Yes, but it was coined to promote specific view of Eichmann that he himself tried to cast himself in: that he didn't really like murdering Jews, he was just following orders.
"How are you?" is an idiom. Just like "what's up" isn't a question about what is currently in the sky. It's unfortunate, and I wish it didn't exist, but it does. It functions as a politeness marker, and in some settings (i.e. nerdy programmers) politeness markers are seen as unnecessary and pointless, but in others they are seen as necessary.
As to why it exists, the answer is the same for just about every other linguistic feature: nobody really knows.