required to prove it, can the notion of the 'unimaginableness' of the Holocaust be modified? Could it be that, in Britain especially, the Nazi project should have been recognised as akin to an earlier British concern?
***
That the idea of the 'lethal chamber' was a British concern is shown in a rather shabby example of postwar extreme-right writing. Anthony Ludovici was almost eighty when, in 1961, he published Religion for Infidels, an attack on the weak, effete ethics that had been spread by the teachings of Christianity. The book reiterated what had been Ludovici's favourite theme since the beginning of his writing career: degeneration, this time presented as one of 'the most disastrous results of Christianity's disregard for biological attributes in the estimation of human worth'. [49]
It is when Ludovici turns to his solution to this ongoing biological deterioration that the text becomes interesting in this context. It is worth citing at length:
'Then what is your remedy?' the reader asks; and, in the defiance of his tone, I sense his assumption that he knows my answer and has the appropriate retort ready. What he expects me to say is, 'A lethal chamber for the human rubbish we are salvaging at the cost of the dwindling minority of the sound and promising,' and if I hint at such a thing, he is prepared at once to retort that the decent English public would never tolerate such 'Nazi' or 'fascist sadism.'
Incidentally, it should be noted that when the average person formulates this sort of reply, he not only shows himself incapable of going further back in history than World War II -- as if thought on this question began then -- but also betrays his expectation of immediate applause from every moron in the nation, whose alleged inability to suffer the violent elimination of even selected lower-grade defectives, is compounded with the patient, not to say, cheerful, endurance of the death of thousands of quite unselected and presumably sound adults and children on our highways every year.
But Ludovici claims that he has 'no intention of proposing ... a lethal chamber', if only because this would 'confirm people in their Christian sophistries'. It is because, he says, 'the "lethal chamber" solution is the only one popularly conceived as possible for relieving society of the crushing burden consisting of its biological trash and dregs, and of cleansing the national stock and protecting it from further contamination, [that] nothing whatsoever is done about it ...' If only people would listen to his solution, a 'transvaluation of all values' which would harden spirits against the depraved and degenerate, the problem would automatically take care of itself:
Men must learn again to feel in their hearts contempt and repugnance for biological depravity; and when this lesson has been learnt and the taste displayed in mating correspondingly chastened, there will be no need to argue over the pros and cons of a lethal chamber for human rubbish, for morbidity and defect will insensibly and inevitably diminish to the extent of ceasing to be a social problem. [50]
There is a certain ambivalence here; either way, it is not attractive. Ludovici knows he cannot defend the 'lethal chamber' option, though one senses he has no particular objection to it, but his proposed solution arrives at the same end. In the year that Raul Hilberg published The Destruction of the European Jews, the major landmark in the historiography of the Holocaust, a British right-wing thinker was, in so many words, advocating the elimination of the 'unfit'. It seems that although the British never put into operation the lethal chamber they invented, leaving it to the Germans to claim that notoriety, a few among them were so impressed by the results that they could still appeal to it after the war as the benchmark by which their own projects of biological regeneration should be judged. The 'lethal chamber', though it was realised by the Germans, was, like eugenics in general, certainly also a British problem.
--
Breeding Superman: Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Interwar Britain, by Dan Stone
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Don't you see that every law,
every commandment was turned upside down.
[Hannah Arendt] [Shakes her head affirmatively]
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] It was not "Thou shalt not kill,"
but "Thou must kill."
To do your duty, goodness was a temptation you had to resist.
[Hans Jonas (1903-1993)] Great.
So no one is responsible or guilty.
Every sane person knows murder is wrong.
[Hannah Arendt] [Laughs] Then most Europeans, including many of our friends,
went insane overnight.
[Hans Jonas (1903-1993)] Heidegger was your friend.
[Lore Jonas] Hans!
[Hannah Arendt] He wasn't our only disappointment.
[Hans Jonas (1903-1993)] You can't write like this for the New Yorker.
You cannot!
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Hans, the glass door!
[Hans Jonas (1903-1993)] It's all too abstract. And confusing.
They don't want a philosophy lesson.
They have to know what the Nazi Eichmann did.
***
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Oh, Hemingway was just an ambulance driver, Thomas.
As a writer, he was nothing more than the premature ejaculator of the 20th century.
