On June 22, 1944, Himmler signed the official order delegating to the SS leaders of the concentration camps located in the territories occupied by the Reich in the East the evacuation of the prisoners fit for work to camps far from the front. Caught between the offensive of the Anglo-American troops and that of the Red Army, the Nazi regime wanted to keep its military-industrial machine running with its captive workforce. More than 700,000 prisoners, men and women judged fit for work, were transferred on foot or sometimes by truck to train stations where they were crammed into convoys of goods. They took to the road throughout the last year of the world conflict to reach Germany and Austria, from camp to camp. More than a third of them died during these terrible "death marches".