Hannah Arendt (1964) - What Remains? (Full Interview w/ Günter Gaus)

[Music]

Ms. Hannah Arendt, you are the first

woman to be portrayed in this series,

the first woman, albeit

with a profession considered by conventional wisdom to be

highly masculine.

You are a philosopher. May

I move from this preliminary remark to my

first question? Do you perceive your

role among philosophers, despite

the recognition and respect shown to

you, as something special, or are

we touching upon an emancipation

problem that has never existed for you? Yes,

I'm afraid I must first

protest:

not into the circle of philosophers.

My profession, because one can even speak of it that way,

is political theory. I don't

feel like a philosopher at all.

I am not, I don't believe,

included in the circle of philosophers,

as you so kindly suggested. But if

I come to the other question

you touched upon in your preliminary remark,

you say it is conventionally

a masculine profession. Well, it does

n't have to remain a masculine

profession. One could certainly

say that a woman could also

be a philosopher. I consider such a thing... Yes, so against that...

I can't do anything about it.

I myself may also issue a warning.

My opinion is that

I am not a philosopher. In

my opinion, I have

finally said goodbye to philosophy. I

studied philosophy, as you know, but

that doesn't mean I've stuck with it. However, I would still like to

know more precisely where you see

the difference between your work

as a professor of political theory

and the philosophy of political

questions. Where exactly do you see this difference? So,

if I think of a number of your

works, for example, *The Vita Activa*, then

I would like to categorize them under philosophy.

As long as you

don't—and I ask you very much—define the

difference you draw for yourself more

precisely, the

difference actually lies in the

matter itself. The expression "political

philosophy," which I avoid,

is extremely

burdened by tradition. I don't

speak much about these things, i.e., the

sport, not academically. So I

always mention that there is a tension between philosophy and

politics, namely

between people. Insofar as he is a

philosophizing being, and

insofar as man is an acting being, there is a

tension that, in this sense,

we say in natural philosophy, the

philosopher does not stand in relation to nature,

actually like all other people.

Even when he thinks about it, he speaks in the

name of all humanity. He is

not neutral towards politics,

not since Plateau, or I am glad that there is

a series of

hostilities towards politics among the

vast majority of philosophers, very few exceptions.

I knew of exceptions,

which are extraordinarily important for this whole complex

because it is

not a personal history; it lies

in the nature of the matter. And they want to be able to participate in

this hostility towards

politics because they

believe it would burden their work.

I don't want to

participate in hostility; that is, I want to

see politics with eyes that are, so to speak, unclouded by philosophy.

I understand again, regarding

the question of emancipation, has

this problem existed for you? Yes, well,

the problem as such always exists, of

course, and I have always been...

I have actually been old-fashioned;

I have always been... In my opinion, there are

certain professions that are not suitable for

women, that don't suit them.

If I say so,

it doesn't look good when a woman gives orders.

She should try not to

get into such positions if she does

n't want to retain her feminine qualities.

Whether I'm right about that or not,

I don't know. I myself have

somehow, more or less unconsciously, or rather,

more or less consciously, aligned myself with that.

The problem itself, for me

personally, can be well-acted.

I simply did what I

wanted to do. I considered whether

only women can do what men usually do,

and now it's men and women doing it, or something like

that. It actually left personal

traces. I understand your work; we

will certainly get to the details later.

The important parts are

aimed at

recognizing the conditions under which

political action and behavior come about. Do

you want to achieve

a broad impact with this work,

or do you believe that

such an impact is

no longer possible in this day and age, or is

such a broad effect secondary to you?

You know, that's another thing.

If I speak quite honestly,

when I'm working, I'm simply

not interested. When the

work is finished, and here I am, then I'm

done with it.

And

what seems truly essential to me,

I want to say, is that

no

one should ever

look too closely at their own cards,

that one shouldn't really do such a thing at all.

So, if we still do this, if we assume all of this, then

I want to

say what is essential for me: I

must understand.

For me, this firmness

also includes writing; writing is part of the

understanding process. When you

write, it serves your own

further understanding. Certain

things are fixed here. Let's assume one

has a very good memory

so that one really retains everything one

thinks. I'm sure I'd never have

written anything down, but is that even allowed? Would you have

such a memory?

I don't. What that

means is, what matters to me is the

thought process itself. If

I have that, I'm personally quite

satisfied. If I then succeed in expressing it in

writing to the quad,

I'm

satisfied again. Now you ask about the

effect. So, if we To return to the

guests' question and speak with a little

irony, it's a

male question; men always love to

judge, and

I see that, in a way, from the outside.

I myself am affected. I want to understand,

and when other people understand in the same way

I have understood them,

then that gives me a satisfaction, like

a feeling of belonging.

Yes, once again about writing: write

easily, formulate easily, sometimes

yes, sometimes no. But in principle, I

never write before I've, so to speak, copied

the team's ideas. Yes, I know

exactly what to write beforehand. I don't write beforehand, that's

why

I usually only have a draft,

and that goes relatively quickly

because it actually only depends on the fact

that

the focus is not on political

theory, political action, and

behavior. So,

under these circumstances, what seems

particularly interesting to me is what was found in an

exchange of letters you had with

the Israeli professor Scholem. In it,

you wrote—

if I may quote—that in your

youth you were neither interested in history nor in

politics. You are Mrs.