[Professor Thomas Miller] Oh, you just hate him because he wrote like a real man.
[Jonathan Schell] [Laughs]
***
[Hans Jonas (1903-1993)] Do you want to forgive him?
[Hannah Arendt] That's absurd.
I'm glad he'll be hanged.
***
[Charlotte Beradt (1907-1986)] So, here's to Heinrich's recovery.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] [In English] Well, come on.
[Lore Jonas] Yeah. To Heinrich.
Come over, please.
[Charlotte Beradt (1907-1986)] To his health. We drink to his health.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] A very good idea.
[Hannah Arendt] [In German] Here, Hans. To Heinrich.
[Chattering]
[Lore Jonas] Cheers.
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] Cheers.
[Hannah Arendt] Stups, here's to you.
No more kissing. Except for me.
***
[Hannah Arendt] Why was Hans so furious with me?
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] He's in love with you. Has been ever since he was a student.
[Hannah Arendt] [Scoffs]
Nonsense.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] He hates Heidegger more for stealing your heart than for joining the Party.
[Hannah Arendt] [Chuckles]
Then he should hate you even more.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] [Chuckles]
Maybe he does.
Celebrating my health
is exhausting.
[Spanks Hannah]
I'm off to bed.
[Hannah Arendt] [Exhales deeply]
[Door closes]
[Hannah Arendt] [Sighs]
[Remembering]
[Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)] Thinking
does not bring knowledge,
as do the sciences.
Thinking
does not produce usable,
practical wisdom.
Thinking ...
does not solve the riddles of the universe.
[Young Hannah Arendt] [Listening to Heidegger]
[Young Hans Jonas] [Seeing how attentively young Hannah listens]
Thinking does not
endow us with the power to act.
We live
because we are alive.
And we think ...
because we are thinking beings.
[Young Hannah Arendt] We are so used to considering
reason and passion as opposites,
that the idea of passionate thinking,
where thinking and being alive are one and the same,
is terrifying for me.
[Clock ticking]
Excuse me.
[Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)] No. Hannah!
***
[Young Hannah Arendt] [Waiting outside her door]
[Footsteps approaching]
[Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)] [Embraces Hannah]
***
[Frances Wells] [To William Shawn] Tolstoy wrote War and Peace in less time.
[Picks up his phone and hands it to him]
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] [Looks up Hannah's number in rolodex]
[Dials her number]
[Hannah Arendt] [Laying on the couch thinking]
[Phone ringing]
[Ringing continues]
[Hannah Arendt] Hello?
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] Mrs. Arendt.
Bill Shawn here.
Is this a good time to talk? I mean, are you busy?
[Hannah Arendt] Yes. Why?
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] Can I be of any help?
[Hannah Arendt] How?
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] Perhaps if you've finished the first article, I could have a look.
[Hannah Arendt] Mr. Shawn, I don't deliver in pieces.
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] O-Of course. I do realize what an enormous task this is ...
and wanted to let you know how much we're looking forward to the results.
[Hannah Arendt] Well, then perhaps I should get back to it instead of chatting on the phone.
Or did you want to pressure me with a deadline?
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] No, of course not. Take as long as you need.
[Hannah Arendt] Thank you.
Bye.
[Frances Wells] What's the matter with you? Have you fallen in love with her, or what?
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] [Not very convincingly] Oh, God, no.
[Hannah Arendt] [Back on the couch, remembering]
[Judge] [In German] You claim you weren't a normal recipient of orders.
You thought about what you were doing.
Didn't you say that?
[Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962) I don't believe so, no.
[Judge] You didn't think about it?
[Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962) Sorry?
[Judge] You didn't think about it?
You were an imbecile?
You didn't think at all?
[Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962) Think?
Yes.
Of course I thought about what I was doing.
[Judge] You were not an imbecile?
***
[Hannah & Lotte] [Chattering in German]
[Hannah Arendt] [To Heinrich] Are you sure you can go?
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] You've got everyone so worried, they'll have a wheelchair waiting.
[Hannah Arendt] [Chuckles] I'm sure some lovely women will be very eager
to push you around.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] No one can push me around like you.
[Kisses her]
Lotte ...
Take good care of her.
***
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] [brings Hannah some tea]
[Hannah Arendt] Thanks.
