Napoleon may have caused the death of as great a proportion
of Europe's population as did Hitler, yet the British chose
to exile him (twice!). I think they were correct in doing so.
The Kaiser was exiled. I remember seeing him in a newsreel
in the thirties chopping wood in Holland. I think that it
was a great mistake to try the leaders of the defeated powers
after WWII. After all the Russians, who killed more people
that the Gemans, got offf scot free.
Hitler was empirically different from all of the other dictators who had come before him since the dawn of time, with the single possible exception of the Central Asian warlord known as Timur the Great (Tamerlaine).
A lot of people died in the Napoleonic Wars, but Napoleon never systematically exterminated whole peoples. After the Napoleonic Wars, a lot of Russians decided that Napoelon was worth admiring, even though he was an enemy and an invader. After the Second World War, not one Russian admired Hitler. And there's a reason for that discrepancy.
I remember seeing him in a newsreel in the thirties chopping wood in Holland.
It was Denmark. And the Kaiser was a bad man, no question. But the Kaiser didn't run Buchenwald. Hitler was so much worse the comparison simply falls apart.
After all the Russians, who killed more people that the Gemans, got offf scot free.
So? And some murderers are never punished. Should we let all murderers go unpunished? I never thought I would live so long that I'd hear men clamoring for clemency for Hitler.