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Nor did the Trial devote much attention to exposing the usefulness of anti-Semitism to the Nazis, both in building their own power and in destroying that of rival organizations and states.

Certainly, one of the best ways of warning the world against anti-Semitism is to demonstrate its workings as a dangerous weapon.

Eichmann himself is a model of how the myth of the enemy-Jew can be used to transform the ordinary man of present-day society into a menace to all his neighbors.

Do patriots everywhere know enough about how the persecution of the Jews in Germany and later in the occupied countries contributed to terrorizing the populations, splitting apart individuals and groups, arousing the meanest and most dishonest impulses, pulverizing trust and personal dignity, and finally forcing people to follow their masters into the abyss by making them partners in unspeakable crimes??

The career of Eichmann made the Trial a potential showcase for anti-Semitic demoralization: fearful of being mistaken for a Jew, he seeks protection in his Nazi uniform ; ;

clinging to the enemy-Jew idea, he is forced to overcome habits of politeness and neighborliness ; ;

once in power he begins to give vent to a criminal opportunism that causes him to alternate between megalomania and envy of those above him.

`` Is this the type of citizen you desire ''??

The Trial should have asked the nations.

But though this characterization in no way diminished Eichmann's guilt, the Prosecutor, more deeply involved in the tactics of a criminal case than a political one, would have none of it.