Fleeing Hitler: France 1940

by Hanna Diamond

As Hitler's victorious armies approached Paris, panic gripped the city and the roads heading south filled with millions of French citizens, fleeing for their lives, with scant supplies and often no destination in mind. All hoped, as famed author Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her diary, "not to be taken like a rat in Occupied Paris."
In Fleeing Hitler , historian Hanna Diamond paints a gripping picture of the harrowing escape from Paris, highlighting the hardships people suffered in their desperate flight, and underscoring the impact this exodus had on life under Vichy rule. Using eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and diaries, Diamond shows how this ordeal became for civilians and soldiers alike the defining experience of the war. She tells how, in the Paris region alone, close to four million people left their homes and fled south, swelling the numbers of refugees until is was impossible to direct the flow of humanity. The result was total chaos with an enormous price to pay in terms of human misery and suffering. Many lost their lives as this vast caravan of predominantly women, children, and the elderly faced truly harsh conditions, and even starvation. Then, after the German offer of peace, as the traumatized population returned home, preoccupied by the desire for safety and bewildered by the unexpected turn
of events, they put their faith in Marshall Pétain who was able to establish his collaborative Vichy regime largely unopposed, while the Germans consolidated their occupation.
The first time this important story has been told in English, Fleeing Hitler captures in moving detail the devastating flight and early days of occupation after the fall of France.

Genres: History, France, Nonfiction, World War II, Holocaust

272 pages, Hardcover

First published June 14, 2007

Reviews

[Mikey B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A ground view of what happened to the people of France during the German invasion of 1940. There were over 6 million refugees on the move in France – including over 1 million from Belgium. Paris was almost emptied.

The author examines the reasons behind this vast and chaotic movement of people. One was the unprecedented collapse of the French military. The departure of the government from Paris added to this disorder.

Ms. Diamond uses first-hand accounts of people who participated and experienced this mass exodus. It was a traumatic beginning to four years of occupation. This tragic tale is well told and is certain to interest those who have an interest in this period of French history.

[Susan Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent and well-researched account of the great exodus of World War II, as frightened French citizens joined millions of refugees who had fled other western European countries ahead of German troops and Nazi policies.

[Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hannah Diamond has written a book that details events surrounding the great exodus in France as Germans invaded the country in 1940. This little examined aspect of World War 2 history is interesting. Diamond has a detailed account that explains how such a disaster happened and it ties into later how the French resistance began. Still, despite the unique contribution it offers to this era's history, this book seems to start and stop abruptly. Little effort is spent explaining how the Germans came to invade France, which is what led to this disaster. Once the exodus is over, Diamond promptly ends the book, detailing nothing of what happened in the post-exodus years. While quite a bit of time is spent detailing how Marshal Petain rose to power as the leader of Vichy France, no time is spent saying what happened afterward. Of course the book title does say it relates to only 1940, but I feel there was more to the story than just what was covered.

[Ted Dettweiler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't a review, just a note on why I picked this up at Chapters:

At the end of October 2008, my wife and I were staying by the English Channel but on the French side in a little port town of Dives-sur-mer. Since it was only a number of kilometers east of Juno and Sword beaches where Canadian and British forces came ashore on D-Day, I began thinking about what the people who owned the big-old-houses that I was seeing while walking west on the boardwalk experienced under German occupation. This book is about Parisians fleeing their homes, so it is not the same as the people in Normandy, but nonetheless, this kind of history interests me.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a dispassionate, academic treatment of a time in history documented mostly by letters and diaries, etc. One really gets a feel for the sheer dimension of a disaster that most in the U.S. were oblivious to (what's new...) It's shocking to watch an entire nation crumble. It's also shocking to find out how brainwashed the French were--they were almost like half of Americans are today! If you want to find out what can happen when you stick your head in the sand, read this book!

[Juanita · Rating 4 out of 5]

A scholarly, well-researched book on a subject covered by few books in English: the flight of the French from the invading German army in 1940. Especially poignant are the interviews with those with firsthand experience of life in Paris in May and June of 1940. The author's main focus is on Paris and the panic that propelled Parisians to flee their homes. Notes and a bibliography for further reading provide resources for anyone wishing to explore the subject in depth.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fleeing Hitler is interesting if for no other reason that it deals with a period, that of the mass evacuations of French citizens, particularly Parisians, to the countryside, ahead of the advancing Germans. It's a period, and event--if it may be called that, that has, so far, been largely neglected by historians.
Diamond interweaves her well-researched passages with personal accounts that make the story of this period come alive.

[David Worsfold · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent account of the chaos, human misery and administrative and political ineptitude that gripped France in June 1940. The story of the millions who fled across France in the face of the relentless German advance is vividly told through the accounts of many of those who were caught up in the exodus, skillfully put in the context of wider military and political events.
This book tells an untold story (at least in English language publications) with authority and humanity.

[Marie-pierre Stien · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was given to me as a gift. I am well familiar with what the French refer to as "the 1940 exodus" ahead of the German invasion. My own family lived through the ordeal. This book is a somewhat dry, academic account of those events. A good reference book for those interested in that period but the account lacks the soul of, for example, Irene Nemirovsky's books relating the same time.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Irene Nemirovsky wrote vividly and compelling of the French exodus in summer 1940 so my interest was piqued by this title. Fleeing Hitler is replete with information but reads like a dissertation (i.e., dry and academic as one reviewer has pointed out). It includes lots of primary source materials and photos.

[Carolyn Scarcella · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a holocaust or resistance. This is book is a war in France. This is a narrative. All the French citizens, Parisian are fleeing from their homes to the countryside. It shows a lot of photos, and it was easy to follow about the variant events between the French people and the Parisian. I did really enjoy the book as a result.

[Garnett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tons of disorganized details.