Fifty years after the the start TIME brings a series of extensive articles on World War II. Though the Dutch fought bravely, they were no match for Hitler’s blitzkrieg.

Exiled Thucydides knew

All that a speech can say

About Democracy,

And what dictators do . . .

The habit-forming pain,

Mismanagement and grief:

We must suffer them all again.

– SEPTEMBER 1, 1939, by W.H. AUDEN*

If one man could be singled out as Hitler’s most resolute and effective…