Possibly Roman, or even Persian. I have read “Oriental despots” or “eastern potentate” used as a a generic term for authoritarian and merciless, and Babylonian conveys a combination of decadent, brutal, and all powerful.
Lincoln probably would’ve favored “Tsar.” From an 1855 letter of his: “As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘All men are created equal.’ We now practically read it, ‘All men are created equal, except Negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, ‘All men are created equal except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some other country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
If *Citizen Kane *is any indicator, “anarchist” was an all-purpose slur used much as one today would use “Nazi”.
An anarchist is almost the opposite of an authoritarian, though.
I think this might be my fave of the responses. I could easily see someone saying “They really run that place like the Spanish Inquisition.” or “He think he’s Cardinal Richelieu” and have a similar meaning conveyed.
Monty Python reference in 3…2…
Doesn’t work; everyone’s expecting it now.
And I thought that “black and tan” had something to do with beer.
From what I’ve read in novels, the Prussian military at the time was viewed as being arrogant and overbearing. In the book …And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer, relating the lives of women in a small Ohio town between roughly 1870 and 1930, some US descendants of German immigrants go to Germany shortly before World War I and come back saying “Germany is not at all like I expected, with all those Prussians around lording it over everyone else”. The lady that write the book was born in 1895 and presumably would know something about World War I German military people were viewed in the USA.
Originally largely exclusively the case, subsequently less so, especially in Ireland.
The Belgians would care to differ with you.
George Orwell said in one of his essays “Decades before Hitler was ever heard of, the word ‘Prussian’ had much the same significance in England as ‘Nazi’ has today.”
Gotta love the multiple references to the unarmed British bobbies borrowing guns from bystanders. 
Turkmen are from Turkmenistan. Turks are from Turkey.
Definitely “Attila the Hun.”
I once spun the joke here that prior to the Nazis, the tendency was to compare everything perceived to be in some way evil to the deeds of William the [del]Bastard[/del] Conqueror and his Norman-French henchmen. The propensity to do this was referenced as Godwinson’s Law. 
While we’re discussing Nazis and it’s not a total hijack, did a lot of people have that mustache before he ruined it for everyone? Because even if you totally liked how it looked on you wearing one would be kind of a dick move.
Hear, hear, that was a good one! Nothing gets Bayeux.
‘Bonaparte’ as an epithet was probably a little between ‘Hitler’ and ‘Fidel’. Much of the opposition to him was motivated by a true sadness that the peasants and tradespeople of France no longer had the opportunity to be brutally exploited by an unproductive aristocracy. It is of course merely a coincidence that Bonaparte’s loudest opponents were themselves unproductive aristocrats.
So I’m sure every red-blooded Duke, Czar and Prince in Europe saw Bonaparte as the very embodiment of evil, but for many people in Europe, Bonaparte was an Enlightenment hero, who saved the French Revolution (you know, the one that started by storming the Bastille to free the prisoners put there by the brutal autocratic and violent government beholden to a nearly literal cult of personality). Maybe he was a hero who fell into temptation and excess, but still a hero who started out on the right side. So I think “Fidel” applies: hated by some, but admired by some for his works.
Edited to add: Just saw the whole thread on Napoleon here
That gets me wondering, how long after the era of actual Nazis was it considered “too soon” to throw around the term when talking about trivial things like soup and football? Or would people in the '40s not share our modern sensitivity to something like that?
Today, that’s remembered only in pro football.
In training camp, every player is afraid of “the Turk,” which is the name given to whoever it is that’s assigned to tell borderline players, “The coach wants to see you in his office- bring your playbook.”
The Turk COULD be an assistant coach, a trainer, or even a ballboy. But the image in everyone’s head is of a vicious Turkish warrior with a big scimitar in his hand, ready to cut you to bits.
That’s a really interesting question.
I’m too young (31) to know the post-war era… but looking back at 60s TV, be it comedies or news coverage or political commentary or whatever, I don’t recall any instances of the term Nazi being tossed around flippantly.
We’re already starting to see Al Qaeda used as a bit of a punchline, I suppose.
I remember in the movie Auto Focus, an incredulous Hollywood producer reacts to Bob Crane’s proposal for what would become Hogan’s Heroes by saying, “Oh, so it’s going to be about the funny Nazis!”