Arendt, born in 1933 as a Jew from Germany.

When you immigrated, you were 26 years old. Did

your involvement with politics,

the expression of disinterest, and

politics and history have

a causal connection with

these events?

Yes, of course.

I was able to talk about it for a long time. In

1933, this address was no longer

possible. It wasn't

possible even before that. I had already stopped reading newspapers with you before then.

I did read newspapers with interest.

I did have opinions. I didn't belong to

any party, nor did I have any

need to. Yes,

for example, I was firmly convinced since about 1931

that the North Sea would

come under the control of the Nazis, and he also earnestly admitted to

discussing

these problems with other people,

but I did

n't systematically deal with these things.

I only really started to engage with them after

migration. I have a follow-up question to what

you just said, based on

the conviction since 1931 that the

Nazis' rise to power could not be

prevented. Didn't you feel pressured to

actively do something against it by

joining a party,

or did you no longer

consider that worthwhile? I am personally,

and this is not certain, if I had considered it

sensible, it's all

very difficult to say in retrospect. Would

I perhaps have done something? I considered

it hopeless. Is there an

exact event in your memory from which you

could date your turn to politics?

Yes, you know, in a certain sense

I can say that February 27, 1933, the Reichstag

fire, and the

illegal arrests that followed that same night, the so-

called "creations"—you know, the people—were

gladly taken to the Gestapo

cellars or to concentration camps. What

started then was monstrous and has been

overshadowed today by later events. This was an immediate event for me,

and from that moment on I felt

responsible. That is to say, I no

longer thought that one could

simply stand by and watch. I tried

to help in some things, but what immediately drove

me to leave Germany—

I've never told it

because it's quite insignificant, a sin. What immediately drove

me out of

Germany was that I had already

intended to emigrate. I

was immediately... The opinion is that Jews ca

n't stand each other. I didn't intend to

walk around in Germany as a citizen, so to speak,

in any form whatsoever.

I was also of the opinion that they

said things would only get worse.

Nevertheless, I didn't

leave peacefully in the end, and I must

say I had a certain

satisfaction. I was arrested and had to

leave the country illegally. I'll tell you right away:

I immediately felt a sense of

satisfaction about it. I thought, at

least I'm not innocent, at least

I'm not innocent.

We shouldn't let anyone else know that.

The Zionist organization gave me the opportunity back then. I was

very close friends with some of the leading people at the time, especially the then-president, Kornblumenfeld,

but I wasn't a Zionist. I was

n't tempted to become one. Of course,

I was influenced by it in a certain

sense, namely in the

criticism, the self-criticism, that the Zionists

developed within the Jewish people.

I was influenced by that, I was

impressed by that, but politically I had

nothing to do with it. Now, 33 degrees,

Blumenfeld, and an advisor you do

n't know approached me and said to

me, "We want..." To create a collection of

all anti-Semitic statements on a national level, so let's say

teachers' associations, all kinds of

professional associations, a

possible specialist journal, that which is

not known abroad,

to organize this collection, that fell under underground

propaganda as it was called back then,

no one could do that, the two

Zionists were organized because if he was blown up,

the organization would be high, that's

also clear, of course you want to do it, of

course I was very satisfied,

they told me that was very reasonable and

the second time since I have the feeling that one can

still do something and they have blown up in

connection with this work before

Austria or person, I was very

lucky, he got out in eight

days because the

detective who arrested me,

I became friends with him and he was

a charming fellow, he was originally

from the criminal police in the

political department,

but she has no idea what he should be doing

there, he said usually

I have someone sitting in front of me,

I just see, well then

I already know what that is, one should deal

with them, something like that, I have, well, so

and I was in Berlin, and it was in

Berlin that I unfortunately had to tell the man about it,

because I could

n't let the organization be exposed. They

told fantastic stories,

and he always said, "I'm the one who brought them in.

How will you get them

out again? Don't get a lawyer. The Jews don't

have any money now. Save

your money." Meanwhile, the

organization had arranged a lawyer for me, of

course, again through the leather-clad and

Waldschik-like people. "Get lost!" because I had trusted

this man who had seduced me.

Such an open, decent face.

I trusted him and thought this was

my much better chance than some

lawyer who would only spread fear. And they

got out in Germany. Of

course, it came out, but it was illegal.

Naturally, the whole thing had to wait,

and then I had to cross the

border illegally. Not in the already mentioned

correspondence with Ms. Arendt, did you reject a

kind of admonition, Golem, that

you should consider yourself a

member of the Jewish people,

with a clear statement, namely, and

I quote

again, "Being Jewish is one of the

undeniable realities of my

life, and I have no part in such things."

Factuality never wanting to change anything,

not even in childhood. That means

you have clearly established

that for you there was never anything to

question about it and no need for any admonition.

I would have liked to ask you a few questions.

You were born in 1906 in Hanover as the

daughter of an engineer and

grew up in Königsberg. Can you

tell me from your memory what it

meant for a child in Germany at that time, from a Jewish family?

