EPrize Apartheid

THE CONCORD REVIEW 75
THE NAZI INFLUENCE

IN THE FORMATION OF APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA
Elizabeth Lee Jemison
South African apartheid was a system developed to pro-

tect the supremacy of Afrikaans-speaking whites and to repress
non-white groups through a policy of almost complete separation.
The Afrikaner people, the descendants of the first Dutch settlers
in southern Africa, were the dominant white minority and, once
unified behind the cause of apartheid, formed a majority of the all-
white electorate. Apartheid, the Afrikaans word for separateness,
began as a governmental system after the elections of 1948 when
the Afrikaner Nationalist Party, became the majority Party, and
this system lasted until 1994. The Afrikaner white population
developed the apartheid system in 1948 in part as an outgrowth of
the ideology of Nazi Germany, an ideology the Afrikaners readily
accepted because of the affinity they felt towards Germans, and
because they feared being dominated by the English minority who
had previously controlled the country.
The desire of the Afrikaners for complete power in South
Africa began when the British took over the Cape area in 1806, in
an effort to prevent Napoleon from gaining control of the region.
The introduction of another European group vying for power
Elizabeth Lee Jemison is at Princeton. She wrote this paper at St. Mary’s
Episcopal School in Memphis, Tennessee, for Ms. Joan Traffas’ Honors
World History II course in the 2003-2004 academic year.
76 Elizabeth Lee Jemison
served to awaken Afrikaner nationalism. The British who settled in

the Cape area in the early 19th century brought with them concepts
of the 18th century Enlightenment and the pro-business liberalism
of the 19th century. These ideas conflicted sharply with the conser-
vative Calvinist ideology of the Dutch who had settled South Africa
beginning in the mid-17th century. As the result of the anti-slavery
lobby in Britain and of the efforts of Christian missionaries to end
racial prejudice, the British advocated a lessening of segregation
to allow some non-whites to participate at least partially in the
white-dominated society. Overall, the English possessed a more
advanced culture and lifestyle than the Dutch living at the Cape,
so the Dutch were likely to be absorbed into a colonial British
society as second-class citizens. Indignant about the possibility of
such a fate and without sufficient skill to fend off the British, many
of the Dutch Boers moved further inland to areas to the northwest
of the Cape area beginning in 1835. These Afrikaners or
Voortrekkers conquered the land of native African tribes and
established autonomous Boer republics. There, Afrikaners began
to cultivate an Afrikaner culture.1
These Afrikaner or Boer republics began to prosper,
especially after the discovery of gold and diamonds within their
lands. This new-found wealth, however, worked to the detriment
of the Boer republics because when the British learned of the gold
and diamonds to be found further inland, they vied for control.
The conflicts erupting from the attempt on the part of the British
to incorporate the Boer republics into the British Empire eventu-
ally caused two Boer Wars. The first of these lasted from 1881-1882
and the second from 1899-1902. During these wars, the British
suppressed and mistreated Afrikaners. The British created volun-
tary concentration camps during the second Boer War where
many women and children came for protection, yet conditions in
these camps were such that 26,000 Afrikaners died of disease and
starvation. Towards the end of the second Boer War, the British
began to burn Boer farms—destroying crops and razing home-
steads. These wars illustrated the dangers of two self-proclaimed
Christian nations going to war against each other when both
nations believed in the same God and both were certain that God
justified all their actions.2 The Freethinker, a liberal English journal,

reported in October 1899, “The Boer has a Mauser rifle in one
hand and a Dutch Bible in the other, while the Britisher has
weapons in both hands and a Bible behind his back...Each informs
the God of that book which side he ought to take in the quarrel.”3
Ultimately, the British gained control of the Boer Republics with
the Treaty of Vereeniging of 1902.
Though the Afrikaners were routed, many loyal Afrikaners
chose to destroy their weapons rather than surrender them to the
British, while still others accepted deportation rather than swear
allegiance to Britain.4 Despite their defeat, many Boers felt pride
that while Britain used 448,000 soldiers in the war where 7,000 of
them died, the Boers never had more than 70,000 soldiers (rarely
more than 40,000) and most of these were civilians. Only 4,000
Boers died in the war. This pride in their military record evolved
into a new wave of Afrikaner nationalism. Their defeat after
bloody wars made them more bitter towards the British than if
Britain had seized control of the Boer republics without a struggle.5
This century of conflict (1806-1902) encouraged Afrikaner unity
and a strong anti-British attitude that would serve as an initial
impetus for German sympathy culminating in intense pro-Nazism
in the mid-20th century.
The extent of Afrikaner anti-British sentiment was most
evident in Afrikaners’ opposition to the leadership of Jan Chris-
tian Smuts. Smuts, though an Afrikaner himself, was willing to
negotiate with the British; he served in a variety of offices in British-
controlled South Africa including two terms as prime minister.
Smuts had fought on the Boer side of the second Boer War but
later became active in seeking compromise between the two sides
by leading the Boer negotiations for surrender as the Transvaal
State Attorney. Smuts explained the Boer position,
We are not here as an army but as a people...Everyone represents the
Afrikaner people...They call upon us to avoid all measures which may
lead to the decline and extermination of the Afrikaner people...We
commenced this struggle and continued it to this moment because
we wished to maintain our independence...But we may not sacrifice
the Afrikaner people for that independence. As soon as we are
convinced that, humanly speaking, there is no reasonable chance to
retain our independence as republics, it clearly becomes our duty to
stop the struggle in order that we may not perhaps sacrifice our
people and our future for a mere idea which cannot be realized.6
As the result of his efforts to lead the post-war negotiations, Smuts
played crucial roles in convincing Britain to give Afrikaners gen-
eral autonomy and in uniting the defeated Boer republics with
British provinces to form the Union of South Africa in 1910.
Smuts’ belief that Britain had the right to rule South Africa
earned him a pro-British label and alienated many fervent Afrikaner
nationalists. The first evidence of this conflict appeared in 1914 at
the beginning of World War I when Smuts fought to end a pro-
German rebellion led by Afrikaners. Smuts’ opposition to the
rebellion primarily caused the formation of the Afrikaner Nation-
alist Party later that year by J.B.M. Hertzog who wanted to make
British and Afrikaner cultures equal but separate entities.7 The
Nationalist Party grew in strength from 1914 until 1948 when it
gained a majority. From that political vantage, it was able to enact
its policies of apartheid that it developed during this period of
ascendancy. The Party became increasingly devoted to Afrikaner
supremacy rather than Hertzog’s initial policy of equality between
the two white groups.
In 1919 Smuts had become prime minister when his pro-
British Union Party was still the majority party. Upon entering
office, he experienced dissent from the Afrikaners who viewed
him as a British agent for his belief that the Union of South Africa
did not have the right to secede from the British empire. In the
wake of his experience with the pro-German rebellion in 1914,
Smuts was very cautious in his opposition to the Afrikaners.8 After
he lost power to Hertzog in 1924, Smuts became more politically
astute and aware of the strength of his opposition. Smuts and
Hertzog reconciled their differences to form the United Party in
1933 in which Smuts served as deputy prime minister until Hertzog
resigned from the government in 1939, when South Africa en-
tered World War II supporting the Allies. Hertzog’s resignation
made Smuts very aware of the division among South Africans in
their opinions on World War II and of the possibility of a civil war
resulting between the South Africans of British descent who were

