would not only be denied to those who had returned but also to all children required to attend school, even if they had not yet been evacuated, led to a firsthand rebellion among the women, who had been capable of anything, without exercise of the least restraint or caution about consequences. Friendly persuasion had the opposite effect. Insults of official and high-ranking persons were the order of the day. According to the SD, demonstrations like the one at Witten had taken place in front of municipal food offices in nearby Hamm, Lünen and Bochum in the same period. By 1943, as British and American bombing raids continued to increase in intensity, Hitler wished to evacuate all civilians from targeted cities not essential to the war production industries by most means necessary. Within these strictures, Gauleiters were free to develop a range of tactics for evacuating Germans from targeted cities and preventing them from returning home. In Witten the women protested the regional party leader's decision to deny ration cards to evacuees who returned to their homes in cities subject to bombing raids. At the same time, he insisted that civilians must volunteer for evacuations rather than being forced into them- within four months of the protests in Witten, Hitler responded with policy that allowed more women and children to both return to their homes and received ration cards. The regime also improved opportunities for working fathers to go visit evacuated family members to promote cooperation in evacuation. Significance The Witten protest appears to have been the fulcrum event that forced a conclusion for Hitler in January 1944, that Gauleiters must not withhold ration cards as a means to force evacuees to remain in their assigned quarters away from their homes. The Führer then maintained this position at least through October 1944, as the German situation both at home and in the war became increasingly calamitous. Propaganda Minister and Hitler confidant Joseph Goebbels mused in his diary on November 2, 1943, that repeated concessions to protesters could cost the regime authority in the eyes of the German people. We must try, ... through appropriate measures, to dam this flood of returning evacuees. If this is not achievable through well-meaning persuasion, then coercion must be used. It is not true that coercion does not lead to the desired result. ... Nothing has been felt of this [coercion] yet, and the Volk knows