Arendt arrives at the Jerusalem courtroom and describes Ben-Gurion's political goal of making Eichmann's trial a lesson for the world.

Eichmann joins the National Socialist Party not out of conviction but to escape a humdrum career and find advancement.

Eichmann is assigned to the Nazi department dealing with Jewish affairs, beginning his central role in the persecution of Jews.

Within eighteen months, Eichmann organizes the forced emigration of one hundred and fifty thousand Jews from Austria.

Heydrich informs Eichmann that Hitler has ordered the physical extermination of the Jews as the Final Solution.

Eichmann tours extermination operations in Poland and Russia, witnessing mass shootings and mobile gas vans firsthand.

The Wannsee Conference brings together all government ministries, and participants unanimously agree to implement the Final Solution.

Through systematic deportations, Nazi Germany clears all Jews from Germany, Austria, and the Czech Protectorate.

Denmark refuses to issue yellow badges to Jews, making it impossible for the Germans to proceed with planned deportations.

Eichmann arrives in Budapest with a small team to oversee the evacuation of eight hundred thousand Hungarian Jews.

Neutral countries distribute entry permits, bringing deportations to a halt and placing thirty-three thousand Budapest Jews under protection.

The court hears testimony about the killing centers in the East and debates the full extent of Eichmann's involvement.

After four months of deliberation, the judges convict Eichmann on all fifteen counts of the indictment.

Eichmann's lawyer Servatius appeals the conviction, but the appeal is denied and all pleas for mercy are rejected.

Eichmann is executed by hanging, becoming the only person ever sentenced to death by an Israeli court.

Hannah Arendt arrives in Jerusalem to report on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi official accused of crimes against the Jewish people. Eichmann's background reveals a man who joined the Nazi Party not out of hatred but out of a desire for career advancement, eventually becoming the chief organizer of Jewish deportations across Europe. At the Wannsee Conference, all government ministries unite behind the Final Solution, and Eichmann coordinates systematic deportations that clear entire regions of their Jewish populations. As the trial proceeds, the court examines Eichmann's involvement in the killing centers of the East and weighs the full body of evidence against him. The judges deliberate for four months before convicting Eichmann on all fifteen counts of the indictment. His appeal fails and he is executed by hanging, becoming the only person ever sentenced to death by an Israeli court.

The rise, trial, and execution of Adolf Eichmann.

Attorney General Hausner calls over one hundred witnesses from multiple countries to testify on behalf of the prosecution.

Eichmann joins Himmler's Security Service mistakenly believing it to be the Reich Security Service, and no one corrects him.

The Nazi regime strips Jews of civil positions and public office, erasing their voices entirely from German public life.

Germany's conquest of Polish territories adds millions more Jews under Nazi control, making forced emigration unworkable as a solution.

Two alternative plans for removing Jews — a Polish-sized protectorate and resettlement on the French island of Madagascar — both fail to materialize.

The Czech population is evacuated from Theresienstadt so it can serve as a temporary concentration camp for expelled Jews.

A system of coded phrases is introduced so Nazi officials can discuss the Final Solution without ever using the word murder.

Jewish councils compile lists and help organize deportation logistics, a cooperation Arendt calls the darkest chapter of the entire story.

France refuses Germany's demand to hand over French-born Jews in addition to the stateless Jews already being deported.

Bulgaria, after understanding that resettlement truly means extermination, refuses to deport a single one of its Jewish citizens.

Croatia deports its own Jews independently, paying Germany thirty marks per person in exchange for the deportees' confiscated property.

After Eichmann and Heydrich intervene, Slovakia agrees to deport fifty-two thousand Jews to killing centers in Poland.

The prosecution submits over fifteen hundred documents to the court while the underfunded defense can only submit one hundred and ten.

Polish Jew Zindel Grynszpan testifies about his expulsion from Germany, moving Arendt to declare that everyone deserves a day in court.

Arendt concludes in her postscript that despite its imperfections, the Jerusalem court succeeded in fulfilling the demands of justice.

Arendt traces the step-by-step construction of the Nazi apparatus for persecuting Jews, from stripping them of civil rights to organizing systematic transports across a continent. Alternative plans for the Jewish population — forced emigration, a Polish-sized protectorate, and island resettlement — each fail before the Final Solution emerges as policy, enforced through coded language and bureaucratic compliance. Across Europe, different countries respond differently to German pressure: France resists handing over its own citizens, Bulgaria refuses deportation entirely, while Croatia and Slovakia cooperate. Arendt draws particular attention to the cooperation of Jewish councils themselves, which she calls the darkest chapter of the whole dark story. In the trial's proceedings, the prosecution overwhelms the defense with evidence, calling over a hundred witnesses whose testimony illuminates the full scale of suffering. Despite the trial's many complications, Arendt ultimately concludes that the Jerusalem court succeeded in fulfilling the demands of justice.

The Nazi machinery of deportation and the trial's evidence.

The three Jerusalem judges work deliberately to prevent the trial from becoming the political show trial Ben-Gurion envisions.

Eichmann objects to the murder charges, insisting he only aided and abetted the transport of Jews and never killed anyone.

Eichmann testifies that his conscience could only have been bad if he had failed to carry out his assigned duties.

Eichmann views his negotiations with Jewish functionaries in Vienna as cooperation, believing he helps Jews fulfill their desire to emigrate.

After his success in Vienna, Eichmann receives four rapid promotions and undergoes what Arendt describes as a genuine personality change.

Eichmann's first mass deportation secretly reroutes thousands of Jews to Lodz rather than to a prepared extermination site, his only recorded act of mercy.

Wannsee Conference participants volunteer their own concrete proposals for implementing the Final Solution, dispelling Eichmann's last doubts about its legitimacy.

When Himmler orders the Final Solution wound down, Eichmann sabotages those instructions because Hitler's commands remain the supreme law.

Himmler's agent Becher arrives in Budapest to negotiate deals exchanging Jewish freedom for money, directly threatening Eichmann's deportation operations.

The Danes secretly organize a mass ferry operation, transporting thousands of Jews across the water to safety in neutral Sweden.

After receiving orders to halt deportations in Hungary, Eichmann deports fifteen hundred more Jews to Auschwitz in open defiance.

After the war, Eichmann escapes an American internment camp without revealing his identity and lives as a lumberjack near Hamburg.

A Franciscan priest in Italy provides Eichmann a refugee passport, allowing him to travel to Buenos Aires under the name Richard Klement.

Settled in Buenos Aires, Eichmann reveals his true identity to the large Nazi community living there.

Arendt warns that because Eichmann represents an ordinary kind of evil, the conditions that produced the Holocaust are certain to recur.

From the opening of the trial, Arendt examines Eichmann's conscience: his claim that obedience itself was a virtue, and that failing his duties would have been the true moral failing. Eichmann's rise within the Nazi hierarchy depended not on hatred but on organizational skill, and his one secret act of mercy — rerouting Jews away from an active extermination site — was later forgotten even by himself. At the Wannsee Conference, Eichmann's remaining doubts dissolve when his superiors enthusiastically make their own proposals for the Final Solution, and he goes on to defy even moderate orders from Himmler when they contradict Hitler's command. After Germany's defeat, Eichmann escapes American custody, lives in hiding, and eventually rebuilds a life in Buenos Aires with the help of an underground network and a false identity. His capture by Israeli agents and the revelations of his trial force the world to confront the disturbing ordinariness of his crimes. Arendt closes by warning that this very ordinariness makes future atrocities not less but more likely.