German ‘enemy aliens’ in internment camps in South Africa in the Second World War

ABSTRACT

After the Union of South Africa declared war on Germany in September 1939 approximately 5000 German men were interned as ‘enemy aliens'. Fears of a destabilisation of South Africa by German ‘fifth columnists’ were nurtured by the fractured social and political environment of the Union. The attempts made by Afrikaner nationalists to undermine the war effort of the Union reverberated with anti-Semitic and anti-British Nazi propaganda. Apprehensions about the disruptive effects of Nazi activities among Afrikaners and German residents also blended with the perpetual fears of the white minority about losing control of the black population. These challenges to domestic security convinced the Smuts government that the internment of German men suspected of subversion was urgent and justified. The internment of German civilian internees in South Africa has been briefly mentioned in some studies, but this article seeks to provide a more detailed analysis of their internment against the background of wartime South Africa. Based on South African and German archival and secondary sources, this article also constitutes a first attempt at exploring important aspects of the conditions inside the internment camps.

KEYWORDS:

• German internees
• internment camps
• World War II
• ‘enemy aliens’

Introduction

On the eve of the Second World War, white South Africans were divided about the course South Africa should pursue in the imminent conflict. Prime Minister Barry Hertzog vacated his office when he failed to convince parliament that the Union should remain neutral after Britain had declared war on Germany. Jan Smuts returned to the office, which he had previously occupied from 1919 to 1924, on 5 September 1939. To the dismay of the Afrikaner nationalist opposition, the next day Smuts officially announced that South Africa was at war with Germany.

Reminiscent of the anti-German hostility that shook South Africa during the First World War, there were riotous scenes in Johannesburg.¹ Even before the Union’s declaration of war, the police confronted a crowd that hurled tear gas at the German Club and attacked German shops in the city.² Two weeks later, the Rand Daily Mail reported that the Baviaanspoort internment camp on the outskirts of Pretoria, originally a facility for the treatment of alcoholics, was ‘rapidly filling’ with German men.³ The newspaper emphasised that the conditions awaiting the internees were agreeable, and it listed a range of amenities the prisoners would be allowed to enjoy.⁴

Germans in South Africa and in South West Africa (Namibia) had enthusiastically greeted Hitler’s rise to power as the beginning of a new dawn for their mother country after a humiliating defeat in the First World War.⁵ Approximately 33,000 residents with a German background lived in the Union.⁶ While there was a broad consensus amongst them that Hitler was inducting Germany’s rebirth, the haughty claim of a younger generation that the Nazi movement was the sole representative of German interests in southern Africa clashed with older conservative traditions. Monarchist nostalgia was still prevalent in sections of the German community. The modest numbers of card-carrying members of the Nazi party in the Union reflected the integration of Germans into socio-economic networks dominated by white English-speakers, which mitigated against noisy declarations of support for Hitler.⁷ As nationalistic and anti-Semitic as many Germans in South Africa may have been, they were not as moved by the prospect of colonial revision that fired up most Germans in mandate South West Africa. Many insisted that the validation of a German identity in South Africa had a longer history that should not be usurped by National Socialism.⁸ The Union government’s resolute restriction of Nazi activities in the former German colony also served as a warning to overeager admirers of Hitler.⁹

The outbreak of war plunged naturalised and non-naturalised Germans into a precarious situation. Suspicions about their political allegiances had been mounting for some time and reverberated with memories of the internment of Germans during the First World War.¹⁰ English-speaking whites and Empire loyalists in all population groups became increasingly sensitive to news or rumours of underground Nazi activities in the Union.¹¹ Attempts at blurring markers of German identity to evade stigmatisation were made difficult. The government put a stop to the naturalisation of Germans. Applications for changes of German names were no longer accepted.¹² German residents who thought of themselves as respectable members of white society, such as the Protestant missionaries who could look back on an extensive tradition of work among indigenous communities, were suspected of subversive activities. The acting minister of Native Affairs publicly referred to ‘500 Nazi missionaries’ who would need close monitoring.¹³

With the numbers of internees steadily rising, early calculations of a total of 1000 internees soon turned out to be premature.¹⁴ The Union government rejected a request submitted by the British government to South Africa, Canada, Newfoundland, and Australia to accommodate transports of civilian internees from the United Kingdom.¹⁵ By the end of 1940, the minister of the interior, Harry Lawrence, announced that 4000 persons had been interned.¹⁶ After the end of the war, the official statistics listed a total of 6636 civilian internees. Of these, 4069 were non-naturalised ‘Reich Germans’,¹⁷ 833 German Union nationals (158 of whom born in South Africa), 1466 Italians, 12 British subjects and 256 other nationals.¹⁸ German men were accommodated in, and shifted between, six camps: Baviaanspoort and Leeuwkop in the Transvaal, Ganspan and Andalusia on the Transvaal-Cape border, and Koffiefontein and Jagersfontein in the Orange Free State.

