-Caveat Lector-
>From The Super Afrikaners-Ivor Wilkins and Hans Strydom 1978
Only recommended for people interested in SA history or those in how secret
power societies work.
The broederbond was infiltrated and destroyed, but it shows the power that a
well placed small group of people can have over an unsuspecting society.
(remember that Smuts was also a member of a secret society-the round table-
see Mr Quigleys works)
3 Smuts
No sooner had the Broederbond disposed of Hertzog than a new and even more
dangerous enemy appeared. He was General Jan Smuts. If Hertzog's years as
Fusion Prime Minister had been marked by Afrikaner division, Smuts's rise
to power heralded prolonged and bitter hostility. World War Two, the issue
on which he came to power, split the country's white factions far apart.
A great many Afrikaners vigorously condemned Smuts's determination
that South Africa should participate in "England's war". For some this
feeling went even further, to an open sympathy with the Nazi cause. Hitler's
quick climb to ascendancy greatly attracted a number of Afrikaner
Nationalists, as did developments in Nazi Germany. So much so, in a number
of cases, that a feeling of general sympathy was translated into active
support for Germany's struggle. The Broederbond numbered among its ranks
many such supporters. The organisation which had striven in cultural matters
to keep English- and Afrikaans-speaking elements apart, and thus reinforce
Afrikaners of an exclusive Afrikanerdom, arranged for a few selected
Afrikaans students to go to Germany and study methods employed there in the
education of the nation's youth.'
Dr Nico Diederichs was one who went across to study and report, and
qualified as a quisling in the Nazi's Anti-Komitern training school.3
According to Malherbe4 who was Smuts's Director of Military Intelligence, as
early as 1934 Hitler had sent a spy to South Africa, a German professor,
Graf von Duerckheim Mont martin, to ascertain what elements in South Africa
could be relied upon to collaborate with Nazi Germany in the event of a war
with Great Britain.
His findings were said to have been sent to Hitler in a secret
report. A copy of this report was found by South Africa's military
intelligence among the papers seized at the headquarters of the German
diplomatic representative in South West Africa in 1940
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when the South African forces moved in. The report stressed, inter &a, the
furtherance of German Kulttrr by means of subtle propaganda and by
encouraging South African students to go to German universities, and the
exploitation of anti-English sentiments among Afrikaners. Von Duerckheim
held a prominent position in von Ribbentrop's organisation during the
1939-45 World War. He was, however, liquidated towards the end of the war
when it was found that he had a Jewish grandmother. Dr Malherbe goes on:
"With South Africa's participation in the war, anti-British feelings flared
up with renewed fervour. A number of prominent Afrikaner leaders became
openly pro-Nazi and found expression of their ambitions in flamboyant
organisations such as the Grey Shirts and the Ossewabrandwag. The latter
organisation, under the leadership of Dr Hans van Rensburg, was openly
militant and opposed to General Smuts's war effort. He soon counted more
members than there were in Smuts's army. Among these were a large number of
teachers and even Dutch Reformed ministers. South Africa's former Premier,
Mr Vorster, occupied a high position as Assistant-hoof Kommandant. Dr
Verwoerd had strong Nazi sympathies, and his paper, the Transvaler, was
jubilant over the initial reverses of the Allied forces on land and sea.
Likewise it was filled with gloom when the Nazis started losing.
"It was hoped that with a German victory South Africa would become
'freed from the British yoke' and at last achieve the Broederbond ideal of
an independent Afrikaner republic, excluding the British and the Jews. In
the anti-war propaganda Smuts was made out to be a traitor to the Afrikaner
cause in fighting for the British not (as was the case) with the British . .
. Meanwhile, through a powerful broadcasting station at Zeesen (Germany)
pro-German propaganda in Afrikaans was pouring into South Africa over the
radio. Its programmes were avidly listened to because of the excellent music
and good reception, far better than that of the British Broadcasting
Corporation or the local South African Broadcasting Corporation.
"Immediately following on the music programme came the most venomous
anti-British and anti-Jewish talks in Afrikaans by Dr Erik Holm, a young
South African teacher who was studying in Germany at the time.5 He was
employed by the Nazis and paid by Goebbels himself . . . There can be
no doubt that this slimy, hate-generating stuff which was poured nightly in
Afrikaans into South African homes must have left its mark on the receptive
77
minds of the Afrikaner youth at the time. Many of these today areteachers
and political leaders . . .
"Racial separation, which had been part of South Africa's way
of life for generations, received a new impetus from Nazism and
German-orientated Afrikaners. This attitude spilled over on to
English-Afrikaner relationships as well as between white and non-
white. As indicated before, a number of leading Afrikaners had become
impressed by Hitler's success in propagating the doctrines of national
socialism in Germany. The Nationalists, particularly, found themselves in
sympathy with his ideas of building up a pure Nordic race which would rule
Europe after getting rid of Jews and capitalists. Hitler's regimentation of
the German youth and particularly his use of symbol slogans and national
rallies to create a feeling of national consciousness were soon copied in
building up an exclusive Afrikaner nationalism. Behind it all was the
thoughtful planning and pervasive organisation of the Broederbond . . ."
