As in 1914, the war appeared to many Afrikaners a golden opportunity to re-establish the Boer Republics. 'We are now ceaselessly on the road to our goal: the Republic of South Africa - the only status under which we can truly exercise the right to self-determination as a country,' said Dr Malan on 6 September 1939. True there was no outright rebellion as there had been in 1914. But this was not due to indifference by the anti-war section. The lesson of 1914 had been learnt. Precipitate action was to be avoided. The republican forces must strike only when the time was ripe.
Partly, too, the absence of rebellion on the 1914 pattern was due to the comparatively solid loyalty of the Defence Force and the foresight of the government. Smuts had also learnt the lesson of 1914. On 14 September 1939, emergency regulations were promulgated empowering the government to intern without trial, while all firearms had to be surrendered. Right from the start, therefore, the anti-war section was deprived of many of its weapons and several of its leaders.
A third factor militating against rebellion was the constant disunity within the ranks of the opposition. Seldom was there clarity or agreement on either aims or tactics. The Hertzogites in the Afrikaner Party favoured a policy of strict neutrality and were opposed to the more extreme forms of opposition represented by the Nationalist Party and the Ossewa Brandwag. Havenga, who later assumed the leadership of the Afrikaner Party, declared on 3 December 1941: 'I think it is a crime against the people to tell them that the freedom which we enjoy, and which was once so highly praised by these same people, means nothing under the present form of government. We are as free as any people in the world. We were dragged into this war not because we are not free, but because the only constitutional authority which could speak for the people took a free decision. It was not England that declared war for us. We did it ourselves through our free Parliament.'
On 4 February 1942, General Conroy told the Assembly that the Afrikaner Party would neither help nor hinder the war effort. There is no doubt, however, that these sentiments belonged to a minority of those opposing the government. 'The republican section of our people,' wrote Dr J. F. J. van Rensburg of that period, 'again were of the opinion that England's wars were not our wars and further that there was a chance to win back the lost freedom if the war went badly for England. Also contributing hereto was a certain amount of goodwill towards the Germans who had never done us any harm.'
There were sharp differences between van Rensburg and Malan over the right course of action to be followed. Both believed that everything depended on the outcome of the war, but whereas Malan relied on negotiation with Germany to achieve his objectives, van Rensburg believed that at some stage freedom would have to be fought for and he made his preparations accordingly.
At first, however, relations between the Nationalist Party and the Ossewa Brandwag were cordial, with most members of the Ossewa Brandwag belonging to the party as well. At the higher levels, Nationalist Party leaders P.O. Sauer and F. Erasmus (later to be made Cabinet Ministers when Malan came to power) were Ossewa Brandwag generals. C.R. Swart, later South Africa's State President, was a member of the Groot Raad of the O.B., while Eric Louw, later Foreign Minister, was also prominent in the organization.
Under the impact of the war and the dynamic leadership of van Rensburg, the Ossewa Brandwag soon grew into a significant force. From the semi-secret conspiratorial organization it had been under Laas, it was transformed into a mass movement whose membership, at its peak was estimated to be anything between 200,000 and 400,000 members. In 1940 there was created inside the O.B. an elite organization known as the Stormjaers - the storm troopers of Afrikanerdom. The Stormjaers were employed in a variety of operations ranging from the defence of Nationalist political platforms to outright sabotage, the dynamiting of post offices and railway lines, and the cutting of telephone wires. In the booklet Vanwaar en Waarheen, issued by the Kommandant-Generaal on the authority of the Groot Raad in 1942, van Rensburg wrote: ' The O.B. regards itself as the soldiery of the Republic . . . the O.B. is the political action front of Afrikanerdom.' The ideologies of the Nazis were penetrating deep into the ranks of Afrikanerdom. In 1940, soon after the fall of France, Otto du Plessis (later to become Administrator of the Cape under the Nationalist regime) published a pamphlet - The Revolution of the Twentieth Century - in which he openly espoused the policy of totalitarianism. Oswald Pirow also publicly identified himself with National-Socialist doctrines in a pamphlet - New Order in South Africa - which ran through seven editions between December 1940 and May 1941. He even organized a New Order group inside the Nationalist Party from the ranks of the former Hertzogites, who, having refrained from joining the Afrikaner Party, now looked to Pirow for leadership.
Van Rensburg himself had always been a professed National Socialist, and the ideas propagated by his organization had a pronounced Nazi tinge.
