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Line 36: ==Working class history== Detlev Peukert was born in Gütersloh, [[Westphalia\|Eastern Westphalia]], the son of Konrad Peukert, an [[engineer]], and his wife Ilse (Kramer) Peukert, a ~~working~~[[secretary]].<ref>Mary K. Ruby: ''"Peukert, Detlev J(ulio) K.".'' In: Contemporary Authors. A Bio-~~class~~Bibliographical ~~family~~Guide to Current Writers in ~~the~~Fiction, ~~Ruhr~~General Nonfiction, ~~his~~Poetry, ~~father~~Journalism, aMotion ~~coal~~Pictures, ~~miner~~Television, and ~~his~~Other ~~mother~~Fields, aVol. ~~housewife~~133, Detroit/London 1991, p. 315f.</ref> He grew up in a working-class family in the Ruhr and he was the first member of his family to attend university.{{sfn\|Zimmermann\|1991\|p=245}} Many of his father's fellow coal miners had been members of either the SPD or KPD, and were sent to concentration camps during the Nazi era.{{sfn\|Zimmermann\|1991\|p=245}} Growing up in the coal miners' milieu, where many so had been sent to concentration camps for anti-Nazi views, left Peukert very interested in the subject of outsiders in the Third Reich, as he wanted to know why so many coal miners chose to oppose the Nazi regime when so many other ordinary people were passive, indifferent or supportive of the Nazi regime.{{sfn\|Zimmermann\|1991\|p=245}} The coal miners of the Ruhr formed a distinctive sub-culture in Germany, known for their defiant, rebellious attitude to authority, left-wing views, and their often confrontational relations with the firm of Krupp AG, Germany's biggest corporation, which in turn was owned by the Krupp family, Germany's richest family. As a student, Peukert studied under [[Hans Mommsen]] at Bochum university, and began teaching at the University of Essen starting in 1978.{{sfn\|Bessel\|1990\|p=323}} As a "68er" whose politics were defined by the student protests of 1968, Peukert was active in left-wing politics and joined the [[German Communist Party]].{{sfn\|Bessel\|1990\|p=321}} The historian Michael Zimmermann who knew Peukert as an undergraduate in the early 1970s described Peukert as active in the student federation MSP Spartakus and the KDP, but described him as a committed Communist who grew disillusioned following the expulsions of [[Rudolf Bahro]] and [[Wolf Biermann]] together with the "freeze" on discussing Euro-communism within the party following orders from East Germany.{{sfn\|Zimmermann\|1991\|p=245}} Peukert's writings on German Communist resistance in Nazi Germany differed greatly from the party line laid down in East Germany that the entire German working class under the KPD had opposed the Nazi regime, and ultimately led to him leaving the Communist Party in 1978 to join the Social Democratic party.{{sfn\|Bessel\|1990\|p=321}} The KDP was secretly subsidized by East Germany and as a result, the party was slavishly loyal to its East German paymasters. Peukert during his time in the Communist party had come to find the party line on history was too dogmatic and rigid as he kept finding the facts of history were more complex and nuanced than the version of history laid by the party line.{{sfn\|Bessel\|1990\|p=321}} Peukert's work was criticized within Communist circles for his willingness to be critical of the decisions of the underground KPD in Nazi Germany, and his sensitivity to "human frailty" as he examined working class life in the Third Reich, writing that not everybody wanted to be a hero and die for their beliefs.{{sfn\|Bessel\|1990\|p=321}}

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