You see, in such

general terms,

I could not answer the question

truthfully if I were to turn it on

me personally. So

now you have to tell me what you want to do, what

you personally... First of all,

if you allow me, your

personal memory. If you... The

first thing...

I didn't know from home

that I was Jewish. My mother was

completely religious. Her father... My

father died early.

Now it all sounds very strange. My

grandfather was president of the liberal

community and city women of

Grüneberg. I come from an old

Königsberg family.

Nevertheless, the word was never uttered in our house.

When I was a child, I was a

little... I was a child, and it was

brought up to me for the first time, and through an

antisemitic

remark, 90, not to tell, he didn't talk about

children on the street, so

I wanted to be enlightened, so in

that sense, it was a shock for them, did

they feel like now

I was something special? Yes, if that's

one thing, it wasn't a shock for me at all,

I thought, well, it's not like that,

I had the feeling that I was

something special,

and I can't explain that to you today anymore, what a

big idea, what a concept,

I am of the

objective opinion that it was related to being Jewish, which

I knew, for example,

as a child, a slightly older child, now

that I look Jewish, that means that

I look different, I was very

aware of that, but not in the form of

saying inferiority, that balconies and

thanks to my mother and my parents' house, so to speak, it

was a little different

than usual, there was so much that was

special, therefore also compared to

the Jewish children or the

children from the family, yes, even that was

very difficult to determine, where was the

special thing. For a child, yes, I knew

that some role played a part, no

question. I would like to have what you called the

special aspect of your family home, especially your mother,

explained to me.

If you say that for your mother there was

never any need to inform her about this ethnicity until it hit

them on the street, does that

mean that the

awareness of being Jewish, which you

claimed for yourself in the letter to schools, had been

lost to your mother, that it no

longer played any role for her? Was

assimilation successful here, or did

your mother delude herself into thinking it had

succeeded? My mother was

n't very theoretically grounded;

I don't believe she had any special ideas about it. She herself

comes from the

social democratic movement, from the

circle around the socialists.

My father, above all, relied on courage,

and

the question played no role for her. It

was self-evident.

She would never have baptized me.

I assume she would have

hoped for me from both sides. Would she ever have found out

that something like this... To deny being Jewish was out of the question, so to speak.

The

question of truth, of course, played

a much

bigger role in my twenties, when I was young, than it did for my

mother, and for my mother later, when I was finally an

adult, it also played a much

bigger role than before in her life.

But that's due to external circumstances.

I, for example, do

n't believe that I ever felt

German in the sense of ethnicity, that I didn't belong to

the city. When I

consider the differences, and I recall

that I was around 30, there were

already heated

discussions about this. For example, with Jasper,

he said, "Of course you're German, you can

see that." I'm not, and that didn't matter

to me. I did

n't see it as an inferiority,

so that wasn't the case at all.

And if I may

return to the special nature of my parents'

home, you see, there was a lot of

antisemitism. All Jewish

children encountered it, and it poisoned the souls of

many children.

The difference was that for us, that was...

My mother always maintained that you mustn't cower, you have to defend yourself. So, if, let's

say,

teachers

made antisemitic remarks—usually

not even referring to me, but to

other Jewish students, for

example, an East German Jewish student—I

was instructed to get up

immediately, leave the classroom,

come home, and give a

detailed account of everything. Then

my mother would write one of her many

registered letters, and

for me, the matter was completely settled.

I had a day off school and

Moroccan food. If it came from children,

I wasn't allowed to mention it at home.

What comes from children is considered acceptable; you

defend yourself against it, and so

these things didn't

become a problem for me. There were

rules of conduct that, so to speak,

kept me safe from my mother and

protected me—absolutely safe at home.

She studied in Marburg, Heidelberg, and

Freiburg under Professors

Heidecker, Bultmann, and Jaspers,

majoring in philosophy and also studying

theology and Greek. This is related to

this We know you

have often considered the choice of studies. I

can only say that

philosophy has been my constant companion

since I was 14.

Why did I read it?

You can ask why I have this knowledge,

and for me it was a question of either

studying philosophy or going under, so

to speak. But life isn't pleasant.

I predict this need to

understand that wasn't there from a

very early age, and that subsided

very early on. You see,

all the books were at

home. You recognized the reading

experiences you had, especially the

psychology of the world, which I

believe was published in 1920.

I was 14 then. 13, 14, 20 years old. That's what

I had here and...

That then became linked to

theology, yes, that became

linked in such a way that, for me, both things belong

together. I only had

concerns about how one could do that if one

is Jewish, and

how that would go. I had

no idea, and that caused me serious worries

that were then easily resolved.

Greek is

another matter. I have always been very interested in

Greek politicians, and poetry

has played a major role in my life,

and then I added Greek

because it was the most convenient.

I won't let that happen anyway.

Nagaya, however, was frightened by

her intellectual talent.

Tested so early, she was, as a

schoolgirl and young student,

perhaps painfully

separated from the normal behavior of her environment.

That should have been the case if I had known.

I was of the opinion that everyone was like that.

When did he become aware of this error?

Quite late. I don't want to

say,

I'm ashamed. It was

indescribable.

That was partly due to the

upbringing at home. It was never

discussed. It was about grades.

