When German Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt flew to Jerusalem to cover the high-profile trial against Adolf Eichmann, she reflected that the criminal who had escaped capture for years and was standing trial for crimes against humanity wasn’t a monster.
He was an absolutely normal person who was really convinced he was “just doing his job”, she said.
Over 50 years later, and facing 5,230 counts of accessory to murder in Hamburg, former Nazi concentration camp guard Bruno Dey’s words aren’t that different from Eichmann’s.