The Witten Women's Protest was conducted to demonstrate against a specific policy of the Nazi regime. After being evacuated from the city of Witten due to the dangers of Allied bombing raids, women and children were moved to the countryside in Baden, away from their husbands and homes. Many women returned to Witten and their homes despite these regulations. By traveling back and forth between their homes and evacuation sites, they were seen by the Nazi government to be an additional burden on already over-stressed wartime transportation systems. The Nazi Party Gauleiter (regional Party Leader) of Westphalia South, Albert Hoffmann, declared that women from his region would not receive their food ration cards except in Baden or other designated evacuation sites. The protest occurred on October 11, 1943 and achieved the aims of the protesters, backed by a ruling by Hitler in January 1944, to allow the distribution of ration cards regardless of where the women were. According to the SD secret police there were estimated to be 300 women in the Witten Women's Protest. The Witten Women's Protest and the Nazi appeasement of the protesters prompted Goebbels to worry on November 2, 1943 that the regime was losing power by giving in repeatedly to Germans gathered on the streets in dissent. The protest weighed decisively on Hitler's decision in January 1944, that no Nazi official could manipulate ration card distribution as means of enforcing evacuation regulations. Background By autumn of 1943, three million civilians had been evacuated from their homes and relocated to different areas of Germany that the Allied forces had a harder time bombing. As Allied bombing intensified, some civilians evacuated out of concern for their own safety; others, like women and children, were relocated by the Nazi Government. Relatively new evacuation rules established the previous spring discontinued the practice of Freizügigkeit, in which civilians were able to pay their own way and evacuate anywhere they chose to- with the end of this practice, a flood of evacuees began to pour into similar government assigned areas, causing problems for cities as civilians with different dialects, customs, and religions moved into one shared space. As new neighbors clashed and winter came, people were ready to return home. In attempts to stop them, the Reich tried several methods of preventive measures- closing schools, restricting train ticket sales to those with explicit permission to leave the area, and then restricting