Listen to this.
I've changed the paragraph.
"Evil is supposed to be something demonic.
Its incarnation is Satan.
But in the case of Eichmann,
one could find no such trace of satanic 'greatness.'
He was simply unable to think."
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] That's great.
[Hannah Arendt] It's better, right?
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] [Scoffs]
[Hannah Arendt] Yes ...
[Typing]
[Hands paper to Henrich]
Voila, monsieur.
***
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] "From a humdrum life without significance and consequence,
the wind had blown Adolf Eichmann into history."
Fascinating choice. It begins so poetically.
[Frances Wells] A bit over the top.
"A leaf in the whirlwind of time,
he was blown into the marching columns of the 1,000-year Reich."
Twice in a row with a wind metaphor?
[Jonathan Schell] But listen to this.
"It was sheer thoughtlessness.
Something by no means identical with stupidity ...
that predisposed him to become ...
one of the greatest criminals of the 20th century.
He was simply unable to think."
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] That's original.
[Frances Wells] This here is also quite original.
They'll have our heads for this:
"Wherever Jews lived,
there were recognized Jewish leaders,
and this leadership, almost without exception,
cooperated in one way or another, for one reason or another,
with the Nazis.
The whole truth is ...
that if the Jewish people had really been unorganized and leaderless,
there would have been chaos and plenty of misery,
but the total number of victims would hardly have been ...
between four and a half and six million people."
[Jonathan Schell] Jewish leaders testified at the trial. It had to be mentioned.
[Frances Wells] She's blaming the victims.
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] That's not true, Fran.
She clearly makes a distinction between the powerlessness of the victims ...
and the dubious choices of some of their leaders.
[Frances Wells] "Clearly"? Don't exaggerate.
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] The whole section is only 10 pages out of almost 300.
[Frances Wells] Them's fighting words, Bill.
You better make sure she's got her facts straight,
or we'll be needing bodyguards --
for her and for us.
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] She doesn't strike me as someone who's off on the facts.
But as for the grammar --
***
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] [To Hannah] What you have written is simply brilliant.
I suggest that it be broken up into five articles.
[Hannah Arendt] Five?
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] If I give it that much space,
it will entail very few changes.
I spoke with your editor, and he told me the book will come out directly afterwards.
Congratulations.
[Hannah Arendt] Thank you.
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] Shall we?
[Hannah Arendt] Sure.
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] This is Greek, right?
[Hannah Arendt] "Einai." It means "to be," in the sense of existence.
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] But, of course, you realize that most of our readers don't understand Greek.
[Hannah Arendt] They should learn.
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] [Laughs]
[Exhales deeply]
There is really only one section ...
that, um,
worries us a bit.
[Hannah Arendt] Oh, today you say "us," and not "me"?
Invoking your army, Mr. Shawn?
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] Yes.
Maybe I am.
It's this description of the Jewish leaders.
[Hannah Arendt] Their relationship with Eichmann's office was very important.
I think I made that quite clear.
Von Mildenstein rapidly became the party expert on Zionism. He was said to have read Herzl's "Der Judenstaat" and insisted his subordinates do likewise. One of these subordinates was a man named Adolf Eichmann. Von Mildenstein, and later Eichmann, developed the Jewish Section of the Reich Security Main Office, which in the late 1930s coordinated Jewish emigration policies. In the early 1940s, Eichmann's domain would change from emigration and Zionism to deportation and genocide, as he orchestrated the shuttling of millions of Jews to the gas chambers of Europe....
A showdown over the Transfer Agreement occurred in late 1935 during the Nineteenth Zionist Congress held in Lucerne, Switzerland. The German Zionists were this time allowed to attend, with Adolf Eichmann monitoring from afar the delegation's every move. Mindful of Eichmann's distant scrutiny, the German delegates were the principal opponents of any boycott attempts. After great debate, the Congress finally declared that the Zionist Organization would openly take control of the Transfer Agreement from the Anglo-Palestine Bank. The bank complied by transferring its stock in Haavara Ltd. to the Jewish Agency. Just days later, the promised Nuremberg laws were published. The place for Jews in Germany was officially dissolved. The place for Jews in Palestine was all that was left....