pro-Allies and the Afrikaners who were pro-Nazi.9 Smuts’ leading
South African forces on the side of the British in World War II
angered the more conservative Afrikaners whose position the
newspaper, Die Burger, captured when it posed the question, “Why
should we fight for Britain, the only country which has ever
attacked us?”10 Although he was an Afrikaner, J. C. Smuts was the
object of many Afrikaners’ frustrations at the failed attempts at
Afrikaner independence, and he ironically became a symbol of
oppressive British imperialism. In an attempt to distance them-
selves from Smuts, many Afrikaners aligned themselves with Ger-
many against the old enemy, Britain. Anti-British sentiment was
not a direct cause of the bulk of pro-German and later pro-Nazi
sentiment in South Africa, but it contributed in laying the ground-
work for stronger ideological identification with Germany.
Where anti-British sentiment was unable to produce last-
ing German sympathies, ideological identification with German
nationalism especially through Afrikaners’ adoption of the con-
cept of a volkgeist forged strong ties between Afrikaners and
Germans. Johann von Herder, an early romantic German nation-
alist coined the term volk in his Ideas of a Philosophy of Human History
to describe the cultural heritage of the common people in any
particular area; Herder called the character distinctive to a culture
its volkgeist. A later German philosopher, J. G. Fichte, built on
Herder’s concepts of volk and volkgeist by claiming in his Addresses
to the German Nation that the German volkgeist was superior to that
of other cultures. Fichte’s theories, first expressed in 1808, intro-
duced the concept of German supremacy that became the first
seeds of Nazism. Afrikaners adopted this concept of a volk for their
own purposes. The volk stood for the identity of the common
people, so Afrikaners used it to glorify the Voortrekkers who
traveled deeper into Africa, conquered native tribes, and estab-
lished the Boer Republics; they were the paragons of Afrikaner
idealism.
In addition, many Afrikaners were of German as well as
Dutch ancestry and shared a common bond with Germans through
their identification with Protestantism. Most Afrikaner students

who traveled to Europe to pursue their post-graduate studies at a
large university studied in Holland or Germany rather than
England despite the fact that more of these students spoke En-
glish, not German. Several future leaders of the apartheid era
encountered Nazism while studying in Germany.11
Strong pro-German sentiment was evident as early as 1914
when German nationalism caused an Afrikaner rebellion against
British rule. Many Afrikaners opposed the Versailles Treaty end-
ing World War I. They viewed it as a cruel domination of the
already defeated Germans. Even Smuts attempted to persuade the
British to negotiate a less debilitating treaty with Germany.12 As the
Nazi Party gained power in Germany, Afrikaners felt an inclina-
tion to support Nazism as both Nazism and their own Voortrekker
heritage relied heavily on the idea of volk to promote the concepts
of racial supremacy. Nazis and Afrikaners construed the concept
of volk to permit a form of xenophobia that would preserve their
Western Christian tradition from the dangers Asian and Soviet
powers posed.13 Afrikaners adopted Hitler’s concept of a master
race and Nazi German nationalism to their Afrikaner situation.14
Nazi influence in shaping the ideology of Afrikaners was not the
primary cause of Afrikaner belief in the superiority of whites over
blacks, but Nazism was largely responsible for encouraging the
idea that Afrikaners were superior to any other groups of whites.15
Afrikaners distorted their Calvinist beliefs to further this
attitude of not only white supremacy but also of supremacy of the
Afrikaner volk over all other groups. Because Afrikaner culture
derived support from the Calvinist tradition, the religious ties of
Afrikaners were a natural place to find additional support for the
Afrikaner volk. Accordingly, they claimed that God had estab-
lished the volk as a tool for His purposes in South Africa. Afrikaners
took Calvinism’s doctrine of election and claimed that it sup-
ported the spiritual, biological, and cultural superiority of the
“elect” Afrikaner culture. Afrikaners further adapted Calvinism to
include a national consciousness in the doctrines of election and
vocation, thus making the “salvation” of the Afrikaner nation from
the evils of British domination appear comparable to the spiritual

salvation of its inhabitants. Through this combination of deeply
entrenched doctrines of Calvinism and the newer concept of
nationalism expressed through support of the Afrikaner volk, the
concept of Christian-Nationalism emerged. Afrikaner journalists
supported the concept of Christian-Nationalism by frequently
referring to the growth of Afrikaner power in the British-con-
trolled government as similar to the biblical story of the young
Hebrew boy, David, defeating the Philistine giant, Goliath.16 By
equating Calvinism to Nationalism and by seeing the struggle for
Afrikaner political power as obedience to divine will, Christian-
Nationalists stressed the State at the expense of more liberal ideas
of individual freedom. This made the emerging ideas of totalitari-
anism and fascism seem reasonable and compatible with Chris-
tian-Nationalism.17
The Christian-Nationalist movement grew in importance
and became a central part of the campaign for Afrikaner indepen-
dence and for apartheid. Afrikaners, after having gained indepen-
dence from Britain in 1961, revealed the degree to which they
thought that independence from Britain was their divinely or-
dained destiny when the Afrikaner newspaper, Die Transvaler,
reported, “Our republic is the inevitable fulfillment of God’s plan
for our people...a plan formed in 1653 when [the first Dutch
settlers] arrived at the Cape...for which the defeat of our Republics
in 1902 was a necessary step.”18 In addition to advocating indepen-
dence from Britain, Afrikaners manipulated Calvin’s teachings to
claim that Calvinism’s clear delineation between the elect and the
damned supported the formation of apartheid’s rigid racial and
ethnic distinctions.19
While Christian-Nationalism provided an ideological jus-
tification for fascism, anti-Semitism in the 1930s further linked the
ideologies of Christian-Nationalism and Nazism. Both formulated
similar policies to control Jews within their respective countries.
Interestingly, there was initially resistance to this trend from
powerful Afrikaner leaders. In 1929, General J.B.M. Hertzog, the
founder of the Nationalist Party, expressed decent tolerance,
saying that the Jews were the ethnic group whose concerns were
most similar to those of the Afrikaner. In 1930 Dr. Daniel F. Malan,
who later became the head of the Nationalist Party and the first
prime minister of South Africa under the apartheid regime, also
outwardly supported Jewish equality; but at the same time, he
initiated the Immigration Quota Act to allow immigration only
from a select group of countries excluding those eastern Euro-
pean countries from which Jews most frequently immigrated.
Despite such voices, anti-Semitism rose at an alarming rate in both
Germany and South Africa during the 1930s. In fact, South African
anti-Semitism was directly related to the anti-Semitism and perse-
cution policies in Germany. Because of the persecution of Jews in
Germany, there was a dramatic increase in the number of Jews
immigrating to South Africa from Germany. Many Afrikaners
noted this increase with alarm, fearing that Jews would eventually
overpower Afrikaners’ economic and political control. Thus, with
the Immigration Quota Act, the government seemed to legitimize
anti-Semitism,20 and anti-Semitism became an official policy of the
Afrikaner Nationalist Party.
Several militant Nazi-sympathizing organizations protested
the immigration of Jews into South Africa. One such gang was The
South African Grey Shirt Party, led by L.T. Weichardt, a South
African of German descent. The Grey Shirts became very active in
anti-Semitic protest against the rising numbers of German Jewish
immigrants.21 These immigrants formed 57.4% of the 6,295 Ger-
mans immigrating to South Africa from 1933-1936. Other Nazi
sympathizing organizations included the Boerenasie and the New
Order; all these were anti-Semitic, but the Grey Shirts were the
most vehemently anti-Semitic of these groups.22 Initially, the
Afrikaner Nationalist Party attempted to oppose the Grey Shirts’
anti-Semitism, but the Party soon became involved in pressing for
a new restriction on immigration of Jews that went into effect on
November 1, 1936. Before this new restriction went into effect, the
SS Stuttgart, a chartered ship, carried 600 German-Jewish refugees
to South Africa. A protest organized by the Grey Shirts met the ship
near the docks in Cape Town as a show of the force various militant
groups possessed. 23 In reaction to the SS Stuttgart incident, the
Nationalist Party met near Stellenbosch University, a center for