The Government,' through its intelligence service, was kept informed
of all the Broederbond's activities and those of its associated
organisations working against the war policy. General Smuts could have
banned the Broederbond and acted against its outspoken members with the
extensive powers granted him by Parliament under the special war measures
(Number 4 of 1941). This, however, he did not do, although he did restrict
some of the leading activitists in the Ossewabrandwag. Vorster, for example,
spent the war interned in Koffiefontein, along with a number of other
leading Afrikaners, many of whom rose to great prominence in public life
after the war.
"His reluctance to prosecute the Broederbond, was," says Malherbe,
"partly due to the fact that he was quite too much preoccupied with the
conduct of the war on an international front, but mainly because he did not
want to involve the Dutch Reformed Church and the teaching profession, for
the traditions of both of which he had a great regard."
Smuts knew that a large number of Dutch Reformed ministers as well
as teachers were active in the Broederbond. Through his intelligence
service, which monitored the organisation closely, he knew many of their
names. He particularly avoided acting against university students and staff,
only doing so when they were convicted of criminal deeds, in spite of wild
pro-Nazi and revolutionary comments in student organisations during the war.
But when it came to the civil service, it was even more worry ing to
the government, although Smuts steadfastly refused to act against the
Broederbond. One detects a sense of deep frustration at this caution in this
passage by the former Intelligence Director.'
"By that time the Broederbond had infiltrated every Government department .
. . Many of these Broederbonders were Nazi sympathisers. A secret
organisation of this nature therefore proved to be a security risk at a time
when South Africa was involved in a bitter war aginst the Nazis, who had
their spies and informers all over the country. They had secret radio
transmitters with which they were in constant communication with Germany . .
.
"Just as in recent times, certain religious and educational
organisations were stigmatised (for example by men like Dr J D Vorster,
former Moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church) as nothing but a front for
the communists, so during the Second World War the Broederbond, the
Ossewabrandwag, the Grey Shirts, etc, came to be regarded as Nazi
fellowtravellers. This was not without justification. Despite the great
security risks involved during the war, General Smuts refused to authorise a
raid being made by the Security Police on the headquarters of the
Broederbond - a precedent not followed in later years under the National
Party rule, when South Africa was not at war, when raids were made on the
offices of religious and student organisations as well as on the homes of
private persons."
One of the methods suggested to Smuts by his military advisers for
dealing with the Broederbond was to publish the whole picture of the
organisation, with all its affiliated organisations. This, with a list of
the names of known members, would sufficiently emasculate the organisation,
he was urged. It was felt that the public, thus alerted, would treat the
organisation and its individual members with due suspicion, which would rob
the Broederbond of much of its power. Otherwise inexplicable appointments
would become clear cases of Broeder nepotism and there would be no doubt in
the public mind as to why nominations in church, educational and Government
bodies were made and why prominent Afrikaners, who were ardent nationalists,
were passed over.
In fact, the Broederbond had a "black list" of such prominent
Afrikaners who were not members. Exposure would have revealed to the public
the extent to which the organisation breached its own constitution which
pledged it would remain clean of party politics, argued Smuts's advisers.
But he would not bend, even though the Press was ready and willing to lend
its co-operation.
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He refused to take any action against the Broederbond, other than to
instruct his security men to keep a close watch on its activities and its
links with avowedly subversive organisations like the Ossewabrandwag.
At last the war came to an end in 1945. It had done much to enhance
Smuts's status as a statesman of international stature. It had done little
to settle the burning divisions inside South Africa. Afrikaner sentiment
smouldered in angry hostility against Smuts, who had plunged South Africa
into an unpopular war. Worse, he had thrown leading Nationalists into
incarceration, a drastic step that recalled all the hated indignity of the
Boer War concentration camps. The Broederbond's own history refers to entry
into the war as "the political degradation of 5 September 1938."* In the
postwar period, Smuts's detractors charged that he spent more time being an
international figure than worrying about the major problems looming in his
own country. His administration laboured under all the tribulations of a
country readjusting from the ravages of war to the more insidious ravages of
peace.
Over all this ferment loomed the inevitable conflict with the
Broederbond. Smuts, like his predecessor Hertzog, could not escape it, even
though he was reluctant to enter the struggle. Perhaps he had seen the
results of such rashness in Hertzog's lonely death. Perhaps it was just that
his overseas preoccupations took up too much of his time.
W A de Klerkg describes it thus: "The impotence, confusion and
disarray of his opponents had also lulled Smuts into a sense of false
security. What he saw was only what was taking place on the sur
face. In a sense, it was the price he was paying for having lived and moved
for so long on a world platform. As a national leader and as a field-marshal
in perhaps the greatest struggle of the age, there was even less possibility
of his understanding the dangerous earnestness of the new elite the
btirgerrtand had produced; or of the way in which their nationalism differed
profoundly from anything which hitherto had been a part of the South African
political landscape. Smuts had long since lost all real contact with the
thinking of a large and important part of his own people . . .
"Whether it was a complacency induced by supreme confidence, the
shrewdness of the wily politician or a lack of sufficient contemporary
sense, is debatable. It was, probably, a combination of all these things.
