Is Hitler in Hell?

IS HITLER IN HELL?

In On Conscience (2006), Benedict XVI addresses the argument that Adolph Hitler is not damned in hell if the most infamous villain in history had followed his conscience. Benedict XVI says this argument is wrong because conscience does not by itself absolve the person from culpability when to begin with the person failed to “remember” the moral law. The pope refers to the Platonic concept of anamnesis, “remembering.” Hitler, Benedict XVI points out, is not absolved from guilt by following his conscience because the man who instigated the most destructive war in history had in the first place failed to access through anamnesis his knowledge of the moral law. Individuals are responsible for their deficiencies in anamnesis even if they to the best of their ability follow their conscience. Conscience is subjective but it is, paradoxically, objective as well, or at least, it possesses by itself, intrinsically, the capacity to access the objective moral law.