Afrikaner volk identification. Here Dr. Hendrik Venvoerd, a Na-
tionalist Party member, and five other Stellenbosch professors
pledged themselves to pursue an end to all Jewish immigration.24
Verwoerd further pursued anti-Semitic policies by suggesting to
the government that it no longer give Jews any new trading
licenses.25 Verwoerd became even more outspoken on the subject
of anti-Semitism when, in 1937, he became editor of Die Transvaler,
the newspaper published by the Nationalist Party of the Transvaal
region, which provided a prominent voice on Party issues for
several decades. His first editorial was a caustic diatribe against
Jews.26
Afrikaners continued to pursue increasingly radical anti-
Semitic legislation throughout the late 1930s, keeping pace with
that of Nazi Germany. In 1937, the Aliens Act created an Immi-
grant Selection Board to ensure “assimilability” among all immi-
grants. Although this act did not explicitly prohibit Jewish immi-
gration, Afrikaners often considered Jews “non-assimilables” and
prevented them from immigrating.27 The ambiguities in the Aliens
Act caused the Nationalist Party to fight for a number of new
demands to prevent all Jewish immigration and thus minimize the
role of Jews in South Africa. These demands included the explicit
prohibition of all future Jewish immigration, the removal of
Yiddish as an approved European language for immigration
purposes, and prohibition of Jews and other “non-assimilable”
groups from joining certain professions.28 Following these de-
mands of the Nationalist Party, Eric Louw, later Foreign Minister,
introduced another anti-Semitic bill that strongly resembled Nazi
legislation—the Aliens Amendment and Immigration Bill of 1939.
His bill was a means of suppressing all Jews. This bill suggested that
Jews threatened to overpower Protestants in the business world
and were innately cunning and manipulative, and that Jews were
a danger to society. To support his claim, Louw maintained that
Jews were involved in the Bolshevik Revolution and therefore
intended to spread Communism worldwide. This bill defined Jews
as anyone with parents who were at least partly Jewish regardless
of actual religious faith or practices. The majority Union Party
however vehemently opposed and rejected this bill. Stuttaford,

then Minister of the Interior, remarked that the bill reminded him
of the Inquisition during the Middle Ages, and J. H. Hofmeyer, a
Union Party member of Parliament, considered the bill even
worse in parts than Nazi rhetoric. Although the Aliens Amend-
ment and Immigration Bill failed, the fact that politicians intro-
duced such bills showed the extremes of South African anti-
Semitism in the 1930s.29
Many of the Jews who immigrated to South Africa adapted
more readily to urban life than the largely agrarian Afrikaners and
were generally better educated; subsequently, most Jews seemed
noticeably wealthier than Afrikaners. Afrikaners blamed the Jews
for their own lack of wealth by branding them enemies of society
and of the Afrikaner in particular.30 Thus, by blaming Jews for
Afrikaner economic hardships and by seeking to prevent Jewish
immigration, Afrikaners found a scapegoat for their own difficulty
in adjusting to an urban, industrial society. This anti-Semitism
grew in its irrationality and contradiction until Afrikaners accused
Jews of being both ruthless capitalists and subversive Communists.
A 1937 poster for the South African Nationalist Peoples’ Move-
ment read, “We say: Down with the Jewish Communism! Down
with the exploiters of Democracy! Down with the exploiters of the
Trade Unions! Down with the Bolshevik agitators who want...to
satisfy their hatred of...Christian Afrikaners...Down with Judaism,
the enemy of the whole world!”31 Dr. D.F. Malan, the incoming
leader of the Afrikaner Nationalist Party, voiced this slander in a
speech made on July 10, 1939: “Behind the organized South
African Jewry stands organized world Jewry...They have robbed
the population of its heritage so that the Afrikaner lives in the land
of his father but no longer possesses it.”32 Malan also voiced his
opinion that Jews should never comprise more than five percent
of the population of any region. In addition to anti-Semitism from
the political arena, a committee within a synod of the Dutch
Reformed Church concluded after much examination that the
Jews were not God’s chosen people as described in the Old
Testament. While the whole synod voted against accepting this
committee declaration, the introduction of such a claim revealed
the extent of Afrikaner anti-Semitism at this time.33 This strong

attitude of anti-Semitism fed the ideological bond between
Afrikaners and Nazi Germany. This, along with the concepts of the
Afrikaner volk and Christian-Nationalism, provided a firm founda-
tion for the formation of strong, Nazi-sympathizing organizations.
The Afrikaner Broederbond (Brotherhood) was the earli-
est conservative Afrikaner group which closely aligned itself with
Nazi Germany, and which was influential in the founding of
apartheid in 1948. The Broederbond began as a fraternity of men
devoted to the Afrikaner cause in 1918 and became a secret
organization in 1924. In 1918, a mob interrupted a Nationalist
Party gathering in Johannesburg where Dr. D.F. Malan, then the
Party leader in Cape Town, was speaking. The mob vandalized the
Nationalist Club building and injured some of the Party members
attending the meeting. This disturbance left a deep impression
especially on three Afrikaner teenagers at this meeting—H.J.
Klopper, H.W. van der Merwe, and Daniel H.C. du Plessis—who
met the following day to pledge themselves to restore the Afrikaner
to his rightful place in South Africa. On June 5, 1918, these three
under the guidance of Rev. J.F. Naude of the Dutch Reformed
Church, held a meeting in du Plessis’ home. This meeting marked
the beginning of the Broederbond. The name of the organization
that they began with only eighteen members was Jong Suid-Afrika
(Young South Africa), but by 1920, the organization took the
name Afrikaner Broederbond, and considered itself a quasi-
religious organization for the purpose of promoting Afrikaner
unity and of allowing young nationalist-minded Afrikaners to
meet one another. Membership was open, and the Broederbond
strongly encouraged its 37 members to wear Broederbond buttons
to distinguish themselves.34 However, the Broederbond did not
remain as open and harmless an organization as it began.
As the Broederbond grew, its nature changed and it
became increasingly exclusive by the late 1930s. Membership was
very limited. In 1944, membership was about 2,674 with 8.6% of
these being public servants and 33.3% educators.35 The mission of
the Broederbond was to promote Afrikaner interests in every area.
Its secretive, cult-like nature prevented the South African people