Smuts had his gaze fixed on the fine new world which would arise from the
ruin of the war and in which the
80
British Commonwealth of Nations would play such a tremendous role. He could
hardly take parochial politics too seriously. The more adventurous of his
opponents had had to be curbed by internments and imprisonments. For the
rest, as he was fond of saying, 'the dogs may bark, but the caravan moves
on.'
"But the barking of the dogs was mostly so much misleading fury.
There was a quieter, more effective and earnest core of people meeting
within the innermost binnekring of the Broederbond, thinking, talking, into
the small hours of the morning."
Smuts's advisers at home urged him to take action against this
underground organisation. It was politically dangerous and would have to be
confronted, they stressed. Apart from more sober counsel, a great deal of
the heat generated against the Broederbond came from the fiery Senator
Andrew Conroy, Smuts's Minister of Lands. He rarely allowed an opportunity
to go by without launching vitriolic tirades against the organisation. An
indication of some of the pressure on Smuts to take action is found in a
brief newspaper report dated February 21 1944."
It reads: "United Party's Senator . . . Conroy . . . was
another who went political game-hunting. He sought Broederbond buck.
"In an 'insidious and underground way,' he declared at Dundee, the
Broederbond had decided to get hold of school boards, municipalities and
other local bodies. The Broederbond had control of the Nationalist Party.
For years it had infiltrated into the public service. They could sabotage
the Government.
"'If tie want to save South Africa, something will have to be done
soon.'
"Whereupon Maritzburg's Witness declared: 'Beating his wings
helplessly in a vacuum, like Mathew Arnold's angel, won't get Senator Conroy
or the Government anywhere . . .
"'Unless all this brave talk about stamping out the Broederbond is
followed by determined action, it will be worse than useless. Inaction will
virtually be a confession that the Broederbond is stronger than the
Government. Then one day the Broederbond will be the Government.'
"On the other hand, J W Higgerty, the United Party's Chief Whip,
said very few of the charges that disloyal civil servants sometimes
sabotaged Government policy could be substantiated.
"Meanwhile, General Kemp issued an appeal to Nats to take immediate
action to see that Nats were elected to all possible administrative bodies
and committees.
81
"In the course of an attack on Senator Conroy, Kemp warned that,
'When the Nationalist Party comes into power, care will be taken to see that
only Nationalists stand at the head of affairs.'
"Echoed Strijdom: 'Nationalists must be elected to every
possible local board . . . whether it be a school board, a hospital
board, or any other kind of board.'
"This warning, said Strijdom's paper, Die Transvaler, was
retaliation for recent United Party demands that all Nats should be removed
from local boards. 'Fight with gloves off,' was the paper's advice.""
Smuts's military intelligence advisers added to the pressure with a
report on the Broederbond influence in South Africa, concluding: "In
1935, in full peacetime . . . General Hertzog judged it
necessary to try to destroy the Afrikaner Broederbond by dragging all their
unsavoury doings into the open. No action was taken, however . . . Today,
with the bitter experience of the Broederbond's influence on the war effort,
and its strong hold on South African public life, the need for action is
much more urgent. If we are to dwell together in peace and amity in South
Africa, the Broederbond must be destroyed."12
82
Eventually the advocates of action prevailed. Smuts joined battle
with the Broederbond. The practical handling of the affair was, however,
politically disastrous. He launched a campaign to root out all the
Broederbond members from the civil service. On December 15 1944, using
emergency powers granted to him by Parliament during the warl3 he gave
Broederbond members of the public service, including teachers, the
alternative of resigning from one or the other.
The same month, at the United Party congress in Bloemfontein, he
attacked the Broederbond, describing it as a "dangerous, cunning, political,
Fascist organisation of which no civil servant, if he was to retain his
loyalty to the State and the administration, could be allowed to be a
member."14
As a result, 1 094 civil servants quit the Broederbond. The others
ducked the issue and lay low. Four years later, when the National Party had
come into power, 807 resumed membership.15 The tactic failed miserably, as
even Smuts later admitted. It did nothing significant to damage the
Broederbond. In fact, if anything, public sympathy to a large extent went to
the organisation, particularly when a group of prominent civil servants
resigned from the administration rather than quit the Broederbond. This
report appeared in the Slrnday Times, February 25 1945, under the headline
Broederbond Members Fired. "Two senior public servants have been dismissed
by the Government for refusing to resign from the broederbond. They are Mr
Wentzel du Plessis, head of the Division of Diplomatic and Consular Affairs,
and Mr Jan Cloete, chief clerk in the treasury.
"Mr du Plessis has been in the Government service since 1924 and in
the Department of External Affairs since its inception in 1927. He wx at one
time private secretary to General Hertzog, then Prime Minister, and was
secretary of the Union legation in Holland from 1933 to 1938. Mr Cloete had
had 20 years' service.