Afrikaans would be the only official language in a free, independent, Christian-National Republic. The English, as unassimilable and un-national elements, would be condemned to an inferior status.
Anti-Communism was an important plank of policy. Germany was the friend and Russia the foe. After the death of Mussolini ('this Caesarean figure', 'the greatest Italian of our age'), the O.B. held a memorial meeting in the Johannesburg City Hall. The Nuremberg sentences were described as pursuing the precedents of the Zulu Chiefs, Tshaka and Dingaan, and in the opinion of Dr van Rensburg represented the 'triumph of the ghetto'.
The emphasis was always on race and racial purity. Members were exhorted to 'think with your blood', and the creed of Blut und Boden was expounded in the O.B. Press. 'Family, blood, and native soil - that is, next to our religion and our love of freedom, our greatest and our most sacred national heritage' (Die O.B. 28 October 1942).
The O.B. always displayed an exaggerated interest in physical culture and the need for discipline. ('As against the spirit of the French revolution which wanted to break away from every lord and master has come the new cry of urgency in the world: "Give us a master ! Give us bonds which tie us to a stable way of life" ' - van Rensburg in Vanwaar en Waarheen.)
While the leaders of the O.B. denied that they supported the German maxim of 'Kirche, Kinder, Kuche', they proclaimed that the duty of the man was to work and fight and the duty of the woman to create and tend the home and family.
The O.B. declared itself anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist and insisted upon the expropriation of the gold mines and other key industries controlled by 'British-Jewish' capital.
Right from the outset of the war ugly incidents took place between soldiers and anti-war civilians, most of them associated with the Ossewa Brandwag, while there was also conflict between soldiers and those policemen who refused to wear the red tab signifying that they were willing to serve anywhere in Africa. After a series of minor clashes, matters came to a head on the night of Friday 31 January 1941, when van Rensburg was due to hold a meeting at the Johannesburg City Hall. A riot broke out between the Stormjaers and soldiers who were determined not to allow van Rensburg a hearing. The Stormjaers were armed with sticks, lead piping, batons, knives, sjamboks, bicycle chains, and knuckle-dusters, while the soldiers were for the most part unarmed.
The battle raged for two days, into the early hours of Sunday morning. Armoured cars hurtled through the streets while enraged mobs of soldiers set fire to Nationalist newspaper offices and overturned and set alight police vans. Tear-gas bombs were hurled in all directions.
Before a commission of inquiry, Major A.L.D. Bold, a military police spokesman, testified that armed members of the Ossewa Brandwag had attacked unarmed soldiers and that the police had openly aided and abetted and in many instances led such assaults. Evidence was given that police had savagely kicked and batoned soldiers lying on the ground, and some police were alleged to have secretly supplied the O.B. with teargas bombs to use against the soldiers.
Chief Inspector D. Baillie of the South African Police defended the members of his force against these allegations, but admitted that when he forced his way into Voortrekker Building, the O.B. headquarters, he had found the place filled with armed men from top to basement. 'There were weapons of every description - sticks, lead piping, batons, sjamboks, and so on.' One hundred and forty soldiers ended up in hospital as a result of the riots, and one man died from injuries caused by a baton. Giving evidence, van Rensburg himself boasted that it was only O.B. discipline and restraint which had prevented reinforcements in outlying areas from being brought into town and the scope of the battle thus vastly expanded! During 1940 the Groot Raad of the Ossewa Brandwag had issued a statement of its principles in the course of which it had claimed that 'the O.B. as an organization does not aim at, nor does it tolerate, any undermining activities or any recourse to violence or underground revolutionary activities or injuring friendly political parties or organizations in their activities or in any way undermining them'. This high-sounding declaration was to be proved false in every particular.
Summing up the achievements of the Ossewa Brandwag, van Rensburg wrote in his autobiography, published after the war:
I fought (Smuts's) war effort and I fought it bitterly with all the means at my disposal - which were considerable.... There is no doubt that they [the O.B. members] seriously hampered the government's war effort. Hampered it because the government was forced to draw off considerable manpower to guard many strategic points and essential services. A not inconsiderable military element also had to be retained in South Africa as a strategic reserve for possible emergency.