Spoken, not eating, that was considered

inferior, every ambition was considered

inferior at home,

and there at least the matter wasn't

conscious, it was well conscious to me sometimes

as a kind of alienation among

people,

an alienation that they believed originated from them, the

exclusion,

but it has nothing to do with talent,

I never linked it to talent, it occasionally

resulted from it, let's say,

for example, in young years, a kind of

contempt for others, yes, the

fighting, it was very early,

that could be very early,

and

I suffered from such contempt even then,

namely that one shouldn't really do that, that one shouldn't

really do that there, and so

on. When

you left Germany in 1933, you

went to Paris where you

worked in an organization that tried to place

Jewish youth in Palestine,

can you

tell me something about that,

you know, I want to talk about it, it would take too long, little one,

I

want to tell you what it was, it was

Youth Aliyah,

an organization that had been founded in Germany at the

instigation of avengers,

although already 32

and then 33, of course, it became very big

and was then run by Henrietta in America.

Organizationally, avengers, free in

Germany, were supposed to go to

Palestine. This organization brought

Jewish youths and children,

but I have nothing

to do with the children. Between the ages of 13 and 17, he took them to

Palestine to get them out of Germany

and housed them in the kibbutzim there. That's why

I actually know this

settlement relatively well,

and always from a very early

age, and back then I had a lot of

respect for how

carefully this thing received the children,

a vocational training and

school education. Now in France, he arranged things

so that the refugee children,

when they were 14 years old, had

no reason to leave school, receive no

work, and were not allowed to pursue vocational training.

Consequently,

certificates were diverted to France

for refugee children, and I smuggled

Polish children in here and there.

He was, of course, doing this to give preferential treatment to...

In Germany, the work that

came from Germany ran out,

and therefore I did it with great

pleasure, regular

social work, educational work,

the large

camp in the countryside where the children

were prepared, they had to, where they

also had hours where they

learned work, where above all they had to take on, you had to dress yourself

from head to toe, you had to

cook for them, you

actually had to, but I had to, above all, you had to get

papers for them, you had to negotiate with the

parents, you had to do things, it

was a corner and above all you had to get

money, it was

also largely left to me, I

worked with French people, the French women, so that was

roughly the activity, now but the

decision to leave

the activity altogether, before you

want to or not, please,

I came from a purely academic background,

and in that respect, the year 33 made

a very lasting impression on me,

firstly positive and

secondly negative, I would say

firstly negative and secondly positive, one

thinks Otto, so that the shock of the

Germans Jews

330

from this explained itself by the fact that

Hitler seized power. Now, what isn't,

and as far as people of my generation are concerned, I ca

n't say that it was a curious misunderstanding.

That was, of course,

very bad. It was political; it was

n't personal

that the Nazis were our enemies. My

God, we didn't need

Hitler's seizure of power to know that. It had been

completely evident for at least four years to every person with a black background that a large part of the

German people stood behind it. Yes,

we knew that too. We could

n't have been surprised by 33 Schott.

The shock in 1933 lay in the fact

that it turned from the general

political to the personal.

Not only that, but firstly, the

general political became

a personal fate, as long as one goes beyond it.

Secondly, but

you know what Gleichschaltung (coordination) is,

and that meant that friends

aligned themselves.

Nobody had a problem with that. The

personal problem wasn't what

our enemies were like, but what

our friends were like. What happened back then

in the wave of

Gleichschaltung was quite voluntary,

at least not yet under the

pressure of terror. But

in the sudden abandonment, it was as

if an empty space formed around me.

Now, I lived in an intellectual circle

like yours, and I also knew other

people, and I could see that

among intellectuals, this was the talk, so to speak, and

among others, it wasn't. And

I never forgot that story. And with

one thing in mind, I left

Germany, as I thought back then, of

course, always carrying something over. Never again.

I will

never hear any intellectual

stories again. I want

nothing to do with that society. Of course, I was

n't of the opinion that as a

German Jew or a

Swedish intellectual, if they had been in

a different situation than the one

they were in, they would have been significantly

different. I wasn't of that opinion.

I was of the opinion that it's connected to this

model. I'm speaking in the past tense.

I know more about it today. Even back then, I

wanted to ask you, do you think

that it's not still so sharp?

But that's in the nature of this spirit,

that you can come up with

something for every situation, so to speak.

People are like that. Do you see that

someone immediately jumped on the bandwagon because he has a

lot to say to women? That never made a person

would do that. The terrible thing was that

she actually believed it

for a short time, some television, briefly, so

to speak,

that is, too much about Hitler, into which, and

partly incredibly interesting things,

quite fantastically interesting and

complicated and far above the

ordinary, these floating things,

I saw as grotesque, that is,

they fall into their own traps,

I would say today, not that that's what

happened,

I couldn't overlook that back then, and that's why,

if

I understand her correctly, there was a special value for her in getting out of

those circles from which she absolutely

wanted to distance herself at the time, quite

radically out of those circles, out of

academic work, into practical

social work. Now the

positive side is gone,

I then said again and again,

commitment, also contemplative, if you are

attacked as a Jew, you have to

defend yourself as a Jew, not as a German

or as a citizen of the world or of

human rights or so, but quite

concretely,

how can I, what can I do?

