Negotiating Murder: A Panzer Signal Company and the Destruction of the Jews of Peregruznoe, 1942

In September 1942, members of a Panzer signal company murdered thirty
to forty Jews near the tiny Soviet town of Peregruznoe. A case study of
the unit reveals that individual soldiers faced a twisted terrain of choices,
pressures, and organizational cultural norms. The author argues that the
“perpetrators” among these Wehrmacht soldiers can be placed along a
continuum of response: the commander led the activist core, followers
went along, and individual soldiers evaded participation. Investigation of
the complexities of participation and non-participation in spontaneous
acts of violence such as this helps us to understand why some men (and
units) killed while others did not.