Third Republic vs. Third Reich, which was better equipped to evacuate over one million civilians on either side of the Franco-German border in 1939? Containment of total warfare or another radicalising factor in the development of total war? Beginning with the end of the First World War, Nicholas John Williams explores French and German evacuation policies, their interdependencies and their execution. For the first time, the French and the German evacuation programmes along the border areas are treated alongside one another in a monograph, deeply rooted in their historical context.