Relations Between Nazi Germany and South Africa http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.nuun1976_13 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Relations Between Nazi Germany and South Africa Alternative title Notes and Documents - United Nations Centre Against ApartheidNo. 12/76 Author/Creator United Nations Centre against Apartheid; N'dumbe, A. Kum'a Publisher United Nations, New York Date 1976-05-00 Resource type Reports Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa, Germany Coverage (temporal) 1976 Source Northwestern University Libraries Description This issue explores the influence of Nazi Germany on the development of the ideology of apartheid in South Africa. Format extent 19 page(s) (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.nuun1976_13 http://www.aluka.org NOTES AND DOCUMENTS* NOTES AND DOCUMENTS* No. 12/76 May 1976 RELATIONS BETWEEN NAZI GERMANY AND SOUTH AFRICA Their influence on the development of the ideology of apartheid by A. Kum'a N'dumbe /Note: the author of this study, Mr. A. Kum'a N'dumbe, teaches history, political science and German at Lyons University II, France. He is a member of the International Committee on the History of the Second World War and the author of several studies and articles on the foreign relations of Hitler's Germany. The opinions expressed i nhe stfdy are those of the author.! SNorthwestern tJniest .... ILIIVOi%- UnlVersity Lbrary l JUL 2 6 1976 76-96475 /. * All material in these notes and documents may be freely reprinted. Acknowledgement, together with a copy of the publication containing the reprint, would be appreciated. INTRODUCTION After the 1918 Treaty of Versailles, Germany drew back within Europe, abandoning its former African colonies to France, the United Kingdom and South Africa, which then began to administer them as Mandated Territories. Germany never accepted that expulsion from the African continent, an expulsion which it regarded as an injustice. From the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, throughout the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) and until the collapse of the Nazi Reich in 1945, the Germans never ceased to denounce what they called "the theft of the colonies" and to claim "the restitution of their stolen African possessions". Planning the establishment of a world empire dominated by Hitler's Germany, the Nazis no longer claimed the mere restitution of the former German colonies, as the Weimar Republic had done, but planned a new redrawing of the map of Africa, a complete restructuring of the continent after the war, and thus, the creation of a German colonial Reich, the "Mittelafrikanisches Kolonial-Reich". This huge empire was to have an essentially economic role, its political and military functions being secondary. Completely tropical, completely territorial and completely colonial, it was regarded as a "natural economic extension of Europe". It was from Mittelafrika that the African economy was to be completely oriented towards European needs. To achieve that end, Europeans would be called upon not to diffuse their efforts in debilitating competition aimed at creating zones of influence, but to regroup their efforts around Nazi Germany, then mistress of Europe. One community would then be created, Eurafrica, the purpose of which would be to meet European needs for raw materials and colonial markets. The African's function was to be limited to providing the manpower necessary for the smooth functioning of Eurafrica. Deprived of his political, economic and social rights, he was to serve a Fascist colonialist r6gime whose concepts were to be reflected in South Africa's policy of apartheid some years later. This plan, which was to be carried out in the event of a complete or partial victory by Hitler's Germany and the Axis countries, gave a special place to South Africa. Union of South Africa The newspapers of Nazi Germany had always shown great respect and admiration for South Africa's racist policy, particularly when it was embodied by elements of the extreme right of the Nationalist Party. Oswald Pirow, for example, a member of the Nationalist Party who occupied various ministerial posts in the Government, including that of Minister of Defence, was described by the Nazi press as "Minister of defence of the white race". 1/ The headlines of some newspapers praised 1/ Rassenpolitische Auslandskorrespondenz (RAK) No. 7/1937 p. 6 cf. Also Deutsch.-Afrikaner of 15 May 1937. I... and publicized segregation in South Africa, for example: "Racist ideology is on the march: South African draft laws against the mixing of the races"; 2/ "The racist concept of South Africa: the Native Laws Amendment Act 1937"; 3/ "The foreigner speaks.: South Africa respects the frontiers prescribed by nature" 4/, or, again: "Minister Pirow on white domination". 5/ In the 1920s and 1930s, South Africa's racist policy was further elaborated. For its future consolidation, its die-hard partisans counted on two essential factors: the assumption of power by the extreme right, represented by the Nationalist Party and later by the United Party, and the presence of Nazi Germany in Africa. Once in power, the racists would attempt to determine the course of the history of the entire continent. "The Minister, Mr. Pirow, affirmed," according to RAK, "that the role of Africa in world politics ... would depend almost entirely on whether the white man maintained his domination ... South Africa would recognize that, in the final analysis, political equality would correspond to social equality. And social equality would lead to a race of bastards. To recognize those facts is to determine the current policy of South Africa, which in future will remain the policy of the country." 6/ Through the coalition of the Nationalist Party and the South African Party on 23 February 1933, barely a few weeks after Hitler's assumption of power in Germany, the notorious racists were installed in power in South Africa. The two parties merged a year later by creating the United Party on 5 December 1934. Hertzog, the Prime Minister, was a declared partisan of Nazi Germany. During the Second World War, he was to state: "In considering the future relations between blacks and whites in South Africa, the nationalists would welcome a new division of Africa if Germany could reign over a territory in central Africa (Mittelafrika) stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. They would regard that German territory as a welcome barrier against other concepts of racial policy." 7/ Thus, while South Africa relied on Nazi Germany, Nazi Germany in turn relied on South Africa. The relations between the two countries were, in that regard, revealing. 2/ RAK No. 2/1940 p. 3. 3/ RAK No. 4/1938 p. 3. L/ Ibid., p. 15. 5/ RAK No. 7/1937 p. 6. 6/ RAK No. 7/1937 p. 6. 7/ Sfidafrika-Bericht 26 September 1940; AA-Bonn Pol x f. 240626. I. RELATIONS BETWEEN NAZI GERMANY AND THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA Economic relations The economic relations between the two countries would be essentially commercial. Completely integrated into the economic circuit of the large British family, South African trade with Germany was of little importance before the First World War. It was not until the assumption of power by fascism in the two countries that, as of 1934, a clearing agreement for the promotion of trade exchanges was concluded. 8/ That agreement set forth the different categories of goods to be traded between the two countries, fixed the over-all rate of exchange which was to serve as a basis for each country, established banking facilities, the modalities of payment and sureties, terms of credit, and so on. The agreement was to be renewed in December of each year, and that was done six times. Each time, Hitler's Germany, which wished at all costs to make a breach in the sterling area, proposed an increasingly high over-all exchange figure, but the South Africans, who were linked economically to the United Kingdom, endeavoured, on the contrary, to lower that same figure, aware that they had to respect British interests. Thanks to those agreements, Hitler's Germany played a prominent role, sometimes even a monopolistic role, in the sale of several articles needed by South Africa. It improved its position until it became the main purchaser of South African products after the United Kingdom, and the third largest supplier to the Union of South Africa after the United Kingdom and the United States of America. 9/. The balance of trade between the two countries stabilized in 1934. If the break-through of Nazi Germany, so actively desired and encouraged by Nationalist circles, had rather strict limits, it was essentially for two reasons: German-British antagonism and the predominance of British interests, on the one hand, and the Jewish problem, on the other.