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having failed to contribute to mass murder.
     

T he bureaucrat's commitment to rules and personal correctness, rational concomitants of the bureaucratic form, has further irrational potential with respect to individual cases. For Weber, bureaucracy serves as the optimum means by which to specialise administrative functions, does so in accordance with purely objective considerations and calculable rules, and thus leads the official to act on a purely impartial, neutral basis (in Gerth & Mills, 1991, p. 224). Accordingly, a bureaucracy is not entitled or indeed able to regulate "by individual commands given for each case but only to regulate … abstractly" (Weber, 1978, p.958). Weber traces this concern with generality and impersonality to the emergence of mass democracy, which, being associated with the development of bureaucracy, created a demand for abstract regularity, egalitarianism, equality before the law, and the rejection of special privileges; that is, the rejection of corruption and personal favours derived from arbitrary decision-making on an individual basis (in Gerth & Mills, 1991, p.224; Beetham, 1996, p.32). The bureaucrat is thus conditioned "to treat cases alike" (Beetham, 1985, p.68) and conduct his affairs "in a spirit of formalistic impersonality … without hatred or passion" (Weber in Blau & Meyer, 1987, p.20). These, then, are yet more examples of bureaucratic 'sacred values', as a consequence of which personal involvement and rule-bending gain 'taboo' status, rendering the official liable to a charge of misconduct for "inviting arbitrariness in the treatment of different citizens" (Beetham, 1996, p.32).
     
    If, as Weber claims, bureaucracy is intimately associated with the emergence of democracy, and if abstract generality and impersonality are key guiding principles, then the Final Solution is indeed the product of modernity and uniquely modern principles, which facilitated the murder of abstract depersonalised Jews* by abstract depersonalised officials in accordance with abstract depersonalised rules. This depersonalisation, or, as Bauman prefers, dehumanisation, derives also from the preponderance of formal rationality, a cost-benefit analysis approach which quantifies the subject, whose individuality thus becomes irrelevant to the official. In fact, individuality can be a positive irritant given that the official expects and requires a high degree of predictability in order to ensure the uninterrupted flow of his or her routine (Bauman, 1989, p.102-4). This is of vital importance for Weber, for whom bureaucracy's specific nature "develops the more perfectly the more … [it] … is 'dehumanised', the more completely it succeeds in eliminating from official business love, hatred, and all purely personal, irrational, and emotional elements which escape calculation" (in Gerth & Mills, 1991, p.216). Similarly, it is also crucial to Eichmann's case, and some final examples of his activities and behaviour.
     
    * See Arendt (1989) and Baumann (1989) for an account of the abstract "conceptual Jew".
     

I n March 1944 Eichmann, along with most of his representatives, was sent to Hungary as head of the so-called "Eichmann Special Commando". The last country from which deportations were made, Hungary was home to some 750,000 Jews and had remained untouched until this time. In fact, Eichmann's activities there came at a time when the war was all but lost, with the Red Army already poised to strike at Hungary's borders. Upon arrival, Eichmann was soon confronted by the presence of Himmler's Special Plenipotentiary, one Obersturmbannführer Becker, who to his dismay had orders to work alongside him, so as to speed up the confiscation of Jewish wealth. Outraged by this infringement of his jurisdiction and upset to think that this in some way amounted to criticism of abilities, Eichmann determined to transport the Jews "in a lightening operation" so as to "set an example for future campaigns" (trial session