"Professor H 0 Monnig, a well-known parasitologist of Onderstepoort,
and Mr A J Bosman, under-secretary for Commerce, have resigned rather than
end their membership of the Broederbond. Others who have been found guilty
of contravening the emergency regulations by declining to resign from the
Broederbond are Mr J Combrink, secretary of the National Housing and
Planning Commission, and Professor A I Malan, a biochemist of
Onderstepoort."Mr du Plessis, who was three years later to enjoy the
satisfaction of defeating Smuts in his own constituency of
83
Standerton, has given a detailed account of this period in his book Die Goue
Draad - Or, die Trekpad van Nusie. l6 In it he discloses that the
Broederbond, as early as 1943, was aware that it was under Smuts's scrutiny
and had foreknowledge that pressure was mounting on him to clamp down on
members of the organisation. The matter was discussed "calmly - the pros and
cons" within the organisation. The following morning, an informer went to
Smuts chief lieutenant Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr and told him what had transpired.
The question was again discussed inside the organisation and it was
decided that the Broederbond could not dictate to its members how they
should respond to the expected action against civil
servants. They would have to decide for themselves. Apart from those
mentioned in the Strnday Times report above, those that decided to quit the
civil service rather than the Broederbond, were Barend de Klerk, an expert
in agricultural education, and Piet Basson, who worked for the most notable
thorn in the organisation's flesh, Senator Conroy.
The day Smuts's proclamation was issued, du Plessis was on leave. He
hurried back to his office where he wrote a memorandum to the Secretary for
Foreign Affairs: "I must hereby inform you that I am a member of the
Broederbond and that, after careful consideration, I do not see my way open
to giving up my membership." He rejected allegations that the organisation
was born in darkness (duister), that it carried on its work in darkness, or
that it was Fascist and busily undermining the Government. He denied that
party politics had ever played any part in his association with the
organisation, or that he had been guilty of any dereliction of duty.
"No information about the official matters of this, or any other
Government, has ever been given by me to the Broederbond. It was never asked
or suggested by the Broederbond, nor was it offered . . . The right to
associate with my compatriots for the purpose of doing good to my fellow
beings, without thereby interfering in party political affairs, is for me an
elementary right which is unassailable by any government. I trust that you
will accept this letter in that spirit," he wrote.
He was immediately suspended from his duties. Later, asked by the
Secretary for Foreign Affairs, D D Forsyth, whether he would reconsider, he
replied that he would gladly do so if General Smuts would make it possible
for him. This would involve forbidding civil servants to be members of any
secret organisation, including the Sons of England, the Freemasons and the
Truth Legion. Several days later, a message was conveyed from Smuts to du
Plessis that such a ban was considered "unnecessary". In his subsequent
"admission of guilt" letter to Forsyth, du Plessis wrote: "That one group is
being denied what is allowed for another group, I regard as discrimination
that borders on racial persecution."
He was informed that his hearing would be held on February 7 1945 in
Room 88, Union Buildings, Pretoria. Ironically his "courtroom" was the
office he had previously occupied for many years as private secretary to
General Hertzog. He recalls the hearing, which took place before a
Johannesburg magistrate, Mr R F Plewman. "Nobody was allowed into the
courtroom, just us two, apart from the former private secretary of the Prime
Minister, then under-secretary of the department, who explained he was busy
looking for a file.
"Question: Is your name Wentzel Christoffel du Plessis?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Are you a member of the Civil Service?
Answer: Yes. (The head of personnel was called in to confirm-this
under oath.)
Question: Are you a member of the Broederbond?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Do you refuse to resign from the Broederbond?
Answer: Yes.
Qtrestion: Do you hold any executive position in the Broeder
bond?
Answer: No (what a remarkable question, I thought)
Sentence: Then I must find you guilty of the offence as specified."
The issue caused Indignant and prolonged outcry from the Nationalist
Press. The public in general, unconvinced of the subversive influence of the
Broederbond, thought Smuts foolish to get rid of such able and prominent
public administrators."
In reply to Smuts's attack on the Broederbond, the organisation's
chairman, Professor J C van Rooy of Potchefstroom, and its secretary, Mr I M
Lombard, issued a series of five articles explaining the aims and objects of
their organisation. The series was run in Die Transvaler on December 14, 21,
28 1944 and January 4 1945. They were summarised in The Friend published in
Bloemfontein. The articles rejected allegations that the Broederbond was a
subversive organisation "which incites sabotage or will tolerate it from
members in any form"; that members consisted mostly of teachers and civil
servants as General Smuts had claimed - of a total membership of 2 672, at
the most 8,4 per cent were civil servants and 33,3 per cent teachers; that
the organisation was fascist or
undemocratic; that the "Bond at any time declared itself in favour of a
national-socialist system for South Africa, or that it has ever had, or
sought, any connection with the Nazi rulers of Germany."
Dealing with its secret nature, the articles said "the confidential
character of the Broederbond is comparable with what one finds at a Cabinet
meeting, at a meeting of directors or a decent business
undertaking, or at an executive meeting of a church or cultural organisation
before it comes to a decision which can be conveyed to its members."
Quoting from the constitution, Lombard wrote,
"In connection with the activities of general district meetings, the
meetings may discuss any national problem or historical point with a vew to
ascertaining, in an impartial manner, what is the best for the moral,
intellectual, social and political progress of our nation. No speaker may,
however, act as a propagandist for any existing political party or for party
politics as such."