Thousands of members of the O.B. were interned for their activities during the war, and not because the government was prejudiced against their 'cultural' activities. Van Rensburg admits in his autobiography: 'We often broke the law - and broke it shatteringly.' O.B. members were to be found in every branch of the public service, in the police, and on the railways, and everywhere they carried out their undermining activities. Smuts, however, handled a dangerous situation with care. Reluctant to ride his enemies too hard and thus goad them into open rebellion, he chose rather to pick off the activists and leave the leadership alone.
Here are a few newspaper items, quoted with unction by van Rensburg, from the period early in 1942 when Stormjaer activity was at its height:
CONSTABLE SHOT ON THE RAND
Johannesburg, Wednesday - Constable Steyn was shot shortly after eight o'clock this evening. It is learnt that he was killed resisting arrest. (Die Burger, 8 January 1942).
POLICE CHIEF ON HUNDREDS OF ARRESTS
In the past few days 314 members of the South African Police have been relieved of their duties and placed under arrest. Apart from this number there are already seventeen N.C.O.s and eighteen constables against whom a charge of high treason is being investigated.
Further, fifty-nine railway constables are under arrest. (Die Vaderland, 21 January 1942).
NUMEROUS EXPLOSIONS OVER LARGE AREA
Mines at Klerksdorp Idle.
Punctually at 1.30 this morning violent explosions at Vereeniging, Delmas, and Potchefstroom blew up power lines, ten of them carrying 80,000 volts and two of 132,000 volts. (Die Vaderland, 29 January 1942.)
All telegraph and telephone communication between Bloemfontein and the rest of the Union was dislocated in the early hours of the morning yesterday. Also, railway telegraph and telephone lines in various parts of the Free State have been destroyed.
The authorities are of opinion that the plan was carefully prepared and that it was executed by numerous saboteurs. (The Star, February 1942.)
SABOTAGE IN ALL FOUR PROVINCES
Communications cut in Free State. Plan prepared on a large scale. (Die Burger, 2 February 1942.)
The implication of the police in sabotage activity deeply shocked most of the nation and led to a public distrust of the force which has not yet been finally eradicated. Fifty-eight Stormjaers were eventually charged with high treason, and a quantity of hand grenades provided exhibits in the case. Van Rensburg later wrote:
'That meant, I pondered, that one could subtract those sixty to eighty from the eight to nine thousand which formed the total arsenal.'
The case collapsed when the main Crown witness disappeared.
To meet this wave of sabotage, an emergency regulation was promulgated in February 1942 which made the possession of explosives with the intention of committing sabotage a capital offence. Seven days later Stormjaers blew up two telephone poles behind the Pretoria Central Jail, but were never captured.
Two other Stormjaers, Visser and van Blerk, were not so lucky. Convicted of implication in a bomb outrage at the Benoni Post Office, as a result of which an innocent bystander was killed, they were both sentenced to death. The Nationalist Party campaigned for their reprieve, claiming that they had been misled by those who had taken advantage of their honest nationalism. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
A half-dozen or so other members of the O.B. were shot while trying to escape from internment camps or jails, the most celebrated incident of this kind being the dramatic pursuit of the 'People's Wrestler' and O.B. General, Johannes van der Walt, who was shot while on the run near Krugersdorp.
Van Rensburg later justified the violent activities of his supporters by proclaiming: 'The men whose actions necessitated this [the keeping of troops in the country to deal with the Ossewa Brandwag] did what they did not to "help the Nazis", as their opponents so bitterly alleged . . . they voiced the protest of the Nationalist Afrikaner element, which felt that it was being discriminated against and being trodden under in its own fatherland.' The Nazis themselves, however, saw the activities of the Ossewa Brandwag in a different light. Van Rensburg was played up over Zeesen radio as the real leader of the Afrikaner people. In June 1941 the notorious Robey Leibbrandt was landed from a German yacht on the Namaqualand coast with 10,000 dollars, a radio transmitter, and instructions to make contact with van Rensburg and investigate the possibilities of joint action.
Leibbrandt was a South African prizefighter who had once fought Max Schmeling in Hamburg and later came a fervent Nazi. He had joined the German army and was reported to have taken part in the invasion of Crete as a paratrooper. In South Africa he soon made contact with the Stormjaers and was brought to Pretoria to see van Rensburg.
