Weren't the Germans better off under Hitler than during the war which destroyed his regime? Of course they were. They were not dying, except for the Jews among them and the Communists and the socialists and homosexuals and even some religious dissenters--and in the beginning not so many of them.
This logic comes to mind because of Kofi Annan's declaration that the Iraqis were better off under Saddam Hussein, except for the Shia he murdered and the Druze and some Christians and also, for that matter, some liberal Sunnis. How many of these did he kill? Half a million maybe. Oh yes, it would have been far better to keep him in power and waited until history took him down by itself.