Because I definitely want to get involved now,

organized for the

first time, and of course, organized

with the Zionists, they were the

only ones who were willing, I mean, with

the Asylum seekers, that would make

no sense at all. Incidentally,

I've never had

anything to do with the Jewish question itself.

I dealt with it before; the

series was finished in Hagen when I

left Germany, and that's where the

Jewish problem plays out. It's a research paper

commissioned by the aid organization. The

note was from the town council back then. Yes, I received

donations from a community,

but I also understood that at the time.

I want to understand;

it wasn't my personal youth

problems that I was discussing there, but now it was

my own problem. It wasn't

political, not political.

I wanted to do practical work, and

I only wanted to do Jewish work. And

in that sense, I oriented myself in

France

until 1940. You

then came to the

United States of America during the Second World War,

where you now work as a professor of

political theory (not philosophy)

in Chicago and live

in New York. Your husband, whom

you married in 1940, is also a

philosophy professor in America.

Now the academic Province to which you

now belong again after the

disappointment of 1933,

internationally,

nevertheless, I would like to ask you if you miss

the Europe of the pre-Hitler era, which will

never exist again, when you

are in America or when you

come to Europe. What has remained and what is

irretrievably lost?

The Europe of before...

I have no...

I can say what has remained. We can attest to that. It

is the language.

That means a lot to you, a great deal. And

I have always consciously refused

to lose my mother tongue. I have

always maintained a certain distance,

both from French, which

I spoke very well back then, and from English,

which I write in today. That's what

I wanted to ask you about. You write

today, I think I write in English,

but

I have seen the effect of distance. You see, there

is an enormous difference between

mother tongue and another language.

Here I can

say this terribly simply: in German, I know

a fairly large part of German

poems by heart. They are always

somehow in the way.

That is, of course, never to be achieved again.

In German, I allow myself things that

I don't allow myself in English.

Sometimes, even though I'm getting older, but

truly... I became cheeky, but

generally speaking, the

German language is the essential thing that has

remained, and what I have

always consciously maintained, that there is also

its own tempo.

I thought to myself, what

we do isn't the German language, so it's not

the German language that the woman

should use.

And secondly, there is no substitute

for the mother tongue. You can

forget your mother tongue, that's what I've

seen.

What then arises is that people

speak the foreign language better than I do. I

still speak with a

very strong accent, and I often do

n't speak idiomatically, as we say. They can't do that.

Allah is not a

language where there is a cliché that Andrea, because

the actual productivity

that one has in one's own language

is cut off by

forgetting this language. When they spoke of mistakes

that affected them,

where the mother tongue was forgotten,

this was, in their impression, the result of

repression.

Very often, I have seen it

with people. Stockach, you, because if it's

the decisive thing, it's not 33,

at least not for me. The

decisive thing was the day when

We learned about Auschwitz in

'43, and at first we didn't believe it,

even though, of course, one

always says, "We believe anything of the military."

We didn't believe this, also

because it went against all military

necessities and needs. Because, as

you understand, all

military historians understand something about these

things. They said, "Don't let anyone

tell you stories, you ca

n't anymore." I was...

And then, half a year later, we came after all

because it was proven to us, and that was

the real shock.

You know, before, you told yourself, "Well, you

have enemies, that's perfectly

natural. Why shouldn't you have

enemies? It's a gang, yes,

anything is possible."

But this was different. It was truly as if the abyss had

opened up because you

somehow had the idea that

everything else could have been made right again,

presented to

the politicians, yes, everything could somehow always be made right again.

We ca

n't, this shouldn't have happened

there, and as

I always say, no. And by that, I do

n't mean the things I saw,

I mean the production of

corpses and so on. Wait, I need... To

just leave me waiting for myself,

this shouldn't have happened.

Something happened that none of us can cope with anymore.

With

all the other things that happened, I have to say it was

sometimes

a bit difficult, and one was very

poor, and one was persecuted, had to

flee, and one had to

dwindle, and whatever else, not as it usually

is. I want to say that we were young, the majority

even had a bit of fun.

I ca

n't put it any other way. He didn't do this;

this was something serious, with another

account, also personally finished.

I would like to hear from you the evening before, in

what way,

if your judgment about

post-war Germany, which you often

visited and in which your most

important works were published, has changed

from 1945 to today. I first

came to Germany in 1949, at that time

on behalf of a Jewish

organization

for the rescue of Jewish culture, good

books, essentially

an organization that I headed at the time, so what one

says executive director.

I can

see with a very good will that my consideration was 1945.

The following, whatever happened in 1943,

is actually,

in view of what then happened, without certainty,

the The disloyalty of the front, if

one may say so, those who have

personally experienced it, of course, yes, you know,

if someone really

became a Nazi and then writes articles about it,

not that, he didn't need to, he didn't need to,

against me, I didn't speak to them

anymore anyway, I didn't expect

that, to report a little more, he was

n't primarily, that was also close,

but they were all not a mother,

not, they were just people, as I would

say today, who had fallen into their own trap,

they did

n't have this word, consequently, it

seemed that precisely in

this abyss there is a basis,

a basis should be given, and that is also quite the

case in many personal matters, I have dealt with

people, I am not

very friendly, I am not very

polite, I say my opinion and so,

somehow things were put right

again with a

number of people, as I said, these are

all just 90, never been, it lies, a few

months or at worst a few

years, did nothing, neither

murderers nor the, and to new things, as I said,

not people, because what had occurred to them,

but then of

course the greatest experience When you

come back to Germany, apart

from the recognition, you

experience that, as in the Greek

tragedy, the pivotal point of the

plot is not using the facility.