Nothing, however, came of the negotiations. Leibbrandt's megalomania was enough to deter anyone from cooperating with him, and van Rensburg refused to be drawn. At the same time Leibbrandt's fanaticism attracted a number of members of the Ossewa Brandwag over to his side, and within a short while Leibbrandt was leading his own group, whose members were bound to one another by a blood oath reading in part:
'All my fight and striving is for the freedom and independence of the Afrikaner people of South Africa and for the building up of a National Socialist State in accordance with the ideas of Adolf Hitler.' The armed truce between Leibbrandt and van Rensburg quickly developed into open enmity. Leibbrandt, disappointed at his reception and the relative failure of his mission, began to attack van Rensburg as an agent of Smuts. This was probably enough to seal his fate. After a few months in South Africa he was arrested, together with a number of leading Stormjaers. Placed on trial he was sentenced to death for treason, but once again the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after much Nationalist agitation.
Prominent in the Ossewa Brandwag throughout the war and immediate post-war period was Balthazar Johannes Vorster, South Africa's present Premier and, as Minister of Justice, author of the 1962 Sabotage Act. Like many others he regarded the war as an opportunity to get rid of the hated domination of England and welcomed the Nazis as allies in the fight. The adventurism of the Ossewa Brandwag appealed to him more then the comparative respectability of the Nationalist Party, and while South African troops were helping to make the world safe from Hitlerism, Vorster was appointed a general in the O.B. for the Port Elizabeth district.
'We stand for Christian Nationalism which is an ally of National Socialism,' he said in 1942. 'You can call this antidemocratic principle dictatorship if you wish. In Italy it is called Fascism, in Germany German National Socialism, and in South Africa Christian Nationalism.' Arrested under the emergency regulations in September 1942, Vorster went on hunger strike after two months and was transferred as a result to Koffiefontein internment camp where he was prisoner No. 2229/42 in Hut 48, Camp 1. While in the camp Vorster gave lectures in law to his fellow detainees and himself studied genetics, sociology, and philosophy. Since his teachers were possessed of ideas as warped as his own, it is not surprising that he derived no permanent benefit from his studies.
One of Vorster's fellow internees was Dr G. Eloff, at that time a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, later to be Head of the Department of Genetics at the University of the Orange Free State. He spent a large part of his time in the internment camp taking physical measurements of his fellow prisoners, and incorporated the results of this and other research in a book entitled Die Antropogenetika van die Afrikaner. The book attempted to demonstrate that miscegenation between White and non-White yielded negative results; that there were hereditary psychological differences between Whites and non-Whites, especially with regard to higher spiritual values, such as character and intelligence; that the highest percentage of criminality was to be found among the Coloured people, followed by the Africans, the Whites, and the Asians in that order; that contrary to popular belief, and the researches of others, not more than five percent of non-White blood flowed in the veins of the Afrikaner today.
Eloff maintained that the Afrikaner, complemented by English blood, would develop into a significant power before the end of the twentieth century. This would follow on the decline in power of Britain and even of the Netherlands, leaving the way open for the Afrikaner to come to the fore intellectually, not only as a ward of the non-White people in Africa, but also as a ward of other nations.
Eloff defined Afrikaner characteristics as: polymorphism, usually accompanied by a high degree of fitness; one of the tallest among the white races, with an average height of 5 ft.10 in.; good nature and an inclination to make promises too easily except in matters of national concern. The Afrikaner usually made concessions but made a formidable stand in matters of principle.
(Eloff's book was due to be published by the S.A. Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, but at the time of writing had not yet been issued. The above account of its contents is taken from The Friend of 8 February 1967, and The Star of 9 February 1967)
Vorster was released on parole in January 1944 and placed under house arrest in Robertson. During this period he lived by permit, requiring a permit even to meet his wife when she came down from the Transvaal to join him. He had to have a special permit when he wanted to visit Cape Town 'on business '. (He actually came to speak to the Minister of Justice, Dr Colin Steyn, about his friends still interned at Koffiefontein, but was thrown out of the office.)
What was done to Vorster in war-time he is now doing to others in peace-time, on the excuse that he is 'at war with the enemies of the volk '.
After the war, Vorster again became involved in politics. The Ossewa Brandwag was absorbed into the Afrikaner Party of Havenga, and Vorster was nominated for Brakpan in the 1948 elections. Ironically enough, at that time the Nationalist Party, joined with the Afrikaner Party in an electoral alliance, attempted to veto Vorster's nomination on the grounds that his war record made him unacceptable to the electorate. But Vorster eventually got the nomination, to be defeated by two votes (increased to four after a recount) by a later colleague in the Cabinet, Labour Minister Trollip, at that time a member of the United Party. Such are the ins and outs of South African politics.
