City dwellers were encouraged to move away from city centers, where the majority of deaths from fire were caused. In an ironic reversal of the RAF zoning system, Himmler ordered local authorities to move people away from the inner zone, with its narrow, tightly packed streets, to the less densely populated outer zones, the commuter suburbs, and the farthest “weekend commuter” belt; the priority was to ensure that most evacuees stayed close to the cities they had left.