You could really experience

what that actually is, not a

great shock.

Secondly, I was incredibly pleased that German was spoken on the street.

With this river program, you can now be

14, and I didn't get there. And

today, when

things have all settled down again, let's say onto

a fixed track,

the distances have

become greater than when the fire department

was there back then in that

upheaval because the conditions, the

things here in this country, have settled down too quickly for their feeling.

Yes, and sometimes also a natural track,

which I don't agree with, although I don't feel

responsible,

be it from the outside.

And that means I

am much less involved today than I was back then, wasn't it?

That could also be due to time,

since 15 years is

no small thing, of course, isn't it?

But you would say, if you get to that point, that's all there is to it. To

summarize in one expression, I want to acknowledge the

growing indifference,

yes,

detached

indifference is too much, but

distancing...

This autumn, Ms. Abend,

a book about the

Eichmann trial in Jerusalem was published in the Federal Republic,

and this work has been

very, very hotly debated since its publication in America.

Objections to this book have been raised, particularly from the Jewish side, which

you say are partly due to misunderstandings and partly to

a completely orchestrated political

campaign. The main point of contention was the

question you address: to what extent should the

Jews be held responsible for their complicity in the

German campaign of murder,

or, more

importantly, how far

the collaboration of

certain senior Jewish council members has become almost complicit in

his own actions. Be that as it may,

for a

portrait of Han Arends,

several questions arise, it seems to me, from this book. May

I begin with this: does the

accusation

that this book of yours... the accusation from the

Jewish side... hurt you? that this, her book of

love for the Jewish people, and so first of all, may I

myself

note with a kindness that she, of

course, has also become an object of this

campaign? I have become aware that I

have nowhere in the book accused the Jewish

and, consequently, that they cannot

resist it. I have said that

another person did that, that is, because it is clear

that the

public prosecutors, I have

called them foolish and cruel in this regard, based on their subservient questions to the witnesses in Jerusalem. I have

read the book, I know that only some of the

accusations made against her are based on the

tone in which some things are

written. Now,

I cannot say anything about another, and

I don't want to say anything about it. If one is of the

opinion that one can only write about these things,

I can tell you,

pathetically, and

in which one, yes,

if, or let's say differently, I do

n't want to become aggressive at all, they become

aggressive,

where to see, if one gives it, people

take something from me,

and I can understand that to a certain extent

from the outside, namely that I can still

laugh about it, and

I was really of the opinion that the

Eichmann is a clown, and I tell you,

I've read this police interrogation,

3600 pages, very carefully,

and I don't know how many times I

laughed at it.

Now, this reaction is appealing, besides the means against it, I can't do

anything anymore. But I know

one thing:

I would probably still say this three

minutes before certain death. They are

not the crew. The tone

is largely

ironic, of course,

and that's perfectly fine. That's what I can do. The

tone, in this case, is really

the person. If they had accused me—I mean,

this story that I had the ship—

that's a malicious

propaganda lie and nothing more. The tone

is an objection against me as a

person. Against that, I can't see

it already being carried,

so to speak. What can you do? You can't do

anything anymore. I ca

n't tell people I just…

understand me, and in truth, what goes on in

my heart… This and that before it is

ridiculous.

In this context, I would like to return to a

self-testimony of yours. In it, you say: "

I have never in

my life loved any people or

collective, neither the German

nor the French nor the

American, nor the working

class or anything else. In fact,

I only love my

friends and am

completely incapable of love for any other group. Above all,

this love for the Jews, since I myself

am Jewish, would be respectful to me." Yes, may I

ask something about that? However justified, respectable,

and sovereign this stance may be, does

n't man, as a

politically acting being, need to be bound

to a group, a bond that can then, to a certain

extent, also be

called love? Don't you fear

that your stance might be politically sterile?

No, I would say that if we were to discuss this

politically, we would have a

long colloquium. You see,

belonging to a group is first and foremost

a natural given. You

belong to some group, always

booked.

Now, belonging to a group, as you

organize it very well in the second cinema, is something completely different from

this organization. The

underworld reference means that what

those who are

now organizing themselves under Nissan have in common is

what is usually called interest, that is, what

lies in between, the

actual worldly reference, the

direct personal reference in which one

can speak of love. This

naturally exists in true love in the

greatest

way, and secondly, it also existed to a certain extent

in friendship. There, it

really concerns you, the

person is addressed directly, independent of the worldly

reference. So, let's say,

people from various organizations can still

be personally friends.