from realizing the full extent of the power of the Broederbond
until it had gained a firm grip on South African politics. The
Broederbond was the means by which the ideological ideas of
Afrikaner volk and Christian-Nationalism attempted to unify all
Afrikaners into a single force.36 In 1946, Senator Andrew Conroy,
the Minister of Lands and an outspoken anti-Broederbond mem-
ber of the United Party, estimated that the Broederbond had
strong influence over nine out of ten Dutch Reformed Church
congregations. Because of this and other allegations of
Broederbond involvement in the Dutch Reformed Church, the
Church launched an investigation of the Broederbond in 1949.
They reported that the Broederbond was a benign social organi-
zation open to all Afrikaans-speaking Protestants who were loyal to
South Africa. Many of the Broederbond’s critics argued that
precisely the Broederbond’s influence within the church had
secured a favorable, though fraudulent, report.37
Just as its critics feared, the Broederbond’s membership
was not as open as the Dutch Reformed Church’s report alleged.
The Broederbond denied membership to J.B.M. Hertzog and J.C.
Smuts, both Afrikaans-speaking Protestants, for their willingness
to negotiate with Britain and for their refusal to deny the right of
English-speaking South Africans to participate in government.38
Hertzog also denounced the Broederbond for their refusal to
negotiate with English-speaking South Africans and for hindering
his diplomatic efforts. The Broederbond countered by accusing
Hertzog of trying to increase his own political power by provoking
English-speaking South Africans to fear Afrikaners.39 Smuts con-
sidered the Broederbond a dangerous organization but failed to
oppose it publicly for some time despite having the power granted
by the special War Measures Act of 1941 to do so. According to his
Director of Military Intelligence, E. G. Malherbe, Smuts chose not
to expose the Broederbond because so many Broederbond mem-
bers were Dutch Reformed Church ministers and teachers, profes-
sions for which Smuts had great respect. Smuts refused to oppose
the pro-Nazi attitudes of university students and professors except
in the case of those who committed civil crimes.40 Eventually Smuts
yielded to the repeated counsel of his military intelligence who

believed that the threat posed by the Broederbond was great. The
Broederbond became aware of Smuts’ plans for action in 1943 but
allowed members to deal with Smuts’ coming ultimatum as each
saw fit. In 1944, Smuts demanded that all Broederbond members
who were public servants (including teachers) resign either from
the Broederbond or from their public service positions. After this
order, 1,094 Broederbond members resigned from the organiza-
tion, but many more resigned from their civil service position. Of
those who resigned from the Broederbond, 807 rejoined after
Smuts’ administration lost power to the Nationalist Party in the
1948 elections. Broederbond members gained much public sym-
pathy during this period for their loyalty to the Afrikaner cause,41
while Smuts publicly denounced the Broederbond as “A danger-
ous, cunning, political Fascist organisation.”42 Broederbond mem-
bers responded by repeatedly denying Smuts’ allegations, and
claiming that the Broederbond was a benign cultural organiza-
tion.
When the Broederbond began in 1918, it was not the
fascist organization that Smuts denounced in 1944, but with the
rise of Nazi Germany, the link between the ideology of the
Broederbond and that of Nazi Germany grew. This link became
critical to the Broederbond with the 1934 visit of Graf von
Durckheim Montmartin, a representative of Nazi Germany.
Montmartin came to South Africa with the official intention of
attending a conference on education, but according to docu-
ments confiscated during World War II at the German diplomacy
headquarters for the Union of South Africa, Hitler sent Montmartin
with the purpose of determining what support South Africa might
provide to Germany in the new world order that Hitler envisioned.
Montmartin met secretly with top Broederbond leaders to discuss
how the Broederbond might be of service to this end. After this
meeting with Montmartin, the Broederbond reorganized itself to
resemble the Nazi Party. One exception in this new organization
was the Broederbond’s use of the Dutch Reformed Church to
inspire nationalism and support of all Afrikaners, whereas Hitler
had reverted to the symbols of Nordic mythology to provide a

competitive “religious” awe for the Nazi Party.43
Montmartin’s appeal emphasized the value of anti-British
propaganda as a means of securing South African support for Nazi
Germany and included another sphere of possible influence,
young South African scholars whom the Broederbond encour-
aged to study at German universities. One implementation of
Montmartin and the Broederbond’s strategy of anti-British propa-
ganda during World War II involved a radio station in Zeesen,
Germany that broadcast very clearly to South Africa, more clearly
than the British Broadcasting Company or any South African
radio stations. This radio station was very popular for its music
programs. After the popular music programs, a South African
teacher studying in Germany, Dr. Erik Holm, broadcast vehement
anti-British and anti-Semitic messages in Afrikaans to the listeners
in South Africa. After the war, a South African court found Holm
guilty of treason and imprisoned him, but when the Nationalist
Party came into power after the elections of 1948, the new govern-
ment released Holm from prison after only serving one year of his
10-year sentence. Ironically, Holm later received an appointment
to the Department of Education.44 Influenced by Holm’s pro-
Nazism, newspapers openly began to reflect Nazi sympathy before
and during the war. One example was Die Transvaler, published by
Dr. Verwoerd, a Broederbond member. In addition to his anti-
Semitic editorials, Verwoerd expressed delight at Allied defeats
and much dismay in his reports on Nazi losses. Such Broederbond
propaganda prompted much concern among government offi-
cials about the growing power of the organization as the tie
between the Broederbond and the Nazi Party became evident to
those outside of the organization.45
Janie Malherbe, a South African captain of Military Intel-
ligence, realized the danger of Broederbond’s close alliance with
the Nazi Party after Montmartin’s visit. She reported: “This terri-
fying octopus-like grip on the South African way of life was made
possible by reorganising the Broederbond on the pattern of
Hitler’s highly successful Nazi state, complete with fuehrer,
gauleiters, group and cell leaders, spread in a sinister network over

