A major success of the Third Reich was to create a feeling of normalcy within German society while simultaneously murdering millions of people. Because life continued for so long in a state of relative calmness, it aided people in easing any feelings of guilt. As Arendt states specifically about Eichmann, "His conscience was indeed set at rest when he saw the zeal and eagerness with which "good society" everywhere reacted as he did. He did not need to "close his ears to the voice of conscience," . because conscience spoke with the voice of respectable society around him" (Arendt 126). After the fall of the Third Reich, many Nazi's attempted to defend their actions by claiming an "inner emigration", meaning that while their physical beings were following orders and committing genocide, their "true hearts and souls" were not present and therefore not guilty. Perhaps one of the most frightening aspects of Arendt's depiction of Eichmann is his lack of excuses such as "internal emigration". Eichmann felt it better to be considered a true and loyal Nazi until the end than to attempt to explain his participation in the Holocaust and genuinely believed that he had done nothing wrong. It is this total self-deception that allows Eichmann to assert, almost comically, that he actually helped several Jews. .
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An ideal example presents itself in the story told by Eichmann about the "unlucky Kommerzialmrat Storfer of Vienna", in which he explains how he made a trip to Auschwitz to try to help this representative of the Jewish community. Since ".neither Dr. Ebner nor I nor anybody else could do anything about it." Eichmann managed to reduce the amount of labor that Storfer had to do. Eichmann stated, "It was of great inner joy to me that I could at least see the man with whom I had worked for so many long years, and that we could speak with each other" (Arendt 51). Needless to say, Eichmann mentions nothing of the fact that Storfer was shot dead just six weeks later.