If one confuses these things,

if one considers love in

the negotiation talks—to put it bluntly—

I consider this a

very big obstacle. They consider it

political, I consider it political,

I consider it worldly, and I consider it a very

big, a

great calamity. And I admit that the

Jewish people, who are the prime example of a

world-loving

boxing association that has held its own for millennia, in the sense of their

terminology as a space for politics, as a

space for Politics and also as a

public space, so my political

people, and I wouldn't quite say that

because the communities naturally want to be involved

politically. Religion is animation,

religion; you can't be apolitical,

but it is politically, with very

great deterrence.

This world loss that the Jewish

people suffered in the destruction,

which then, as with all pariah peoples,

generated a very peculiar warmth between those who belonged to it, a

warmth that I know very well.

This changed the moment

Israel was founded, actually

already when it became the Jewish nation's home

in Palestine. Gstaad, something was

lost with it, the loss of which they

lament. Yes, my [people] pay dearly for

freedom. I once said the

human, specific humanity,

not that, yes, but something very beautiful. That was. They

are too young, they won't even know it anymore.

It was something very

beautiful.

This outside of all

social ties,

these publishers stand locally, partly in a state of emptiness,

which I experienced very strongly, especially with

my mother, who practiced this once again in

relation to Jewish

society.

All of this is, of course, causing

extraordinarily

great damage. One pays for

liberation. I once considered, in the last

turn since 1959, that no one has

considered this humanity intact,

freedom, not for five minutes. Do you see that this

also happens with us? Of course,

you don't want to turn back the clock.

I know one has to pay a price for

freedom, but I can't

say that I would gladly pay it. Do you feel

an

insight that you gain through

political-philosophical speculation

or sociological analysis? Do

you feel

so obligated to such an insight that

publishing this insight

becomes your duty? Or do

you recognize founders who allow the suppression of a

recognized truth? Then

you know that's a very serious problem. That is

basically the only question that interests me

in the whole controversy about

my book. It

never came up except when

I brought it up. I brought it up

often in lectures. It

is the only serious question, as,

by the way, organic propaganda drivel. It would be

by bicycle, and that...

Eichmann's book didn't actually touch on such things,

so basically

no one's

disinterest or legitimate interest is

truly affected. One might think it's over now;

what is legitimate must, of course, be left to

debate.

Yes, you're right, what is legitimate is stated again. Yes,

you're right,

although I probably and

legitimately disagree with the Jewish

organizations. Yes, that's correct, but let's just assume

his real interest, so also mine,

can differ. Other interests and games can be

played. Is one then allowed to draw a

line? Would I have done it? He would have written it.

I would definitely not publish. Let's assume

someone asked me

if I had foreseen this and that. Would I have

written my book differently? No,

I would have either... Actually, I would have been faced with

the alternative of writing

or not writing. One

can... The average person says, "You don't always have to..." But

now there are

questions. We come to the question of

who eats what was called "facts" in the 18th century,

but

these... It's just about

facts, truths. It's

not... Well, rather...

For these facts, truths.

The historical sciences, the

guardians of the troublesome, haven't always been

the very best. They cave in, they allow themselves to be nominated

by states.

They say, "If I've been told..."

and some book about the

origins of the First World War,

a Salzburger says, "I won't let them spoil my

memory of this uplifting

time." So, fine, that's

him, a man, because I was... well, that

's not interesting. In fact,

he is the guardian of historical

truth, the one who possesses facts and these

assets.

How important they are, we know, for

example, in fascist

history, where history is rewritten every five years.

And the

fact, for example, that there was a Mr. Trotz, which

we want to remain unknown, do the

governments have an interest in this? Are they

right about that? Do they have a right to it? You

yourself don't

believe that he has a right to it,

because otherwise you would

n't have universities at all. So there is indeed

an interest of the

states themselves in the truth. I do

n't mean

military secrets here, yes. Yes, that's

another matter. Now, these stories are

about 20 years old. Why should

n't the truth come out in the end?

Perhaps 20 years

isn't enough, some people say, and

others say that after 20 years you ca

n't even get the truth out anymore.

In any case, it sounds like there's an interest in

whitewashing oneself, but it's not a

legitimate interest.

They would also

give precedence to the truth in case of doubt. I

would say that impartiality rises. This has

come into the world as more than just

for these people. Legally, if that's

love, in silence of the

overcome Wanda, she has

freedom, she is not here, that probably succeeded more.

Then Mr. O came there and said

the great deeds of the Greeks and

the barbarians. From

this spirit

comes all science, even rent,

even historical

science. If one

is incapable of this inability because one

pretends to live one's own people in such a way

that one permanently

withholds the truth from them, the New

Yorker is there and flattered in the attic.

Flattered how she then, so to speak, lays it down,

yes, then you can't say anything, you can't do anything.

I am of the opinion that these are not

patriots. In one of her most

important works, Vita Activa, or On Being Active in

Life, in my opinion her most

important work, she comes to the conclusion

that modernity

has dethroned the common sense, that is, the sense of the primary purpose of politics, and she describes as

modern social phenomena

the uprooting and abandonment of the

masses and the triumph of a

type of person who finds the mere process of work and

consumption sufficient. I

have two questions about this. First, how far

is a philosophical insight of

this degree dependent on personal

experience

to initiate a thought process?

I don't believe that

any process exists

that a person can do without personal experience. That is to say,

all thinking is reflecting on the matter.

