Q. I understood from the first part of your answer that you meant that these years in which you were a blind recipient of orders would be excluded from life according to the Kantian imperative. And I intended to ask you about this, from when till when did it last? But then you added something, and that again changed the whole thing. Now I do not know what your final position is on this.

A. Killing people violently cannot be according to the spirit of the Kantian imperative, because in principle it is not something God-given.

Q. That means that there was a time when you did not live by the categorical imperative?

A. Could not live, because higher powers made it impossible for me to live by it.

Q. From when to when was this?

A. Strictly speaking, that was from the moment when I was transferred against my will, and against my wishes, to Berlin.

Q. Till when?

A. Until the end.

"Judge Raveh: I shall ask you a few questions in German. Do you remember at one point in your police interrogation talking about the Kantian imperative, and saying that throughout your entire life you had tried to live according to the Kantian imperative?

Accused: Yes.

Q. There is no need to show this to you; do you remember it clearly?

A. Yes, I remember it clearly.

Q. What did you mean by the Kantian imperative when you said that?

A. I meant by this that the principle of my volition and the principle of my life must be such that it could at any time be raised to be the principle of general legislation, as Kant more or less puts it in his categorical imperative.

Q. I see, therefore, that when you said this you were precisely aware of Kant's categorical imperative?

A. Yes, I was.

Q. And so, do you mean to say by this that your activities in the course of deporting Jews corresponded to the Kantian categorical imperative?

A. No, certainly not, because these activities...at that time I had to live and act under compulsion, and the compulsion of a third person, during exceptional times. I meant by this, by the...by this living according to the Kantian principle, to the extent that I am my own master and able to organize my life according to my volition and according to my wishes. This is also quite obvious, in fact it could not be meant any other way, because if I am subjected to a higher power and a higher force, then my free will as such is eliminated, and then, since I can no longer be master of my free will and volition, I cannot in fact adopt any principles whatsoever which I cannot influence, but, on the contrary, I must, and also may, build obedience to the authorities into this concept, and then the authorities bear the responsibility. In my judgment, that also belongs to it.

Q. Do you mean to say by this that following the authorities' orders blindly signifies realizing the Kantian categorical imperative?

A. Since the Kantian imperative was laid down, there had never been such a destructive and unprecedented order from a head of state. That is why it was new, and that is why there is no possibility of comparisons, and no...one cannot have any idea of how it was. There was the War. I had to do just one thing. I had to obey, because I could not change anything. And so I just placed my life, as far as I could, in the service - I would put it this way - of this Kantian demand. And I have already said that in fact others had to answer for the fundamental aspect. As a minor recipient of orders, I had to obey, I could not evade that. "

‏¹ http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9B%D7%A9%D7%9C_%D7%...

"And, to the surprise of everybody, Eichmann came up with an approximately correct definition of the categorical imperative: "I meant by my remark about Kant that the principle of my will must always be such that it can become the principle of general laws" (...) Upon further questioning, he added that he had read Kant's Critique of Practical Reason. He then proceeded to explain that *from the moment he was charged with carrying out the Final Solution he had ceased to live according to Kantian principles*, that he had known it, and that he had consoled himself with the thought that he no longer "was master of his own deeds," that he was unable "to change anything." (Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, by Hannah Arendt, Penguin Books, p. 136. Emphasis added).