John Vorster, OB-generaal en Afrikanervegter (Afrikaans Edition) by Terblanche, H. O
Very Scarce Hardcover first edition.
John Vorster, OB-generaal en Afrikanervegter (Afrikaans Edition) by Terblanche, H. O
Hardcover: ISBN 086984413X
Publisher: CUM-Boeke , 1983 first edition.
Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition. The DJ has some limited signs of edge wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. The book is protected with a Cellophane cover.
Balthazar Johannes "B. J." Vorster (Afrikaans pronunciation) also known as John Vorster; 13 December 1915 – 10 September 1983) was a South African apartheid politician who served as the prime minister of South Africa from 1966 to 1978 and the fourth state president of South Africa from 1978 to 1979. Known as B. J. Vorster during much of his career, he came to prefer the anglicized name John in the 1970s.
From 1939, Vorster attracted attention by strongly opposing South Africa's intervention on the side of the Allies and their former foe the United Kingdom, in World War II. More out of an anti-British feeling than a positively pro-Nazi spirit, many Nationalists enthusiastically hoped for a German victory.
Vorster dedicated himself to an anti-British, pro-Nazi organisation called the Ossewabrandwag (Ox-wagon Sentinel), founded in 1938 in celebration of the centenary of the Great Trek. Under the leadership of J.F. van Rensburg, the Ossewabrandwag conducted many acts of sabotage against South Africa during World War II to limit its war effort. Vorster claimed not to have participated in the acts of war attributed to the group. He described himself as anti-British, and not pro-Nazi and said that his internment was for anti-British agitation.
Vorster rose rapidly through the ranks of the Ossewabrandwag becoming a general in its paramilitary wing. His involvement with this group led to his detention at Koffiefontein in 1942.Following his release in 1944 from the detention camp, Vorster became active in the National Party, which began implementing the policy of apartheid in 1948. Although racial discrimination in favour of whites had long been a central fact of South African politics and society, the National Party institutionalised racism through apartheid legislation.
The Boer militants of the Ossebrandwag (OB) were hostile to Britain and sympathetic to Nazi Germany, whose racial ideology parallelled their own. Thus the OB opposed South African participation in the war, even after the Union declared war in support of Britain in September 1939. While there were parallels, neither Van Rensburg nor the OB were genuine fascists, according to v. d. Berghe. Alexandre Kum'a Ndumbe III however shows, that OB was "based on the Führer-principle, fighting against the Empire, the capitalists, the communists, the Jews, the party and the system of parliamentarism ... on the base of national-socialism", according to a German secret source dated Jan. 18, 1944 Members of the OB refused to enlist in the South African forces, and sometimes harassed servicemen in uniform. This erupted into open rioting in Johannesburg on 1 February 1941; 140 soldiers were seriously hurt. More dangerous than this was the formation of the Stormjaers (English: Assault troops), a paramilitary wing of the OB similar to the Nazi Sturmabteilung. The nature of the Stormjaers was evidenced by the oath sworn by new recruits: "If I retreat, kill me. If I die, avenge me. If I advance, follow me" (Afrikaans: As ek omdraai, skiet my. As ek val, wreek my. As ek storm, volg my). The Stormjaers engaged in sabotage against the Union government. They dynamited electrical power lines and railroads, and cut telegraph and telephone lines. These types of acts were going too far for most Afrikaners, and Malan ordered the National Party to break with the OB in 1942. The Union government cracked down on the OB and the Stormjaers, placing thousands of them in internment camps for the duration of the war.
Among the internees was future prime minister B. J. Vorster. At the end of the war, the OB was absorbed into the National Party and ceased to exist as a separate body.