To a general public already dubious about the wisdom of smuts's
action, the ardent denials from the Broederbond leaders must have presented
fresh doubts. The debate on the issue that followed in Parliament on March
21 1945 could have done little to change this. The Government speakers,
including Smuts, under sustained and bitter attack from the Nationalists,
generally put their case weakly. General statements were made about the
organisation's secret involvement in politics without furnishing concrete
evidence, which surely must have been available by them from all the
surveillance to which the organisation had been subjected. Malhcrbe had
supplied Smuts with detailed name lists of Broederbonders and a
comprehensive report of its activities." But the main thrust of their
argument was left to Hertzog's Smithfield address 10 years previously.
In the arguments presented by the Nationalists, there was a
paradoxical shrill insistence that action should not be taken against an
organisation without firm evidence of misdcmeanours. Why was there no trial;
where was the proof? they demanded. How this elevated concern for the
requirements ofjustice has changed over the years. Since coming into power,
the Nationalist Government has placed on the statute book a battery of
legislation which en
86
ables it to take unlimited arbitrary action against organisations and
individuals. Bannings and detentions without recourse to the courts, and
without the persons or organisations concerned ever knowing the nature of
the charges, has become a common feature of Nationalist rule in South
Africa. It is a feature that invites the accusation both at home and abroad
that it is a "police state".
The debate opened with a two-pronged attack. Smuts was
discriminating against Afrikaners. "I just want to ask the Prime
Minister whether this attack on the Afrikaner Broederbond is just the
beginning of the death of every Afrikaans organisation in the country. There
are the Sons of England. We know that that organisation has a strong
political colour . . . there are the Sons of Scot
land; and also the Sons of Palestine have their organisation. There is an
Empire League, the Truth Legion and all sorts of organisations, and we now
want to know from the Prime Minister why he selected an Afrikaner
organisation."lg
"He passed over the Civil Service Act and sheltered behind emergency
regulations. . . Prominent officials in the service were put out of the
service one after the other, not because they were convicted under the Civil
Service Act, but simply because an emergency regulation was issued which
they had contravened by belonging to the Broederbond . . ."'O
The Nationalists were also aggrieved that his action had been taken
without proof being delivered of any subversive activities by the civil
servants concerned. Mr C R Swart? "I would like to know from the Prime
Minister whether there has ever been any member of the Afrikaner Broederbond
in the department controlled by him who committed subversive acts, who
committed sabotage, who was unfaithful in his work. I consider that we have
the right to know it. Was one of them ever tried? Can he deliver the proof.
. .? Will he tell us whether Mr Wentzel du Plessis ever committed any
subversive act or was unfaithful in his work?"
The debate raged on through the morning. At the start of the
afternoon session, Smuts was urged to reply because time was being wasted.
There was a hush in the packed house as he rose to speak. He began by saying
that only one aspect of the Broederbond's activities had been touched on;
there were much wider activities in which it was involved. "The Government
has acted on a firm principle," he said. "We proceed from the standpoint of
the law. We have based our action on the law of the land, and that law is
that our State officials should not take an active part in the politics
87
of the country. That is the law; it is prohibited. Officials must not take
part in the politics of the country, and in respect of the action that has
been taken in reference to the Broederbond in this case, we have only acted
in connection with that aspect of the matter. . .
"My charge is in the first place against those officials who have
not complied with the law of the land. Now I go further and I say that the
Broederbond, the secret Broederbond, is a political organisation which is
more dangerous from the point of view of the official and the Government
service than any other political organisation in the country. The whole
standpoint of the Broederbond is a political one. That is admitted.
An Hon. Member: Who admitted it? The Prime Minister: We know it. MY
Swart: What proof have you? The Pyime Minister: Now we come to one of the
difficulties in which the Broederbond has landed us. It is a secret
organisation, as secret as the grave.
MY Stuart: Is that the first objection?
The Prime Ministey: Yes, that is an objection. It is a secret organisation,
but it is also the calculated object of the organisation to foster the
interests of one section of the population as against the other section . .
.
"In all respects where we thrashed out matters, it became clear that
it was a political organisation working in secret, that it adopted a
stealthy attitude, that did not disclose who its members
were, and that kept everything secret. In my opinion there is nothing more
unAfrikaans than that sort of action. It was the combination of a number of
people to get the key positions of the country into their hands, and to get
all the key positions in the administration of the country, and in that
manner to try to control the policy in the country. That was the object of
the Broederbond and it was all done in secret. Everything was sub YOSU. I
think that anything like that is worse than any political organisation.
Mr Klopper (one of the Broederbond founders): Have you any proof of
that?
The Prime Ministey: I well know what I am talking about. The
Government is convinced in regard to everything that has come before it. It
has been convinced from the evidence that it has had before it and much of
that has been derived from members of the Broederbond itself.
Mr Swart: You flourish on traitors in the British Empire.
88
The Prime Minister: When we have an organisation that wants to
promote the interests of one section or of one race by an attitude of
secrecy and keeping everything shrouded in darkness, you have to be careful.
The Government is convinced that this is the case with this organisation.