the whole of South Africa.”46 The Afrikaner Broederbond fol-
lowed the ideological and organizational patterns of the Nazi
Party and advocated support of the Nazi Germany under the
assumption that in Hitler’s new world order, Hitler would give
Afrikaners independent rule of South Africa as a reward for their
loyalty to and support of Nazism.
In 1939, while the Broederbond was growing in strength
and World War II was underway, Afrikaner conservatives who
wanted violently to pursue Afrikaner control of South Africa led a
new military-minded organization, the Ossewa Brandwag (liter-
ally Brigade of Ox-wagon Sentinels, referring to the pioneering
Voortrekkers). Colonel J.C.C. Laas, a former military officer
intensely loyal to the Afrikaner volk and the Voortrekker heritage,
founded the Ossewa Brandwag to promote Afrikaner heritage, but
the organization quickly grew into a popular military movement.
Laas led the Ossewa Brandwag from February 1939 until the rapid
growth of the organization expanded beyond his managing capa-
bilities, prompting his resignation in October 1940.47 After Laas
stepped down from the leadership, the Ossewa Brandwag became
more militant in nature under the leadership of Dr. Hans van
Rensburg. As the national leader, he had the title Commandant-
General, and local leaders became “generals.”
The Ossewa Brandwag, like the Broederbond, supported
Nazi Germany.48 The group strongly opposed the efforts of Smuts
and his army to support the British; its opposition posed a signifi-
cant threat because the Ossewa Brandwag had more members
than Smuts’ army.49 The group’s Nazi sympathy became clear
when it printed its constitution in German Gothic type and when
it chose an eagle, the emblem of the Nazi Reichstag, as its
emblem.50 The Ossewa Brandwag opposed the growth of urban
areas using the Dutch Reformed Church’s doctrine of “British-
Jewish capitalism.”51 A cartoon from the Afrikaner nationalist
newspaper, Die Burger, opposed the alleged control of the British
market system by Jewish professionals. The cartoon pictured an
exaggeratedly rotund, greedy Jew riding on the shoulders of a
gaunt Smuts and Hertzog, and it suggested that wealthy Jews

controlled the pro-British government.52 Some Afrikaners ex-
pressed the opinion that Jews, in league with the British, deviously
worked to increase their wealth and power at the expense of
hardworking Afrikaners who steadfastly did their best to survive in
a harsh world. To many, it appeared that the British and the Jews
oppressed the Afrikaners; Afrikaners could “free” themselves by
supporting Nazi Germany, which promised to destroy both groups.
The Ossewa Brandwag became increasingly Nazi-oriented.
They formed the Stormjaers (stormtroopers), who were a secre-
tive part of the Ossewa Brandwag composed mostly of police
officers. The Stormjaers threatened and attacked anyone who was
not as conservative as they, including Nationalist Party leaders
such as Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd. The Stormjaers considered them-
selves to be acting for the best interests of the Ossewa Brandwag
but may not have always acted under the direct orders of the
group.53 The violence of the Stormjaers demonstrated the grave
danger the Ossewa Brandwag posed as it sought to create a fascist
state.
J.C. Smuts, while hesitant to confront the Broederbond,
nonetheless opposed the Ossewa Brandwag with much fervor as
the type of organization that brought Hitler to power in Germany
and that might have the capability to bring a similar leader to
power in South Africa.54 His criticism was not without justification;
the Ossewa Brandwag was evidence of the growth of Nazi sympathy
and dedication to Afrikaner supremacy in South Africa. Rev. J. D.
Vorster, one “general” in the Ossewa Brandwag, a Nationalist Party
leader, and a future Nationalist prime minister, expressed the
rapidly changing opinions of many who became increasingly
right-wing. In 1934, Vorster denounced Fascism and Nazism in
particular but after he became an Assistant-hoof Kommandant in
the Ossewa Brandwag, he expressed his admiration of Hitler and
his desire for a South Africa in which only Afrikaners had wealth
and political power—all Jews expelled from the country, and
democratic elections terminated.55 Vorster hoped for a new South
African government where, “the Afrikaner will no longer cooper-
ate with the Englishman. He will make the conditions and the
Englishman will be compelled to submit.”56 Vorster spoke to the
Afrikaner Nationalist Studentebond, the youth wing of the Ossewa
Brandwag, saying, “Hitler’s Mein Kampf shows the way to great-
ness—the path of South Africa. Hitler gave the Germans
a...fanaticism which causes them to stand back for no one. We
must follow his example because only by such holy fanaticism can
the Afrikaner nation achieve its calling.”57 Because the violent
nature of Vorster’s opinions threatened the government’s stabil-
ity, Smuts jailed Vorster along with some other Ossewa Brandwag
members during much of World War II.58
Vorster’s desire for a new South African government and
for the expulsion of Jews from South Africa was a common desire
throughout the Ossewa Brandwag. The group assured its mem-
bers that, “the man with a crooked nose [is] the danger to the
country.”59 In 1940, the Afrikaner Nationalist Studentebond, the
youth wing of the Ossewa Brandwag, acted upon the group’s
desire for a new government and issued a “Freedom Manifesto” as
a promise on the part of the youth to fight to overthrow the
parliamentary government and establish a Christian-Nationalist
government under an elected dictator. This plan included a state-
controlled press, a state education system with Christian-National-
ist principles, and Afrikaans as the official language of South
Africa. While this document never explicitly mentioned Nazism,
the government described was very similar to the dictatorship in
Nazi Germany.60
In September 1940, the newspaper, Die Suiderstem, pub-
lished “Constitution from the Christian-Nationalist Republic” as
the Ossewa Brandwag’s plan for a new government. This govern-
ment was viewed by Die Suiderstem as a Nazi state with only a few
changes such as the title of the dictator being president instead of
fuehrer, and the basis of the government being Christian-Nation-
alist rather than National-Socialist.61 During the same month, the
Cape Times published an article asserting that the Ossewa Brandwag
was in the process of arranging a coup to establish a Christian-
Nationalist dictatorship. This report claimed that there were
Ossewa Brandwag members in important positions in public

service, the police force, and virtually every major private industry
such as mining and railroads who were ready to act upon the
command of the group to assist in a coup designed to exile all Jews
and subject all British South Africans to Afrikaner control.62 In the
same year, the Ossewa Brandwag issued a similar plan for a new
South Africa with its “Declaration on the Boer Republic.” This new
government was to be a compilation of the governments of the
initial Boer Republics with many elements of Nazi government
and some aspects of other governments including that of Mussolini
in Italy. This government called for a head of state with unlimited
power who would support the concentration of power and wealth
in the hands of Afrikaners and discrimination against all English-
speakers.63
However, this republic never had a chance to become
more than an idea because with the Allies’ complete victory over
the Nazis in 1945, the Ossewa Brandwag lost much of its support
and its members dispersed. Many joined the Nationalist Party,
which grew in power during this transition. Some Ossewa Brandwag
members formed another minor Fascist organization, but its
membership and influence were very small.64 The postwar era saw
the rapid growth of the Nationalist Party until it won a majority in
1948 and began the system of apartheid.
The Nationalist Party that began in 1914 under the leader-
ship of J.B.M. Hertzog grew steadily from its founding to World
War II, but it experienced its greatest growth under Dr. D. F. Malan
during World War II and immediately after the war, especially with
the collapse of the Ossewa Brandwag and other fascist groups.
During the growth of Afrikaner nationalism in the early 1930s, the
Nationalist Party under Hertzog did not actively pursue indepen-
dence from Britain. The Nationalist Party thereby gave up the
relative freedom and autonomy of South Africa within the British
Empire for this radical step for complete independence.65 When
Hertzog united with Smuts to form the United Party in 1933,
Malan assumed leadership of the Nationalist Party which began to
pursue a more radical path. At the apogee of Nazi Germany’s
power, the Nationalist Party attempted to maintain an official

