Okay, so the ability to do evil is in us all. And no doubt history is replete with persons capable of horrendous acts. Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Kim Il Sung to name a few. These men did evil deeds with or without a soul.

• 1. evil, immorality, wickedness, iniquity -- (morally objectionable behavior)
• 2. evil -- (that which causes harm or destruction or misfortune; ``the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones'' - Shakespeare)
• 3. evil, evilness -- (the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice; ``attempts to explain the origin of evil in the world'' )

There is a mighty big difference between having the capacity to do evil and being so morally execrable as to carry out the wholesale slaughter of millions. Mao is estimated to have killed 70 million during his tenure. Stalin did away with approximately 20 million while noting: "One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."
How does understanding vitiate the heinous crimes these flagitious monsters perpetrated? How many of the dead will rise again because of understanding? How does making yourself whole mollify the killing of millions anything other than evil?

You say you are not sticking up for Hitler and there is no justification for what he did. But because you understand there is the ability to do evil in all of us, Hitler is not evil.

I respectfully disagree.