He does not believe that peer pressure or authoritative pressure can explain why ordinary Germans engaged in these actions . He believes that in order for the policemen in Battalion 101 ( and those in similar situations ) to kill , they must all be fully committed to the action — no half-heartedness . As he notes , " For that matter , for someone to be pressured into doing something , by peer pressure , everyone else has to want to do it . Peer pressure can , of course , operate on isolated individuals , or small groups , but it depends upon the majority wanting to do it . So the peer pressure argument contradicts itself . If the majority of the people had n't wanted to kill Jews , then there would have been peer pressure not to do it " ( 37 ) . Instead , he places a significant emphasis on the German people 's anti-Semitism , to the extent of drawing ire from other historians . Browning notes Goldhagen 's " uniform portrayal " of Germans , dehumanizing all of the perpetrators without looking at the whole picture . For example , in the town of Niezdow , the Police Battalion executed over a dozen elderly Poles in retaliation for the murder of a German policeman . It is less clear , then , if the Germans in the Police Battalion are antagonistic only towards Jews . The German-Canadian historian Ruth Bettina Birn has — in collaboration with Volker Rieß — checked Goldhagen 's archival sources from Ludwigsburg . Their findings confirm the arbitrary nature of his selection and evaluation of existing records as opposed to a more holistic combination of primary sources . Furthermore , Konrad Kwiet , a Holocaust historian , argues that Goldhagen 's narrow focus on German anti-Semitism has blinded him to other considerations . He points to the massacres of non-Jews as an example : " Goldhagen does not shine light on the motives of “ Hitler ’s willing executioners ” in murdering handicapped people within the so-called “ Euthanasia Program ” , in liquidating 2.7 million Soviet prisoners of war , in exterminating Romas or in killing hundreds of thousands of other people classified as enemies of the “ German People and Nation ” . The emphasis on German responsibility allows Goldhagen to push aside the willingness of genocidal killers of other nationalities such as Latvians who , recruited from the vast army of indigenous collaborators , were often commissioned with the task of carrying out the ‘ dirty work ’ , such as the murder of women and children , and who , in many cases , surpassed their German masters in their cruelty and spontaneous brutality " ( 27 ) . The Rwandan genocide occurred in 1994 , with ethnic violence between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnicities . The primary belligerents were the Hutu ; however , as with most ethnic conflict conflicts , not all Hutu wanted to kill Tutsi . A survivor named Mectilde described the Hutu breakdown as follows : 10 % helped , 30 % forced , 20 % reluctant , and 40 % willing . For the willing , a rewards structure was put in place . For the unwilling , a punishment system was in effect . The combination , Professor Bhavnani argues , is a behavioral norm enforced by in-group policing . Instead of the typical peer pressure associated with western high school students , the peer pressure within the Rwandan genocide , where Tutsi and Hutu have inter-married , worked under coercion . Property destruction , rape , incarceration , and death faced the Hutu who were unwilling to commit to the genocide or protected the Tutsi from violence
Rwandan genocide
Rwandan genocide
Peer pressure