If the Ossewa Brandwag provided the fireworks, it was nevertheless the Nationalist Party which remained throughout the war the real arsenal of opposition to South Africa's war effort. This was recognized from the start by the Nazis themselves, who made an attempt, early in 1940, to enlist the services of Nationalist Party leaders in an attempt to get South Africa out of the war.
According to German documents captured by the Allies after the war, a certain Mrs Denk, acting on the instructions of her husband, a known German agent stationed at the time in Lourenco Marques, sought and obtained an interview with Dr Malan in January 1940. She conveyed to him a message originating from the Nazi Foreign Minister, von Ribbentrop, that it was in the interest of South Africa to make peace with Germany at once.
The documents reported that Mrs Denk had transmitted to Malan the view that Germany wanted to live in friendship with the Afrikaner people. The Reich government regarded it as a matter of course that her former colonies would be returned to her without further ado - i.e. South Africa would have to give up the mandate over South-West Africa - but promised in return that the three British Protectorates of Swaziland, Bechuanaland, and Basutoland would be allocated to the Union government. Germany would not mind if South Africa extended her territory to include Southern Rhodesia and regarded South Africa as the 'leading white state in the South African living space '.
One of the documents stated that Mrs Denk had found Malan to be 'a fighter'. Nazi agent Denk reported: 'Dr Malan was extremely grateful for the news he received, and asked my wife to convey his sincerest thanks to me.' Malan said that he would talk to General Hertzog and other Nationalists to influence them in the speeches they would deliver in Parliament. 'He gave the assurance that he would build up and work entirely on the lines suggested by us.' This was just before the start of the 1940 session of Parliament.
Five days later the Nationalist Party proposed a motion in the Assembly pressing for a separate peace.
When these documents were disclosed to Parliament by the Minister of Justice, H. G. Lawrence, in May 1946, they caused a sensation, and a select committee was appointed to investigate the allegations contained in them. Both Mrs Denk and Dr Malan gave evidence before the committee.
The select committee report, which was unanimous, did not find that Mrs Denk was an enemy agent, since there was no evidence that she knew the business on which her husband was engaged! It also found no connexion between the interview with Dr Malan and the separate peace motion introduced by the Nationalists in Parliament. Dr Malan had said that he did not report the incident because he had regarded it as a possible trap, and also because it had made no impression on him! The select committee found these reasons adequate.
As for the long reply which Dr Malan was reported to have made, both he and Mrs Denk denied that he had said anything at all. There was one peculiar discrepancy in the evidence, however. Dr Malan himself stated that he had understood the message to have come from Mrs Denk's husband and not direct from the German government. In fact Mrs Denk had indicated to him a channel of communication through which he could make contact with her husband if he wished. He had thought so little about the matter that he forgot what he had done with the address.
Mrs Denk, in her evidence, denied having given Dr Malan an address at all. She stated that Dr Malan had said nothing and that she had been very disappointed in his attitude. Asked whether the arrangement had been that if she got an answer she should communicate it to her husband, Mrs Denk replied that she would rather not say.
Advocate L. de V. van Winsen, who appeared for the government, was denied the right to cross-examine as such and could only ask questions through the chairman of the committee.
On 19 June General Smuts moved the adoption of the select committee report, saying that the whole House would be satisfied with the results and he himself did not wish to take the matter any further. It was left to the Dominion Party leader Colonel Stallard to move an amendment, stating that he could not accept the select committee's findings and asking for a commission of inquiry into the subversive activities of agents in South Africa. General Smuts rejected the amendment, and there the matter ended.
Whatever the truth of the affair may be, the fact remains that the Nationalist Party and Dr Malan as its leaders were convinced that the outcome of the war would determine the fact of Afrikanerdom, that Germany would win the war, and that at some stage or other they would have to negotiate with her.
Speaking at a Nationalist Party Congress in Bloemfontein on 5 November 1940, B. J. Schoeman, then Nationalist M.P. for Fordsburg and at present Minister of Transport, said: 'The whole future of Afrikanerdom is dependent upon a German victory.... If Germany wins the war we shall be able to negotiate with her, and in that way ensure the establishment of an independent republic in South Africa.' And Eric Louw declared on 20 August 1942, at Fraserburg: 'If Germany wins, Dr Malan will have the majority and Hitler will then negotiate with the one who has the majority, and the heaviest burden will be laid on those who pushed on the war.' These were the expectations of the entire Nationalist leadership, and they were to have a profound effect on the policies pursued by the party during the war. It was not enough to be passively anti-war. A good Nationalist had also to be positively anti-democratic if he were to qualify for admission into the political kingdom that was to come. Nationalist Party policy became aggressively xenophobic. Not only was the British connexion to be broken once and for all, but the influence of un-Afrikaans elements in South Africa was also to be eliminated or at least severely curtailed.
