Career
Peukert taught modern history at the University of Essen and served as director of the Research Institute for the History of the Nazi Period. Peukert was a leading expert in Alltagsgeschichte (history of everyday life) and his work often examined the effect of Nazi social policies on ordinary Germans and on persecuted groups such as Jews and Roma. In particular, Peukert looked at how in "everyday" life in Nazi Germany, aspects of both "normality" and "criminality" co-existed with another.
Peukert was one of the first historians to make a detailed examination of the persecution of the Romani.
Peukert often compared Nazi policies towards Roma with Nazi policies towards Jews. Another related area of interest for Peukert was resistance, opposition and dissent in the Third Reich.
Peukert developed a pyramid model starting with "nonconformity" (behavior in private that featured partial rejection of the Nazi regime) running to "refusal of co-operation" (Verweigerung) to "protest", and finally to Widerstand (resistance), which involved total rejection of the Nazi regime. Peukert often wrote on the social and cultural history of the Weimar Republic whose problems he saw as more severe examples of the problems of modernity.
Peukert died of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome in 1990, aged 39.