Could a German refuse to participate in the roundup and murder of Jews, [Roma, Sinti], suspected partisans, “commissars” and Soviet POWs — unarmed groups of men, women, and children — and survive without getting himself shot or put into a concentration camp or placing his loved ones in jeopardy?

We may never learn the full answer to this, the ultimate question for all those placed in such a quandry, because we lack adequate documentation in many cases to determine the full circumstances and consequences of such a hazardous risk.

There are, however, over 100 cases of individuals whose moral scruples were weighed in the balance and not found wanting. These individuals made the choice to refuse participation in the shooting of unarmed civilians or POWs and none of them paid the ultimate penalty, death! Furthermore, very few suffered any other serious consequence!

[…]

The analysis of the motivation for these refusals revealed that forty‐one of the eighty‐five individuals, nearly one‐half, gave no specific personal reasons. Over one‐fourth of the total cited humanistic or religious reasons, moral repugnance, and conscience as motivating factors. Among these was one who could not carry out an execution order because of the plea of a Jew among those lined up, who knew him personally, to shoot straight.

Only one in six men regarded the executions as illegal and refused for that reason. Others reasoned that the murders would damage the men carrying them out or that they would create emotional disturbances.

An equal number believed that such executions were not within their military or police role, or their professional ethos as a soldier or a professional police civil servant prevented them from participation. Two claimed such murders were politically disadvantageous!

[…]

Another type of successful tactic for not participating in the executions was eluding involvement. One army officer told Jewish captives to escape when an SD officer was absent. The guards assumed [that] it was all right and allowed the escape to happen since the two officers had conferred earlier.

Others hid behind wagons or trucks which had brought Jews and others to places of execution in order not to be detailed to the firing squads. Some threw away or “lost” their weapons, or continually shot wild, deliberately missing an old man in a ditch for instance, or overlooked women and children hiding from the search details.

There were men who used the method of refusing to be employed by other authorities to do their dirty work. Front‐line soldiers in the army or Waffen SS refused to be “butchers” or “hangmen” for the SD or Einsatzkommandos. Police and other civil servants pointed out that this was not their unit’s job; therefore, they had no obligation to participate in the killings.

A few individuals used economic arguments (the loss of Jewish laborers would create economic damage if they were killed) or threats of force to prevent the individual’s participation. One case involved two men raising their loaded rifles in self defence against their drunken officer who had drawn his pistol to shoot them when they refused his order to shoot twenty women and children encountered on a road.

Other tactics included collective refusal by groups or whole units and exchanging prisoners or Jews for wounded [Axis] soldiers.