I made a special effort to study executed Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. We share the same birthdate, March 19. That small coincidence made the study more personal, and far more disturbing. What I found was not a monster born with horns. Eichmann came from an ordinary family. His family moved from Germany to Austria, and like many Europeans of that period, they were battered by the Depression. He was not brilliant, not charismatic, and not especially impressive. He was a small man with a pronounced nose, and he reportedly had some familiarity with Yiddish and Hebrew from his work on Jewish affairs. Some people suspected he might be Jewish, but that was never established. Eichmann was an underachieving student who drifted through a series of jobs. He worked as a laborer, salesman, and clerk. He was the kind of man history usually forgets. Unfortunately, history did not forget him. As often happens in life, mediocre people sometimes find themselves lifted into powerful positions, ...