"There was a series of articles in the Press from the secretary of
the organisation22 who wished to defend the organisation and one line
of the defence was this, 'Why do you complain that this as a secret
organisation? Is the Government not a secret organisation; is the Cabinet
not secret; is the caucus not secret?' This is the official explanation of
the attitude of secrecy that was given by the secre
tary, that all the resolutions remained secret, and that everything is kept
as silent as the grave. No, this is a position that cannot be tolerated, at
least not where officials are concerned. Whether it can be allowed in the
country itself is another question to which I shall return; but as far as
regards the public service, it is my opinion that they cannot serve two
masters. They cannot take an oath and submit themselves to the discipline of
a secret oganisation to carry out the orders of that organisation, and
continue to do their duty towards the State. They cannot serve two masters.
Accordingly, I say that the officials who are Brothers should resign from
the organisation."
MY Kloppey: And the Sons of England and the Jewish organisations are
all secret.
The Prime Minister: The Hon member may believe in that argument, but
no one else will accept it.
Mr Serfontein: There is a Freemason sitting beside you. The Prime Minister:
To say that the Freemasons are a political organisation and that they pursue
politics in secret is the greatest rubbish in the world. I say today to this
House and to the country, that in my opinion the Broederbond is a dangerous
organisation resting on a foundation that is in conflict with the interests
of the country and that is un-Afrikaans.
Mr Serfontein: Mention the foundation. The Prime Minister: It is purely
exclusive race politics, the promotion of race interests.
Mr Klopper: Mention one proof. The Prime Minister: This is the position. We
have dealt to this
extent with the officials; whether we may have to go further later on and
place a ban on the organisation itself is another matter."
"Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad,"
89
retorted Dr Eben Donges. At the time vice-chairman of the organisation, he
stood up to reply to Smuts's attack. His first point of attack was that
Smuts, with his legal training, should have known a person could not be
condemned on secret evidence. If anything remained of his legal training and
his legal instincts then he would not in this manner come and say he was
going to judge a body like the Broederbond on secret evidence.
Continuing, he said: "Time and again we have heard outside about
sabotage, of the fascistic nature of the movement, we have heard that it is
national socialist, that they stand for a national socialist state. Now the
Prime Minister says, 'No, politics, that is their only sin.'
"Let me say in the first place that no party politics are permitted
in the organisation. That is one of the points of the constitution . . . Let
the Prime Minister say what politics there are in it. Is it party
politics, is it a political organisation, because it is only open to
Afrikaans-speaking people.7 What about the Dutch Reformed Church? It is
for Afrikaans-speaking people, it is for the Afrikaner, but not in the
narrow sense. Is it now being called a racial association?
"Now I want to say something on the subject of secrecy. The Prime
Minister knows it is not secret. He knows this. Where does he get the other
information he has? It is true that the organisation does not work in public
and the reasons will be readily understandable by the Prime Minister. The
reason is that it is an organisation of service, and our view is that the
highest service that is not brought to light, that does not catch the public
eye . . .
"There are many things on which you make resolutions which for many
reasons are not displayed in public or hung on the big clock . . .One of the
reasons why membership is not made public and why activities are not made
public, is the same reason that Plato gave the Guardians of the State should
not possess any property, namely that they should not be exposed to the
temptation to seek their own glory and their own profit. It is for this
reason that in a service organisation such as this that is only there for
service does not advertise itself, and does not wish to place itself or its
members in temptation to gain advertisement for themselves."
Denying the charges against the organisation, he said Smuts knew
that detectives had visited the offices of the Broederbond, had been given
access to its documents and had gone away satisfied. Why then did he allow
his colleagues to go around the
90
country spreading gossip about the organisation that he knew to be
unfounded?
He accused Smuts of being in conflict with the fundamental
principles ofjustice, the first of which was that the accused was entitled
to a hearing. "Here we have a condemnation without a hearing, without the
opportunity being afforded to refute it and without a proper examination of
the evidence which has come into the possession of the Prime Minister behind
the scenes from people, as he admits himself, who are apparently traitors;
and that on that evidence of these traitors, which has not been examined,
condemnation has been expressed. We say that is not right . . ."
The third "and most serious complaint" Dr Donges levelled at Smuts
was that his action had been "nothing less than an offence against racial
peace." The most important of all the postwar problems of reconstruction
facing South Africa was the healing of the disturbed relationships between
the English- and Afrikaans-speaking people in the country. That attitude had
been hopelessly aggravated and inflamed by the action of the Government in
recent times.
"In the course of the last five years we have had it in every
respect that when the Prime Minister has acted, he has acted against the one
race and not against the other race, and thereby he has disturbed and
aggravated that attitude . . . I do not want to make this accusation, but
there is another conclusion which is arrived at by many - and which is
almost unavoidable when one reviews the Prime Minister's deeds since 1939 -
namely that he has been driven by that smallminded section in his party to
attempt the destruction of everything that is Afrikaans.. .