position of neutrality between Britain and Nazi Germany because
it was an official political party in the South Africa parliament and
therefore did not want to allow the pro-Nazi, radical Afrikaners to
sway its policy or to prevent it from being able to work with the pro-
British government under Smuts. Although it did not go so far as
to declare open support of Nazi Germany, the Nationalist Party
did change its primary objective. No longer did it promote equal
political participation between Afrikaans-speaking and English-
speaking South Africans. Rather, its new priority was that of
establishing an independent Afrikaner republic. The Nationalist
Party attempted to distinguish between its support of the Afrikaner
republic based on the doctrine of Christian-Nationalism, as the
will of God, and its opposition to Nazism. Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd
vowed, “The Afrikaner will have as little to do with German
National Socialism as with British imperialism...he will be as little
a tool of Hitler as of Chamberlain.”66
Despite the official position of supporting the Afrikaner
and not the Nazi, many members of the Nationalist Party openly
supported Nazi Germany. Even Hertzog expressed his distrust of
a majority-ruled, democratic, free-market society with a free press
in favor of a “new world order” of Christian-Nationalism and
National Socialism.67 During the course of World War II, the
Nationalist Party published four documents that demonstrated
the extent of the Nationalist Party’s Nazi support and the influ-
ence of the Ossewa Brandwag and other militant groups.68 Otto du
Plessis, the Nationalist Party’s Secretary of Information, wrote the
first of these documents in 1940. In a pamphlet entitled The New
South Africa—The Revolution of the Twentieth Century he heralded the
new place South Africa would have in the Nazis’ new world order.69
This document supported an Afrikaner state affirming, “The
philosophy at the basis of the new order...is undiluted and un-
equivocal nationalism.” 70 Du Plessis further argued,
“Afrikanerdom...has, under the imported British system, not known
full political, economic, and social freedom. It consequently pines
for the new system of a new order, which would bring with it true
national freedom in all spheres of life.”71 In his plan, Du Plessis
cited Germany as a model for this new order and wanted Afrikaner
nationalism to imitate that of Germany, where “Every German
must be small so that Germany can be great.”72 The Nationalist
Party supported this extreme nationalism believing that it would
elevate the country at the expense of the “ruthless foreign capital-
ist.” The Ossewa Brandwag supported the Nationalist Party’s
position in this document by patterning several of its own docu-
ments after The New South Africa—The Revolution of the Twentieth
Century.73 In 1941 Dr. Malan, the Nationalist Party leader, further
revealed the pro-Nazi stance of the Nationalist Party when he
wrote The Republican Order: Future Policy as Set Out by Dr. Malan.74
This document showed fewer parallels to the government of Nazi
Germany than Du Plessis’ The New South Africa. Rather, The Repub-
lican Order described the political structure of the Boer republics
as a uniquely Afrikaner model of government. This document did
link itself to Nazi Germany by its mentioning the expectation that
through its victory in World War II, Germany would drive the
British out of South Africa.75 Malan formed a strategic rather than
ideological tie with Germany in his The Republican Order, but he
strengthened this tie in 1942 with his ideological Draft for a
Republic. The Christian-Nationalist republic that Malan described
in this document had a president with unlimited powers, “directly
and only responsible to God.”76 The president had the power to
control and dismiss Parliament and his Cabinet, to declare war
and control the military, to control the economy, to prevent
competition, and to censor the press. Critics accused Malan of
supporting Hitler’s “pure race” concepts because he specified,
“Each coloured group...will be segregated, not only as regards to
place of dwelling...but also with regard to spheres of work.”77 The
Eastern Province Herald, a pro-British newspaper, claimed in an
editorial published on January 24, 1942, that Malan’s document
…Borrowed from Mussolini for his group system, Goebbles on the
matter of press and radio control and propaganda generally, Hitler
in respect of the arbitrary, all-embracing, over-riding powers of the
Fuehrer-President, ...[and] Mr. Pirow’s new order study group for
various odds and ends dictated by an earnest desire to steal their
synthetic thunder.78
A fourth important publication by the Nationalist Party

during World War II was its 1944 The Social and Economic Policy of the
Nationalist Party. This document maintained that all major aspects
of South African economics should be controlled by the state
through a Central Economics Council to ensure the stability of the
economy and limit competition in all sectors. This plan concluded
with the proud assertion, “Our whole economic life will be con-
trolled by the Central Economics Council. All key industries will be
controlled by the State...[This is] the sensible way of a controlled
economic system within the framework of a national government.
This is the way to the New Order in the Free Republic of South
Africa.”79 This publication was the last of the documents of the
Nationalist Party that borrowed heavily from Nazi Germany. After
this point in the war, Germany’s imminent defeat weakened any
bond that Afrikaners wanted to claim with her. In 1945, the Ossewa
Brandwag and other militant pro-Nazi groups disbanded when
the Allies had completely defeated Nazi Germany.
The fascist documents that the Nationalist Party and other
organizations such as the Ossewa Brandwag published during
World War II represented the more conservative end of Afrikaner
political opinion. Other more moderate groups supported South
African neutrality in the war, aiding neither Britain nor Germany,
while the most conservative Afrikaners supported Britain with
only minimal reservations. Because Afrikaner sentiment covered
this wide spectrum, World War II caused great division and
fragmentation of the Afrikaners. After the war, many of these
splintered groups joined the Nationalist Party, which became less
militant in its quest for fascism and refocused on its original
purpose, the elevation of the Afrikaner.80 In general, this postwar
period was a time of unification of the many Afrikaner factions that
were splintered by World War II. The influence of the members of
the Ossewa Brandwag, who joined the Nationalist Party after their
organization collapsed in 1945, prevented the Nationalist Party
from becoming overly passive or conciliatory. Nonetheless, the
Party knew that it no longer had support for the totalitarian
government described in its The New South Africa—The Revolution
of the Twentieth Century and Malan’s Draft for a Republic. Still the
influence of Nazism remained as it had provided a foundation

upon which many of the Nationalist Party leaders built their
political beliefs and policies. Even when Nazism collapsed, the
seed of its ideology remained buried in the ideology of the
Nationalist Party. All of the new leaders had been members of the
Broederbond, and some had been members of the Ossewa
Brandwag. The men who would become the leaders of the apart-
heid regime did not repudiate the ideology of Nazism; rather, they
adapted their political positions only enough to win power in the
post-World War II South Africa.
With the advent of the post-World War II world, Afrikaners
felt threatened by the new spirit of liberalism introduced by the
Allies in the Atlantic declaration and the U.N. Charter of Human
Rights. The increasing numbers of black laborers who were mov-
ing into the cities to find work also seemed to threaten conserva-
tive Afrikaners when many of these laborers embraced the grow-
ing Communist Party as a way to oppose their harsh working
conditions. The Communist influence on black laborers culmi-
nated in a widespread strike among mine workers in 1946 that
further frightened Afrikaners who recognized Communism as a
threat to their livelihood. The African Mine Workers’ Union
organized this strike of between 75,000 and 100,000 black mine
workers who worked in extremely dangerous conditions for less
than a tenth of the pay of white workers. The strike only lasted a
week before the government violently forced workers back to the
mines, yet it affected more than 30 mines.81 The liberal post-war
doctrines and the mineworkers’ strike encouraged Afrikaners to
retreat to a position of isolation from the new intellectual currents
abroad.82 Opposition to Smuts as prime minister grew during this
period. Smuts was reviled for leading South African troops to the
aid of the Allies and for interning some of the most conservative
Afrikaner nationalists (such as Rev. J.D. Vorster), which reminded
Afrikaners of the British concentration camps in which many
Boers died during the Second Boer War.83
After 1945, the concepts of the Afrikaner volk and Chris-
tian-Nationalism became increasingly central to the Afrikaner
cause as Afrikaners became more unified in their work toward pro-

