The Origins of Totalitarianism
In 1960, on hearing of Adolf Eichmann's capture and plans for his trial, Hannah Arendt contacted "The New Yorker" and offered to travel to Israel to cover it when it opened on 11 April 1961. Arendt was anxious to test her theories, developed in "The Origins of Totalitarianism", and see how justice would be administered to the sort of man she had written about. Also she had witnessed "little of the Nazi regime directly" and this was an opportunity to witness an agent of totalitarianism first hand.