"Like his spiritual predecessor, Milner, it is apparently his object
today 'to break the back of Afrikanerdom'. I am a young man and I say this
with the respect that is due to the Prime Minister's age and experience,
that if he wishes to follow Milner's road . . . he is on the road that leads
to a dishonourable grave to which he will descend unhonoured and unwept by
all Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking people who perceive in racial
peace the only future for South Africa. This injustice to the
Afrikaans-speaking people can only make them stronger, the immoral exercise
of the authority of the State towards its officials will only be temporary;
the crime of the Prime Minister is that he has dealt a blow at the future of
South Africa."
The implication that the Broederbond was pursuing racial peace
91
in South Africa, was, of course, pious nonsense. Its fundamental raison
d'Ctre was and remains the exclusive promotion of a strictly sectional,
Afrikaans cause. The warning that action against the Broederbond would
strengthen Afrikaans-speaking people, had a firmer basis. It was one of
several warnings issued by the Broederbond during that debate that Smuts
ought to have noted. As Mr Nel exclaimed: "I must . . . openly say that by
its action in this case, a real feeling of bitterness and hatred has arisen
in my heart." And Dr Bremer predicted, with impressive accuracy: "In passing
I might say that I believe that this is one of the steps which will lead to
the speedy fall of the Government." In three years he was proved right.
But there were three years of glory for Smuts, until that dramatic
and unexpected crash. Bearing the rank of Field Marshal, an honour conferred
on him by King George VI for his valuable services to the war effort, he
enjoyed immense prestige overseas. The collapse of Germany's armed
resistance in 1945 and the end of hostilities in Europe created the
opportunity for building the new world order of which he spoke with such
enthusiasm. He was ready to play his part.23
Accordingly, he headed the South Africa delegation at the
inauguration of the United Nations Organisation at San Francisco. He was
there given the singular honour of drafting the Preamble to the UN Charter,
an historic task he accomplished with skill and erudition. When he returned
to South Africa, he was greeted with acclaim. Only the Nationalists stayed
unmoved, pouring derision over the UN, which they said would end in the same
disarray as the League of Nations.
"Smuts," says Friedman24 "could afford to ignore his
opponents. His star was definitely in the ascendant. After the general
election of 1943 he was at the height of his power. After V E Day -victory
in Europe - he was at the height of his prestige. He had brought his country
through years of bitter adversity to ultimate triumph. At home, his
authority as Prime Minister was complete and unchallengeable; he was in full
control of the destiny of his country. Abroad his prestige was immense - no
other Common-wealth statesman outside of Britain had ever attained such
heights.
Alas! from those heights there was a sharp decline. Three short
years later he fell from power. He was rejected by the electorate and had to
yield office to his political opponents who had opposed his participation in
the war, derided the men in the armed forces,
92
rejoiced in the Allies' reverses, had demanded a separate peace with Hitler
and declared openly that the future of South Africa depended on a Nazi
victory.
For Smuts it was a personal defeat of staggering magnitude. For the
Broederbond, it was sweet triumph. In Smuts's constituency of Standerton he
had been defeated by one of the civil servants who had been hounded out of
office, rather than quit the Broederbond: Wentzel du Plessis.
Strangely, the question of the Broederbond was never mentioned
during that campaign in Standerton. "Some of my people insisted that we
should do it, but I refused. Not even a question on
it, I said, unless the United Party does it. They also didn't, although
Senator Conroy's mouth was still full of it. But in Standerton he didn't
count," writes Du Plessis.25
This is not the place to speculate on the causes of Smuts's ignoble
defeat, or that of his party in 1948, although it should perhaps be pointed
out that the Broederbond's role, active or passive, in that downfall is not
given high priority by most historians. But Smuts's own words in the first
anguish of that defeat are revealing.
"To think," he exclaimed, "that I have been beaten by the
Broederbond."26
After the election, he was offered a straw with which to pull
himself back into power. Malan's Nationalists had risen to power on a
minority vote and by dint of an uneasy coalition with Hav
enga, Hertzog's lieutenant, and his Afrikaner Party, which had won nine
seats in the election. Bearing in mind the Nationalists' rejection of
Hertzog in 1940, it was a fragile pact and within a short time Havenga let
it be known he would like to break with Malan. He conveyed this information
to Dr Malherbe, Smuts's erstwhile military intelligence director, then
principal of the University of Natal.
Malherbe immediately wrote a long letter to Smuts urging him to join
forces with Havenga. "The United Party as such is finished," he said.
Lacking a positive, aggressive policy, it took too much for granted its
moderate elements without protecting and fostering them. This was
demonstrated in the way the bilingual school policy had been torpedoed by
the English jingoes on the one hand and the Broederbond on the other.
Pressing his argument, Malherbe emphasised that all was not well with the
Nationalists either. There were deep divisions in the party and an
atmosphere of suspicion prevailed; Broeders and non-Broeder nationalists and
the Ossewabrandwag stalwarts distrusted each
other. What was needed was for Smuts and Havenga to abandon party identities
and draw up a programme of principles to present to the country.
