When I was in junior high school, I tried to get Hitler elected president.  No, really.

The unit in our reading class was on “propaganda”.  And what better way to demonstrate the power of propaganda than to run a positive advertising campaign about someone with few ‘positives’ to brag about?  Adolf Hitler for President!

The execution of the project was very simple—one trip to the library provided all the raw resources I needed.  A World War II encyclopedia had some photographs of Hitler visiting wounded German soldiers in a hospital.  Paste on a poster board—caption: “Hitler: Man of Compassion”.  Another photo showed Hitler visiting with some German school children.  Copy, paste, caption: “Hitler: He Cares About Your Children’s Future”.  And so on…

It was a bold—possibly foolish—choice for a project, but did earn me the highest grade in the class.  And I got across the principle behind propaganda—or any form of advertising, really: it’s easy to make *anything* look attractive when you approach it from the right angle.   After all, we all want leaders who are compassionate and care about our children’s future, right?

It’s interesting to consider the unique place that Adolf Hitler and Nazism take up in Western society: 

Hitler comparisons are heard constantly in political battles, with both Democratic and Republican candidates comparing their opponents’ policies and beliefs to Nazism.

Sister Sheri Dew, former counselor in the General Relief Society, caused controversy in 2004 by comparing the push for gay marriage to Nazi sympathizers. 

A 2004 movie about Hitler caused controversy for portraying him as ‘human’.  Someone who, among other things, was actually nice to his secretary! 

Mel Brooks, when creating “The Producers” and looking for the “most offensive” play idea ever, came up with…”Springtime for Hitler”.

(And you can imagine the general reaction when the idea of doing temple work for Hitler came up…)

The mere mention of Hitler in any context is usually enough to provoke an emotional reaction (which, of course, is why it happens).  The oddity is that (among others) former China leader Mao Tse-Tung is responsible for more raw deaths than Hitler.  (The Holocaust, in fact, would rank a distant fourth on a ‘body count’ list of world tragedies)  Yet you don’t hear too many Western politicians getting political mileage by portraying their opponent as “the next Mao”.

The adverse—and often exaggerated--reaction in Western society to Hitler and Nazism can be a repudiation of the things they stood for.  A reaction that says, “I know the causes that Hitler championed are wrong and have no place in modern society.”  This is good.

Here’s the problem, though—perfectly exemplified by the controversy above about Hitler being nice to his secretary:  There is also a tendency to treat Hitler as something ‘non-human’—a ‘distancing’, if you will, between Hitler and “civilized” human society.   The implication is that Hitler was not born of a human mother, or raised in “civilized” Western culture possessing the same human attributes and desires as everyone else.  He was, essentially, the equivalent of an alien from another planet whose sole purpose was to bring pure evil to the Earth, but without possessing any recognizable 'human' attributes.
 
This is a mistake.  Of course, Hitler could have been nice to his secretary.  Or wounded German soldiers.  Or (white, German) children.  Everyone is “nice” to people they care about, or who conform to their view of what a “proper” human is.   It is how one treats people they don’t know, don’t care about, or who do not have what’s considered to be “acceptable” appearance, beliefs, or behavior that determines what true compassion and charity is.

To become a “Hitler” (someone who causes the large-scale death of many people), one needs two things.

Intent:  mass deaths don’t usually happen by accident.

Opportunity:  one has to be in a position by which one can cause large-scale deaths to occur in the first place.  Not every person has large armies at their command to do their bidding.

The number of million-plus mass murderers in human history is very small.   But that’s primarily due to the opportunities for mass murder being small.

What about intent, though?  How many people today, if given command of a large nation with large armies at their disposal would also be the type to commit mass atrocities against people they despise, be it Jews, blacks, gays, Mormons, etc…?

The scriptures mention that intent is important—perhaps just as important as actual action in defining ‘evil’.  From Moroni 7:
 

For behold, God hath said a man being evil cannot do that which is good; for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent it profiteth him nothing. For behold, it is not counted unto him for righteousness. For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God. (Moroni 7:6-8)

So, 'intent' matters when it comes to righteousness, or wickedness. That means it's almost certainly a mistake to separate Hitler from the rest of humanity, as the attributes that made Hitler 'Hitler' are part of the natural man, and omnipresent in modern society, even if lack of opportunity prevents many from indulging them.

(Just as a thought experiment, Saddam Hussein is not known to have been responsible for nearly as many deaths as Hitler.  Do you suppose that is because Saddam said, 'I'm comfortable with several hundred thousand deaths, but six million?  Ethically, that's just too much...'  Or simply because of differing 'opportunities'?)

So, what does that mean? "There's a little Hitler in all of us"?  Perhaps, but more importantly, recognizing the humanness of Hitler and what the true definition of evil is, will actually do more to prevent future 'Hitlers' from arising.  Limiting opportunities, but without recognizing the desire and intent behind them, will simply result in people creating new opportunities.