I live in the modern world and, of course, in

my experience, I have this in the modern world. Incidentally,

this has also been observed by many others. Do

you see the

matter of work and consumption, which

in my presentation are only two

Sides of the same phenomenon are, that is,

this cycle in which life

vibrates, in which everything living vibrates. This is why it

is so

important again, and as it seems to me, Ehrwald's misfortune is also contained within it.

A worldlessness manifests itself, and it

no longer matters

how the world looks. The world has always been

understood as a space in which politics comes into play,

now conceived even more broadly

as a space in which things

become public, as a space in which one booms and which must

look decent, in which

art naturally also appears, in which everything

seems possible. They reflect: Kennedy

tried to expand the

public sphere decisively

by inviting the dense and

other worthless, worthless things

into the White House. Not so all of this

might not yet belong in this

space. In working and consuming,

man is truly thrown completely back on

himself, the biological

from the biological and on himself, and

there you have the connection with

abandonment.

In the work process, a

peculiar abandonment arises. I cannot go into this at the

moment;

it would take us too far afield. And

this abandonment—he is this being on himself.

thrown back by the fact that

consumption, in a sense, takes the

place of all truly relevant

activities.

A second question arises in this context:

they come to the conclusion that the

actual world-

oriented experiences—meaning

insights and experiences of the highest

political rank—are increasingly

eluding the experiential horizon of the average human existence. In this, what is arguably the most

important aspect of human existence, they say that

today the ability to

act is limited to a few. What does

this mean in practical politics? One can only imagine

how far

a form of government that is

theoretically based on the shared responsibility of

all citizens becomes a

fiction under these circumstances.

I will limit this a bit; you see,

firstly,

this

inability to truly

orient oneself appropriately exists not only for the

masses, but also for all

other strata. I myself, so to speak, am

surrounded by an army of experts.

And actually, the

question here would be between the statesman

and the expert. As a statesman, he

ultimately has to make the decision. He

can make it properly, yes, he ca

n't possibly know all of this. He has to rely

on experts, and specifically on

experts who, in principle, must constantly discuss matters with one another.

Not every sensible statesman seeks out

opposing expertise.

No, because otherwise, the matter must be considered

from all sides. I perceive that

he has to judge in between, and

this judgment is a highly mysterious process. It does

n't express the

common good, which, let's say, concerns

the masses of people.

I would happily say that

wherever people gather,

regardless of the scale,

public interests are formed and a

public sphere is created. And in

America, where these

spontaneous associations still exist that

then also fall apart, not

the associations that

Tocqueville already spoke of, you can

see this very clearly. Any

public interest concerns

a specific group of people, a

neighborhood, or even just a house,

a city, or some other kind of

group. Yes, then these

people will come together, and you see very clearly

in this... to

act publicly because these things

are overlooked, meaning what you say

only applies to the biggest

decisions at the highest level, and

believe me, there the

difference between the state and the

man on the street is

not very good in principle. I believe him that I'm

walking.

I heard that I said

a friend, Karl Jaspers, your former

teacher, is considered to be close to you and you to him in a

special way, as a kind of

dialogue partner in that

perpetual dialogue among friends you mentioned earlier. In what do

you see the strongest influence

Jaspers has had on you? And you

see very well a little bit, he

comes

and speaks. I have him listening to this

program, then it

becomes clear.

He has an unreserved, unconditional way of speaking. I have no

trust, an unconditional way of speaking.

That I know a person like Karmann

impressed me even when

I was very young.

He also has a concept of freedom coupled

with reason

that was completely foreign to me when I came to Heidelberg.

I knew nothing about it, although

I can read.

I saw this reason, so to speak, in

practice, and if May I say so?

I grew up without a father, not that I let

myself be raised by him, or

if you prefer, that our television has succeeded.

I want your God's sake,

I feel responsible,

because some person

succeeded in bringing me to reason, in raising me,

yes, in the sense of

bringing me to reason. Then there is chaos.

This dialogue is, of course, completely different today.

That was actually my strongest

post-war experience, that such a

conversation exists, that one

can speak like this.

Allow me one last question: In

a commemorative speech for Jaspers, you

said that humanity is never won

in solitude and never by surrendering

one's work to the public.

Only those who take their life and their person into the public sphere

can achieve it. This risk

of publicity—a quote from Jaspers.

Now, what does it consist of for Hanna?

And

now, that's it. The public

seems to understand: one exposes oneself

in the public eye, as a

person. Even though I believe

that one should

n't

appear and act in public while reflecting on oneself, I know I

believe that in every action, the person expresses themselves in

a way unlike

any other. In action and speech, speaking is

a form of action; they

choose no other activity. So that

is the first risk. The second risk is that

we catch

our thread, somewhat frayed, in a web

of relationships. What will come of it—

we all depend on saying, "

Lord, forgive them what they do; they do

not know what they do."

This applies to all actions, quite simply,

quite concretely, because we cannot know.

That is a risk. And now, in

conclusion, I would say that this is

only possible through

trust in people. That means trusting

in them in

some fundamental, difficult-to-define way—

trust in the

humanity of all people. Otherwise, one could...

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