Introduction

History has, and does, find its share of brothers and sisters who have committed atrocities against other brothers and sisters, victims sometimes in large numbers. Names such as Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Josef Stalin, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jeffrey Dahmer, and a host of others come to mind.

Any transgression against a brother or sister is significant and must be noted and redressed. In some cases, however, such as the actions of the individuals above, actions are of sufficient scope, referring to malice, immediate injury, and lasting effect, that our entire global human family takes notice and demands redress, properly including such elements as punishment, compensation, legal adjudication, and apology whether public or private. The Agape Order concurs in these feelings and prescriptions.

Yet, regardless of the degree of injury or criminality of an action, individuals committing them remain brothers and sisters in our one human family. Sorely, criminally, tragically, and sometimes fatally misguided brothers and sisters, to be sure; yet, brothers and sisters nonetheless. The human family includes everyone, including those who have transgressed, no matter the scope or content of their transgression.

In fact, the very enormity of such actions must generate within us the realization that such brothers and sisters are in special need of attention from their human family, whether in the form of psychological counseling including possible rehabilitation, emotional reintegration or healing, or cognitive or other physiological correction. More existentially, the enormity of such actions must generate within us a compassion for these morally or psychologically unbalanced brothers and sisters; and for their immediate orbit of victims, such as their parents, wives, husbands, friends, indeed all those of their relation or immediate acquaintance who have or do suffer because of their actions.

The Hitler Project thus seeks to engender:

• Awareness that our human family includes everyone, including those who have transgressed.

• Compassion, or at least a diminution in hatred, toward those who have transgressed most severely and horribly.

• Awareness of the suffering of parents, wives, husbands, friends, indeed all those individuals of the relation or acquaintance of the transgressor who have or do suffer because of their actions.

To these ends, we must learn and maintain a consciousness not just of the crimes of our brothers and sisters, but their lives and actions in their entirety, including and perhaps especially periods in their lives and associated actions from their younger years, or whatever period of life preceded or was otherwise apart from their periods of transgression. We may learn of the early years of Adolph Hitler, for example, that he was a painter. We must celebrate or at least note events in their lives that speak to their humanity and perhaps provide a more balanced picture.

Site visitors here are advised to refrain from presumption regarding intent or implication of the Hitler Project. For example, it in no way holds, or seeks to assert, the primacy of the rights of "criminals" over those of "victims." Indeed, victims are fully deserving of the complete attention of the human family, and AO supports such attention in all its forms. Nor do the predicates of the project necessarily imply a proscription against capital punishment (although it does imply a more careful and love-centered approach to this social mechanism).

The expanded awareness and new moral perspectives advocated by the Hitler Project may assist in our personal and social efforts in the myriad ways--legal, social, economic, personal--required to effectively reconcile ourselves and otherwise address crimes and other transgressive actions committed by brothers and sisters. In sum, the Project is necessary in order to fully and deeply understand the notion of the human family, and its implications in attitude and action toward our brothers and sisters.