The Nazi hierarchy broke into two distinct schools of thought. The first wanted to expand the Haavara to concentrate as many Jews as possible in distant Palestine. The Jews would then be isolated from Germany's enemies, such as France and Great Britain. Later, when Germany was ready, perhaps it could still tackle the "Jewish menace" while Jews were concentrated and prone in one remote setting. The second school of thought, led by Eichmann, believed the Jews could and would create a state, that the Third Reich had been duped through Haavara into supplying the men and materials, and that once established, that state would become a "Jewish Vatican" devoted to Germany's destruction. Eichmann's answer was mass dispersion of utterly destitute Jews throughout the remote regions of South America and Africa, where local populations would rise up against them and wipe them out. In the fall of 1937, after several months of uncertainty, der Fuhrer finally decided in favor of Haavara; the government added its insistence that Jews be expelled not only from Germany but from all of Europe. Hitler's final attempt to prepare for war -- the so-called Four Year Plan -- was already under way. He wholly expected to begin his conquest of Europe in late 1939. Germany did not want yet another Jewish problem waiting when the Reich took over neighboring lands.
--
The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine, by Edwin Black
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] Yes, of course,
but you do offer a kind of interpretation of your own ...
that might be -- that might disturb just a bit.
[Hannah Arendt] That is incorrect.
I purposely did not attempt to analyze ...
or to explain their behavior.
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] "To a Jew,
this role of the Jewish leaders in the destruction of their own people ...
is undoubtedly the darkest chapter of the whole dark story."
Now that could count as a kind of interpretation.
[Hannah Arendt] But it's a fact.
***
[JAMES A NEWMAN AUDITORIUM]
[People] [Chattering]
[Hans Jonas (1903-1993)] [Reading the New Yorker]
[Student Peter] Finally.
[Student Jerry] I can't wait to read it.
[Student Peter] [To Hans Jonas] How do you like it?
[Hans Jonas (1903-1993)] "How"?
"How" is an assumption. You should ask me if I like it.
[Hands student the magazine and unhappily walks off]
***
[Phone rings]
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] [Answers phone]
[Man] You have no right to bring these issues out in public.
You don't know what you're talking about. I will cancel --
[William Shawn (1907-1992)] [Hangs up phone]
[Frances Wells] [Mockingly] "Only 10 pages."
That makes a hundred phone calls per page.
So far.
[Telephone rings]
[Frances Wells] [Answers phone]
[Woman] ... is crap!
[Frances Wells] [Hangs up phone]
***
[Hannah Arendt] [Typing]
[Talking on phone] [To Lotte] Just ignore them ...
[In English] You'll drive yourself crazy.
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] [In German] But Shawn's response in the New Yorker is very convincing.
Should I send it to you?
[Hannah Arendt] What response?
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] To that vicious article in The New York Times.
[Hannah Arendt] Oh, you mean that!
[In English] Forget it.
[In German] Tell me how Heinrich is doing.
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] Charlotte cooks for him every evening.
[Hannah Arendt] Please tell her that Henrich can only eat meat twice a week.
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] Yes.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] [Gestures Lotte to give him the phone] Hello ... My darling.
You're all the rage around here.
[Hannah Arendt] Hello, Stups.
Let's not waste time on that.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] The Israeli prosecutor is flying here
to speak to survivors in New York.
Listen to the Daily News headline:
[In English] "Prosecutor Answers ...
Hannah Arendt's Bizarre Defense of Eichmann."
[In German] On the front page!
[Hannah Arendt] All just a tempest in a tea cup.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] This is no tempest. It's a hurricane, Hannah.
[Hannah Arendt] Tell me what's for dinner.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Spinach,
whole wheat bread and water.
It's good you're not here in New York.
They are all accusing you
of having defended Eichmann, Hannah.
[Hannah Arendt] Stups, it's just a few articles in a magazine.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] My dear,
you are really naive.
[Lotte Kohler (1920-2011)] [Quietly witnessing]
***
[Charlotte Beradt (1907-1986)] [To Heinrich] She thinks her sarcasm will protect her.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] [Serving himself some meat]
[Pouring Charlotte some wine]
[Charlotte Beradt (1907-1986)] It only shows me her vulnerability.
She tries to detach herself from the story
but ends up bringing it closer to her.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] Wrong, completely wrong.
