It depends on what you mean by "holding accountable" Germany was financially crippled and mostly demilitarized after WW1 which of course hugely affected the po

It depends on what you mean by "holding accountable" Germany was financially crippled and mostly demilitarized after WW1 which of course hugely affected the population. But in terms of _actually_ holding people personally accountable, there was a much stronger and organized effort after WW2, see e.g. [0]. I think that worked out rather okay. So I don't think it's quite as simple as saying it doesn't work. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification