region and forcibly deported to Soviet-held areas far to the east beyond the Ural mountains. In terms of total numbers deported to Siberia and Central Asia, between 15 August and 25 December 1941, the Soviet authorities expelled and exiled 856,000 German from Russia. Because of the quick conquest of Soviet territory by the Axis in the early months of their invasion, the Soviet regime was not able to deport the majority of the ethnic Germans from the western part of the Soviet Union, that is, the area west of the Dnieper river. The German towns and villages in the Western Ukraine, in Volhynia, and the Black Sea region all came under Nazi German rule, first under a military government and then under that of the Nazi Party or the SS, as Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Evacuation of Ethnic Germans during World War II With the defeat of the German Army at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–1943, the Soviet Red Army began its offensive, recapturing more and more German-occupied territory. SS Head Heinrich Himmler made a decision to evacuate all ethnic Germans and bring them to the Reich. Evacuations began in scattered German communities in the North Caucasus, where in February 1943, 11,000 people were transferred. Shortly thereafter, 40,000 German Russians were sent westward from the area between the Don and Dnieper Rivers. When the Soviet troops neared the Dnieper River in October 1943, the Chortitza Mennonite communities, totaling about 35,000 people, had to flee. In October, 45,000 ethnic Germans from Volhynia (Western Ukraine) were also forced to leave, and, by February 1944, it became clear to the Germans in Southern Ukraine that the Red Army could not be stopped; thus, they began their hurried evacuation. About 135,000 fled to the West. Approximately 280,000 ethnic Germans were successfully brought out of the occupied Soviet Union, which represented almost 90 percent of the registered German population, according to the 1943 Reich census. On the basis of the articles pertaining to the repatriation of nationals in the Yalta Agreement, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to return each other's nationals at the end of the war. Of the almost 300,000 ethnic Germans who were evacuated by the Germans from the Soviet Union, about 200,000 were caught and sent to the labor camps by the Red Army, either as they fled from the Warthegau in Western Poland, previously incorporated into the German state,