It's not about her.
[Charlotte Beradt (1907-1986)] But where is she ...
when she writes about this Nazi and his crimes?
She has the right to feel pain, and to show it.
[Heinrich Blucher (1899-1970)] That would be shameless. And quite out of character.
[Charlotte Beradt (1907-1986)] You have to be aware that if she represses so much pain,
it will eventually overwhelm her.
And you too.
***
[Birds chirping]
[Jazz Piano]
[Hannah Arendt] [Remembering]
[Jazz Piano continues]
[Hotel Receptionist] Professor Heidegger is here for you.
[Hannah Arendt] Thanks.
[Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)] Time is mysterious:
it can return and transform everything.
As I saw you again and you stood there in your beautiful dress
I knew that this would be the beginning of something new for us.
Please stop a moment.
[Hannah Arendt] I wasn't sure if I should come.
[Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)] There is no greater invitation to love than to love first:
"Nulla est enim maior
ad amorem invitatio quam prevenire amando."
St. Augustine.
Your last letter grieved me.
How could you believe all that slander?
[Hannah Arendt] After I read your first rector's speech I was sick to my stomach.
I couldn't believe it.
The man who'd taught me to think was behaving like a fool.
[Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)] I know they were bitter years for you, full of misery, hardship and helplessness.
But they weren't easy for me either.
[Hannah Arendt] Martin, I came here because I want to understand.
[Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)] Hannah ...
I'm like the lad who dreams and knows not what he does.
I have no talent nor experience with politics,
but now I have learned and in the future
I want to learn even more.
[Hannah Arendt] Then why not bring this to an end and explain yourself in public?
[Car approaching]
[Horn honks]
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] You're the toast of the town.
[Chuckles]
[Hannah Arendt] Mary. Hello.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Oh, my goodness, it's good to see you. Here.
[Gives her roses]
[Hannah Arendt] Oh. Beautiful.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] They're from Jim.
He sends his love. He can't wait to meet you.
[Hannah Arendt] Well, when will I finally meet him?
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Well, we'll sort something out.
[Hannah Arendt] How was the trip?
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Oh, my goodness. It was great, but I'm starving.
***
[Jazz over the speakers]
[Crowd in poolhall chattering]
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] You should come to the talk.
[Hannah Arendt] Oh -- You can't do that.
You have to follow the rules.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Oh, why? Nobody else does.
[Inhales, exhales deeply]
[Hannah Arendt] But what do you want me to discuss?
There has not been one single critique of what I actually wrote.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Did you really have no idea there would be such a furious reaction?
[Hannah Arendt] [Shakes her head no]
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Oh, Hannah. Not even a little?
You did take a certain tone, not the usual one.
[Hannah Arendt] Untrue. The tone is quite normal for me.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Well, for you, yes, but no one's ever dared to be the least bit ironic about the situation.
[Hannah Arendt] You are trying to distract me.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Never.
[Hannah Arendt] [Hits the ball and misses]
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Oh.
[Hannah Arendt] See?
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] [Chuckles]
[Hannah Arendt] I'm telling you, it is useless.
I'm sure half of them haven't even read the book.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Exactly. And that is why you should speak publicly about it.
[Hannah Arendt] No.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Yes. Expose their hypocrisy.
Force them to a real discussion.
[Hannah Arendt] I refuse to explain myself to these dimwits.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] [Sighs]
[Hannah Arendt] [Hits ball and misses again]
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] [In German] In the silent dialogue with myself ...
[In English] I am alone.
[Hannah Arendt] You have a very good memory.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Ja.
[Hannah Arendt] Terrible accent.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] [Chuckles]
If I win, do you promise to answer me a terribly personal question?
[Hannah Arendt] You won't win --
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] Mm-hmm.
[Hannah Arendt] If I can promise you anything.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] [Hits the ball into the hole and wins]
So ...
Was he the greatest love of your life?
[Hannah Arendt] Who?
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] You know.
[With German accent] Your secret king of thinking.
[Hannah Arendt] No. He was not.
That is Heinrich.
[Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)] All right then. Uh, fill in the blank.
"Heidegger was the greatest __ in my entire life."
Oh, come on. I won't tell anybody.
[Hannah Arendt] There are some things ...
that are stronger than a single human being.
***