The Fourth Reich by Strydom, Hans

The Fourth Reich by Strydom, Hans

Softcover, ISBN 9780947464325
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 1990

Used - Very Good. This book is in very good condition. The wraps have some slight/limited signs of wear and the pages are slightly tanned  but clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. 

With war clouds gathering over Europe the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin was a glittering showpiece for Nazi Germany. It was here that the young South African boxer Robey Leibbrandt shook the hand of Adolf Hitler. It was a moment that changed his life. Leibbrandt was caught up in the ideology of National Socialism and he became an ardent Nazi, prepared to do anything to serve the Fuhrer.

At the expense of the Reich he underwent extensive training in sabotage and espionage which culminated in his appointment to spearhead Operation Weissdorn – the overthrow of Jan Smuts’s coalition government, the assasination of Smuts himself and the establishment of a National Socialist republic in South Africa. This is the remarkable story of Leibbrandt’s high-risk mission, a true life drama played out against the background of a divided nation at war. There are few South Africans who are even aware of Operation Weiss-dorn, let alone how very close it came to succeeding. It is also the story of the courageous Jan Taillard, appointed by Smuts to flush Leibbrandt out, his dogged pursuit of his prey and the extraordinary circumstances of his eventual success.

Originally published as For Volk and Fuhrer, the book now bears the title of the award-winning film The Fourth Reich, and has proved to be a chilling foreboding of events in South Africa today. Hans Strydom is also co-author of the best-selling The Super-Afrikaners, which exposed the Afrikaner Broederbond.

He has served as news editor, political correspondent and assistant to the Editor of The Sunday Tribune, and later as parliamentary correspondent to The Sunday Times. In 1972 he was elected president of the Southern African Society of Journalists, a post which he held for three years. He is presently a Johannesburg City Councillor