Afrikaner rule. The concepts of the volk and of Christian-Nation-
alism directly aided Afrikaner unity and efforts towards autonomy,
whereas concepts of Nazism or totalitarian governments, while
embraced by many Afrikaners, also divided the Afrikaners. The
concepts of volk and Christian-Nationalism had origins in Hegel’s
and Fichte’s German nationalism and in the Dutch Reformed
Church’s brand of Calvinism, both of which preceded the rise of
Nazi Germany. They did not lose validity by the end of World War
II. Increasing numbers of Afrikaners believed like Dr. D.F. Malan
that the purity of the Afrikaner volk depended on the prevention
of intermarrying with other races and that without a rigid system
of separation of the races intermarrying would occur and the
Afrikaner race would lose some of its potency in its unique work of
fulfilling the will of God.84 Accordingly, the Nationalist Party
founded the South African Bureau for Racial Affairs in 1947 to
oppose the South Africa Institute of Race Relations which many
Nationalists considered too liberal and pro-British. Some Afrikaners
derogatively referred to it as the English Institute. This organiza-
tion was responsible for the development of the theory of apart-
heid and for the implementation of it after the Nationalist victory
in 1948.85 One Broederbond member and former Ossewa Brandwag
general, Stellenbosch Professor G. Cronje, wrote in his Voogdyskap
en Apartheid, “The Christian standpoint boils down to the belief
that it is God’s will that there should be a variety of races, volks, and
cultures, and...the glorification and maintenance of such variety,
regarded from a Christian viewpoint, is justified and moreover can
be taken as obedience to the will of God.”86 Thus, the official
standpoint of the Dutch Reformed Church, the largest religious
denomination among Afrikaners, seemed to support a national
plan of segregation. Malan, who had been a minister prior to his
entry into the political realm, remarked that while establishing a
system of segregation is not under the jurisdiction of the church,
the government should pay close attention to the Church’s guide-
lines in the establishment of such a system. He meant that govern-
mental policies regarding race must stress separation.87
Aware of the growing desire among Afrikaners for an

institutionalized system of segregation, Malan led the Nationalist
Party on a platform of apartheid in the elections of 1948.88 The
Broederbond was active in the elections of 1948 with at least 60
Nationalist Party candidates known to be members, including
Malan who became prime minister. One of the candidates was
W.C. du Plessis who had served as a South African diplomat but
resigned when Smuts ordered in 1944 that no public servants
could be Broederbond members. The fact that du Plessis reen-
tered the political sphere in the same election in which Smuts lost
power demonstrated the change of the political climate in South
Africa.89 In the final count, the Nationalist Party, with its political
ally, the much smaller Havenga’s Afrikaner Party, won 79 of the
150 seats in parliament. The two parties had each received a
plurality, not a majority, of all the votes cast.90 The alliance of these
two Afrikaner parties revealed the unification of all Afrikaners
after World War II to fight for political power, but their victory did
not represent the true will of the electorate that had cast 140,000
more votes for the parties in opposition to the allied Nationalist
Party and Havenga’s Afrikaner Party than for this apartheid
platform.91 This election marked the beginning of apartheid in
South Africa. Under Malan’s leadership, the Nationalist Party
legislated the complete separation of whites from non-whites (that
had already been in practice) but also introduced the separation
of one non-white group from another.
The Broederbond was influential in these first years of
apartheid by establishing the Institute for Christian-National Edu-
cation and the Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Organizations as
well as by obtaining from the Dutch Reformed Church a doctrinal
justification of apartheid.92 In 1948, the Federation of Afrikaans
Cultural Organizations published Christian-National Education Poli-
cies that outlined the principles the new government should
maintain to ensure that schools were, “places where our children
are soaked and nourished in the Christian-National spiritual
cultural ‘stuff’ of our nation.”93 The document included instruc-
tion on proposed teaching methods intended to provide an
education steeped in Christian-Nationalism, and it concluded
with the Afrikaner position on education of non-whites that

