Fleeing Hitler: France 1940. Hanna Diamond. Oxford University Press

Contemporary Review, Summer, 2008

Fleeing Hitler: France 1940. Hanna Diamond. Oxford University Press [pounds sterling]16.99. xv 255 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-280618-5. The capitulations of France to the Germans in 1940 inevitably meant the loss of Paris, the prize which had eluded Wilhelm II in 1914. The threat of Nazi occupation caused panic.

The departure of ministers, bureaucrats and able-bodied men in June was followed by one of the largest exoduses in history: some two million Parisians, mainly women and children (up to a third of the total) fled the capital in panic. Nothing had been planed beforehand. This excellent portrait of a city in flight is based on both archival work and first-hand reminiscences. It describes the hasty departures from the capital and life on the road. It looks at how people reacted to France's surrender, the collapse of the Third Republic and the Petain government's guidance. Finally it looks at the lives of refugees during that summer and autumn. This is another part of France's history that is largely ignored: why this is so is ably discussed in the Afterword. (A.C.T.)