Among these principles should be: co-operation between the English-
and Afrikaans-speaking sections and the maintenance of "our democratic way
of life and the combating of fascism, whether in the form of a
Broederbond-Gestapo government or in the form of totalitarian communism."27
Smuts reported that he was not prepared to work with "a lot of
fascists."" Malherbe bluntly replied that this evaluation of the situation
was "superficial", which he ascribed to the weakness,of Smuts's
information service. "The facts," he said, "are as follows:
(1) Havenga uses the Ossewabrandwag2' chiefly to intimidate the Nats and to
strengthen his bargaining power, and not because he has liking for the OBs
or their ideology. Besides, with the exception of a small group of
ideological leaders, fascism does not penetrate very deeply into the rank
and file of the OBs. It is not in the nature of our people and does not fit
in with our indigenous institutions . . . I would, therefore, not
attach too much weight to Havenga's opportunistic affiliation with the
'Fascists'; and (2) Havenga hates the Broederbond. It was they who stabbed
his old friend, General Hertzog, in the back. That he will never forgive
them."30
There were two catches in Malherbe's scenario for a pact with
Havenga. Jan Hofmeyr, the leader of the liberal faction in Smuts's party
would be an "indigestible lump"31 in the scheme of things;
and Smuts himself might have to sacrifice his position as leader, stepping
down for Havenga as he had done for Hertzog in 1933.
After weighing the options, Smuts, who remained unsure of what
Havenga stood for, decided to "hold fast to what we have." By 1949 Smuts's
opportunity had gone. Havenga was still with Malan, and his key role in the
maintenance of Nationalist power, in any case, was no more. Malan
introduced an Acp2 which brought six white representatives of South West
Africa into the Union's House of Assembly. Predictably Nationalists, their
arrival freed Malan once and for all of his dependence on Havenga.33
Smuts, appalled by his enforced removal from the stage centre, died
at his home Doornkloof the following year. "Never did he speak any words of
criticism or bitterness of his political foes," his physician recounted.
"The only slight tone of disappointment I ever noted during my conversations
was against those of his fel
94
low-Afrikaners who, he thought, did not regard him as one of them, because
he thought wider than the South African scene."34
In one striking aspect, there is a close parallel between Smuts's
death and Hertzog's. Both died in isolation from their own people. Smuts,
suggests de Klerk35
"did not understand these new Afrikaners with their involved and
sweeping oratory." Afrikaner nationalism was gathering momentum in its
inexorable march across South Africa's history. Behind the new "involved and
sweeping oratory" lay the eternal industry of the Broederbond, drafting a
new, radical course for South Africa.
1. Malherbe, E G, Education in South Afviru, Vol 2, pp 2425.
2. Later to become State President of South Africa. 3. Military Intelligence
report on the Afrikaner Broederbond, March 29 1944. 4. Education in South
Afiira, Vol 2, p 25. 5. In 1947 Holm was tried in South Africa and found
guilty of high treason. He
was given a prison sentence of 10 years. When, however, the Nationalist
Party came into power in the next year, he was liberated and received an
appointment in the Union Department of Education. The British 'Lord Haw
Haw', who played a similar role in Germany over the radio against Great
Britain, was tried in the British courts after the war, and executed for
high treason.
6. Education in South A&a, Vol 2 pp 676-679.
7. Ibid p 677.
8. Secret Broederbond document, Fifty Years ofBrotherhood, chairman's
address,
1968, p 5.
9. The Puritans in Africa, pp 197 - 199.
10. The name of the newspaper is not indicated on the cutting, but it
appears to
be either Tkr Star or the Rand Daily Mail. 11. Both Strydom and Kemp
were Brocders. Strydom was later to become Ma-
Ian's successor as Prime Minister, when he insisted on the Dutch spelling of
his name: Strijdom.
12. Military Intelligence report on the Afrikaner Broedcrbond, March 29
1944.
13. Proclamation No. 255 in terms of Article Six of the National Security
Regu-
lations.
14. Vatcher, H W, White Luuger.
15. Malherbe, E G, Education in South Ajiru, Vol 2, p 678.
16. From p 101.
17. Malhcrbe, E G, Education in South Afvicu. Vol 2, p 678.
18. A copy of the Malherbe report is contained as an appendix in White
Luuger:
the Rise ofAfvikuner Nationalism, by W H Vatcher Jr, Pall Mall,
London, 1965.
19. Mr Wcrth, Hunsurd March 21 1945, Cols 3854, 3855.
20. Dr D F Malan, ibid, Cols 3862, 3863.
21. Later to become South Africa's first State President.
22. Referred to earlier in this chapter.
23. Friedman, Bernard, Smuts: a Reappraisal, p 156.
24. Ibid
25. Die Goue Draad - Op die Trekpad van 'n Nasie, p 148.
26. Hancock, W K, Smuts, the Fields of Force, p 506.
27. Van der Poe], Jean, Selections from the Smuts Papers, Vol VII, p 242.
28. Hancock, W K, Smuts, the Fields of Force, p 513. 29. Smuts's main
objection was a form of alliance between Havenga and the OB.
30. Brotz, H. The Politics of South Africa: Democracy and Racial Diversity,
p 18.
31. Van der Poel, Jean, Selectionsfrom the Smuts Papers, Vol VII, p 241 f.
32. No 23 of 1949.
33. Hancock, W K, Smuts, the Fields ofForce, p 516.
34. de Klerk, W A, The Puritans in Africa, p 227.
35. ibid. p 226.
96
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