represented the emphasis on white supremacy in the new Nation-
alist government. Article 14—“Instruction and Education of
Coloureds” affirmed, “We believe that the instruction of Coloured
people should be regarded as a subdivision of the vocation and
task of the Afrikaner to Christianize the non-European by the
European, and particularly by the Afrikaner.”94 The final section
of this document, Article 15—“The Teaching and Education of
Natives,” professed white supremacy even more emphatically: “We
believe that the education and task of white South Africa with
respect to the native is to Christianize him...and this vocation and
task has found its immediate application and task in the principles
of trusteeship, no[t] placing of the native on the level of the white,
and in segregation.”95 Thus, the new South African government
implementing apartheid relied heavily on the principles of Chris-
tian-Nationalism.
Despite the reliance of the Nationalist government on the
concepts of Christian-Nationalism and the Afrikaner volk, the
influence of Nazism remained within the Nationalist Party prima-
rily through the continued control of the government by members
of the Broederbond. All prime ministers and most major political
leaders during the apartheid era were members of the
Broederbond. Through its secret nature, the Broederbond re-
tained much of its right-wing ideology during the period between
the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Nationalist Party victory in
1948. The leaders of South Africa after 1948 no longer espoused
Nazism as they had during World War II, but they had come to
their political and intellectual maturity under the shadow of Nazi
Germany and had devoted years of their lives to the furtherance of
its ideology. Thus, a strain of the infamous regime that terrorized
Europe in the first half of the twentieth century persisted to
control South Africa for the second half of the century.
Endnotes
1
Charles Bloomberg, Christian-Nationalism and the Rise
of the Afrikaner Broederbund in South Africa, 1918-1948
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989) pp. xix-xx; see
also William Henry Vatcher, Jr., White Laager: The Rise of
Afrikaner Nationalism (New York: Frederick A. Praeger,
Publishers, 1965) pp. 3-4
2
David Nash, “The Boer War and its Humanitarian
Critics,” History Today 49 (June 1999) p. 42, found using
InfoTrac Web: Student Edition.
3
Ibid., p. 3
4
Ivor Wilkins and Hans Strydom, The Broederbond (New
York: Paddington Press, 1979)
5
Ibid., pp. 37-38
6
Ibid., p. 36
7
Bloomberg, p. 183
8
Kenneth Ingham, Jan Christian Smuts: the Conscience of
a South African (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986) p. 118
9
Bloomberg, p. 183
10
Vatcher, p. 63
11
Bloomberg, p. 137
12
Ibid., p. 136
13
Bloomberg, p. 162
14
Vatcher, p. 60
15
Brian Bunting, The Rise of the South African Reich
(Penguin Africa Library, 1969, Available as ebook at http://
www.anc.org.za/books/reich.html) ch. 4. p. 2 of 12
16
Ibid., p. xx
17
Bloomberg, pp. 100-101
18
Ibid., p. xxi
19
Ibid., p. 100
20
Bunting, ch. 4, p. 2 of 12
21
Vatcher, p. 64
22
Bunting, ch. 4, pp. 3-4 of 12
23
Ibid., ch. 4, p. 3 of 12
24
Ibid., ch. 4, pp. 3-4 of 12
25
Ibid., ch. 4, p. 3 of 12
26
Vatcher, p. 61
27
28
Ibid., ch. 4, p. 5 of 12
29
Ibid., ch. 4, pp. 4-5 of 12
30
Vatcher, p. 61
31
Ibid., p. 62
32
Ibid., p. 61
33
Ibid., pp. 61, 63
34
Wilkins, pp. 44-46
35
Bunting, ch. 3 p. 3 of 8
36
Bloomberg, p. xxii
37
38
Ibid., ch. 3, p. 2 of 8
39
Ibid., ch. 3, p. 2 of 8
40
Wilkins, pp. 78-79
41
Ibid., pp. 82-84
42
Bunting, ch. 3, pp. 2-3 of 8; see also Wilkins, p. 83
43
Bunting, ch. 3, pp. 1-2; see also Wilkins, pp. 76-77
44
Wilkins, pp. 77-78
45
Ibid., p. 77
46
Bunting, ch. 3 pp. 1-2 of 8
47
Bloomberg, p. 163
48
Ibid., pp. 161-162
49
Wilkins, p. 77
50
There is also some evidence that the organization used a
swastika as a symbol of its power and prestige, but that is not
certain. Vatcher, p. 66
51
Bloomberg, p. 162
52
Vatcher, p. 61
53
There are no clear records of any orders the Ossewa
Brandwag issued to the Stormjaers probably because the group
did not wish any record of its responsibility for acts of violence.
Bloomberg, p. 166
54
Ibid., p. 168
55
Ibid., p. 167; see also Wilkins, pp. 77-78
56
Vatcher, p. 63
57
Ibid., p. 63
58
Wilkins, pp. 77-78
59
Vatcher, p. 65
60
Bloomberg, pp. 165-166; see also Wilkins, pp. 256-257
61
Vatcher, p. 66
62
Ibid., p. 66
63
Bloomberg, p. 167
64
Ibid., pp. 201-202
65
Ingham, p. 182
66
Bloomberg, p. 165
67
Bunting, ch. 4, pp. 1-2 of 8
My sources differed on the extent to which they considered
the Nationalist Party to be sympathetic to the Nazis perhaps as
the result of the desire of the authors to present the Nationalist
Party in either a positive or negative light. Whatever the official
platform of the Party, most members were pro-Nazi as
demonstrated by Nationalist Party publications during the war.
68
This evidence of a radical faction within the Nationalist
Party causes a minority of scholars to consider the Ossewa
Brandwag as nothing more than a radical branch of the
Nationalist Party. Kenneth Ingham suggested this in his
favorable biography on Smuts perhaps to minimize the degree
of opposition that Smuts faced. Ingham, p. 213; see also
Vatcher, p. 68
69
Bloomberg, p. 165
70
Vatcher, p. 69
71
Ibid., p. 69
72
Ibid., p. 69
73
Ibid., pp. 68-69
74
Most branches of the Nationalist Party published this
document without its subtitle. The Transvaal branch of the
Party added the subtitle when it published the document.
75
Vatcher, p. 70
76
Ibid., pp. 70-72
77
Ibid., p. 73
78
Ibid., p. 73
79
Ibid., p. 73
80
81
M.P. Naicker, “The African Miners’ Strike of 1945,” from
“Notes and Documents,” No. 21/76. Sept. 1976 http://
www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/misc/miners.html (1 July
2003)
82
Ibid., pp. 202, 204
83
Wilkins, p. 80
84
D.F. Malan, personal letter, 12 February 1954
85
Vatcher, p. 151
86
Bloomberg, pp. 203, 205
87
Malan, letter
88
89
Bunting, ch. 3, p. 3
90
Bloomberg, p. 205
91
Ibid., p. 205
92
Ibid., p. 208
93
Vatcher, p. 289
94
Ibid., p. 300
95
Ibid., p. 300
Bibliography
Bloomberg, Charles, Christian Nationalism and the Rise of

the Afrikaner Broederbund in South Africa, 1918-1948
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989
Bunting, Brian, The Rise of the South African Reich

Penguin Africa Library, 1969, available as an ebook at http://
www.anc.org.za/books/reich.html
Ingham, Kenneth, Jan Christian Smuts: the Conscience of a

South African New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986
Malan, Daniel F., Personal letter, 12 February 1954 (no

source given)
Naicker, M.P., “The African Miners’ Strike of 1945,” from

“Notes and Documents,” No. 21/76, Sept. 1976 http://
www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/misc/miners.html (1 July
2003)
Nash, David, “The Boer War and its Humanitarian Critics,”

History Today 49 (June 1999): 42, found using InfoTrac Web:
Student Edition
Vatcher, William Henry, Jr., White Laager: The Rise of

Afrikaner Nationalism New York: Frederick A. Praeger,
Publishers, 1965
Wilkins, Ivor, and Hans Strydom, The Broederbond New

York: Paddington Press, 1979
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EPrize Apartheid

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EPrize Apartheid

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THE CONCORD REVIEW 75

THE NAZI INFLUENCE

Elizabeth Lee Jemison

South African apartheid was a system developed to pro-

served to awaken Afrikaner nationalism. The British who settled in

justified all their actions.2 The Freethinker, a liberal English journal,

resulting between the South Africans of British descent who were

their identification with Protestantism. Most Afrikaner students

the evils of British domination appear comparable to the spiritual

Nationalist Party met near Stellenbosch University, a center for

however vehemently opposed and rejected this bill. Stuttaford,

the extent of Afrikaner anti-Semitism at this time.33 This strong

Its secretive, cult-like nature prevented the South African people

yielded to the repeated counsel of his military intelligence who

had reverted to the symbols of Nordic mythology to provide a

gauleiters, group and cell leaders, spread in a sinister network over

gaunt Smuts and Hertzog, and it suggested that wealthy Jews

Ossewa Brandwag members in important positions in public

power, the Nationalist Party attempted to maintain an official

A fourth important publication by the Nationalist Party

influence of Nazism remained as it had provided a foundation

cause as Afrikaners became more unified in their work toward pro-

Aware of the growing desire among Afrikaners for an

with the Afrikaner position on education of non-whites that

Bloomberg, Charles, Christian Nationalism and the Rise of

Bunting, Brian, The Rise of the South African Reich

Ingham, Kenneth, Jan Christian Smuts: the Conscience of a

Malan, Daniel F., Personal letter, 12 February 1954 (no

Naicker, M.P., “The African Miners’ Strike of 1945,” from

Nash, David, “The Boer War and its Humanitarian Critics,”

Vatcher, William Henry, Jr., White Laager: The Rise of

Wilkins, Ivor, and Hans Strydom, The Broederbond New

Since 1987, The Concord Review has published 649

Please send your pre-paid orders,

[visit our website at http://www.tcr.org]

We are a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt Massachusetts corporation.

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