At Fauresmith on 17 March 1941, Dr Malan said: 'As regards obtaining a republic, Mr Havenga interprets this as "the broad will of the people", so that a majority will have to be obtained amongst the English and the Jews.... I do not agree that in our country we are going to grant the right of veto to decide about a republic to any section which is not imbued with the real Afrikaner spirit.'
For good measure he proclaimed a week later at Stellenbosch: 'When the republic is established, you can only give a say in affairs to people who have identified themselves with the volk, and who have had enough time to do so.'
Lest it be thought that these were regrettable lapses uttered in the heat of the moment, the Federal Council of the Nationalist Party published in March 1941 a brochure entitled Die Republikeinse Orde which stated unambiguously: 'When we have the republic, the say of the inimical and un-national elements in our national affairs will be obliterated. Those portions of the Press which still wish to plead for foreign interests, who want to support doing away with the republic and the restitution of the British connexion, will be regarded as taking part in undermining and treacherous activities.'
Here are other gems from this brochure: ' The British parliamentary system as applied in our country must be swept away, because it has been a failure.' ' A large portion of the population of the Union is the "fifth column" of an overseas nation.' 'Is not the time ripe for us to base our national way of life upon another foundation by breaking away from democracy?'
This whole line of policy was considered necessary at the time, not merely to satisfy the aspirations of the volk at home, but also to convince the German conqueror that it was possible to negotiate with the Nationalist Party when the opportunity arose to do so.
In aspiring for leadership of the Afrikaner people, the Nationalist Party eventually found that it had a formidable rival in the Ossewa Brandwag. But at first cooperation between the O.B. and the Nationalist Party was close, with leading members of each organization holding prominent positions in the other. Dr Malan felt that, so long as the ascendancy of the party in the political sphere was recognized, the O.B. could be given a free hand in the broadly defined 'cultural' sphere to which it had dedicated itself in terms of Colonel Laas's original pronouncements. Laas, it is true, was forced to resign on 30 October 1940, but this did not immediately alter the situation, since his successor had not yet been appointed; and in fact on the very day of Laas's resignation, Dr Malan, after meeting the leaders of the O.B. in Bloemfontein, made a declaration in a speech at Cradock which became known as the 'Cradock Agreement', defining the respective spheres of the two organizations. Each organization undertook not to meddle in the affairs of the other. The Nationalist Party was to do the work of Afrikanerdom in the party political sphere, while the Ossewa Brandwag was to operate on the other fronts of the volk.
For some months there was the closest cooperation between the two organizations. Even the appointment of Dr van Rensburg as Kommandant-Generaal of the O.B. in January 1941 did not immediately alter the situation, though the methods of the O.B. were to undergo a drastic transformation under van Rensburg's leadership, and it soon became apparent that he had ambitions for his organization and for himself as its leader which could not easily be reconciled with the roles which had been assigned to them under the 'Cradock Agreement'.
As the Ossewa Brandwag became more deeply involved in its work of subversion, so the Smuts government responded with a more intensive policy of internment. There was even talk that the government might ban the organization altogether.
Dr Malan sprang to the defence of the Ossewa Brandwag. In a speech on 5 March 1941, he said:
The Ossewa Brandwag has been accused of lending itself to subversive activities and also of encouraging them. Now I say: Carry out your threat. Ban it. Prevent it and prevent its meetings. If the Ossewa Brandwag decides to be passively disobedient and refuses to be dissolved . . . I shall share the consequences with the Ossewa Brandwag. At this stage I am prepared to say to you that if the government decides upon that act and the Ossewa Brandwag decides not to submit, I shall keep my pledge.
What action was contemplated by the O.B. in the event of its being banned was not clear, so that the Doctor's pledge could be made with a fair amount of security, since it did not immediately commit him to anything. However, it was at least a sign that unity in the ranks of Afrikanerdom was as complete as at almost any stage since the outbreak of the war.