Female German residents were not interned in South Africa, but comparatively low numbers of women were arrested in other British African territories. They were detained with their children at No. 2 ‘family camp’ at Salisbury (Harare) in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) while their men were interned in South Africa, some of whom could later join their families in the Salisbury camp.¹⁹ A Red Cross report from June 1941 counted 259 children and 292 German-born women, apart from 13 German women born in other countries, plus 14 Italian nationals with their 16 children.²⁰

The internment of German civilian internees in South Africa has been briefly mentioned in some studies, but this article seeks to provide a more detailed analysis of their internment against the background of the fractured social and political environment in wartime South Africa.²¹ Based on South African and German archival and secondary sources, this article also constitutes a first attempt at exploring important aspects of the conditions inside the internment camps.

Between social ostracisation and internment

Even before the Union government declared war on Germany, local administrators occasionally conveyed their suspicions about German residents to Pretoria. The magistrate of the rural area of Tzaneen, situated about 460 km north of the capital, was one of many officials who reported ‘pronounced Nazi tendencies’.²² Such anxieties were not merely rooted in the dim prospect of militant activities of German residents. Fears of a destabilisation of South Africa were nurtured by two significant characteristics of the Union’s social and political fabric. First, concerns about a German ‘fifth column’ were compounded by the constant barrage of anti-British and anti-Smuts statements from Afrikaner nationalists. In a replay of Afrikaner resistance to fighting Germany in the First World War, Smuts was attacked for drawing the Union into a major conflict in which Afrikaners had no stake. German propaganda that shrewdly appealed to Afrikaner nationalism was broadcast by the shortwave radio station at Zeesen near Berlin, whose chief announcer Erich Holm was a South African of German descent. A recurrent claim was that Britain intended to sacrifice the white population of its dominions in a pointless war against an unbeatable Germany.²³ Afrikaner anti-war propaganda thrived on describing Hitler as a leader who was motivated by the noble desire to restore Germany’s greatness and self-determination in the face of hostile nations that were in cahoots with international Jewry. The leader of the nationalist opposition, D.F. Malan, constantly pushed for neutrality. Despite entertaining secret contacts with German agents, he remained averse to what he saw as the importation of the ‘foreign’ National Socialist ideology.²⁴ Trying to keep his more radical rivals at bay, such as Louis Weichardt’s Greyshirts, Malan’s rhetoric chimed in with the ideological tenets of right-wing extremism as he fanned the flames with anti-Semitic rhetoric.²⁵ The German Foreign Office approvingly noted that he accused Smuts of ‘converting the country into a Jewish-imperialist war machine’.²⁶ The Afrikaner opposition spent the war making pro-German noises with sections splintering into various right-wing ‘shirt movements’ that were deliberately suggestive of European fascist parties.²⁷ Throughout the war concerns about right-wing subversion and sabotage acts ‘surfaced frequently’, which convinced the government that quarantining disloyal German residents was justified and urgent.²⁸

The second characteristic that was nurturing fears of destabilisation was rooted in South Africa’s segregationist race relations. Apprehensions about the disruptive effects of Nazi propaganda among Afrikaners and Germans inevitably blended with the perpetual fears of the white minority about losing control of the black population.²⁹ Right-wing Afrikaners and Germans were suspected of stirring unrest among Africans by spreading disinformation about an impending British defeat that would expose the country to German occupation.³⁰ A report submitted to the Secretary for Native Affairs warned of rumours claiming ‘that the Government would shortly commandeer all Native cattle without payment’, ‘that the Germans would shortly be in South Africa, that the British Fleet had been destroyed and that the English would soon be defeated’.³¹ Afrikaner agitators were accused of extolling the benefits of a German victory for black South Africans.³² A white resident at a block of flats in Johannesburg reported that he was approached by an African worker who inquired what he would charge for teaching him German. The reason given for this unusual request purportedly was: ‘When Hitler arrives to take over this country, all natives speaking German fluently will be treated as white men.’³³

Performing a tightrope act between ‘compromise and concession’³⁴ to Afrikaner nationalist sentiment on the one hand and the implementation of emergency regulations and censorship on postal and telegraphic communication on the other, the government tried to combat pro-Nazi propaganda.³⁵ A Government Information Bureau was tasked with providing information to the media on the Union’s war policies to counter right-wing support of Germany.³⁶ The overwhelming support for the Union’s war effort from white English-speakers was bolstered by English-language newspapers, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) radio programmes, and the activities of veteran organisations and civic associations.³⁷ During the initial phase of the so-called ‘phony war’ in Europe, the government tried to steer a middle course by singling out those individuals for internment that had acquired a reputation for disseminating Nazi propaganda. As it has been observed in other case studies of civilian internment in the Second World War, the state’s definition of enemy status lacked consistency as it depended on ‘soft categories like loyalty, belonging and trustworthiness’.³⁸ In Britain and its dominions, the vague selection criteria were applied in an arbitrary manner that caused considerable confusion.³⁹ South Africa seems to have practised a less formalised version of the British system of grading ‘enemy aliens’ into the three categories A, B, and C.⁴⁰ The control officers in charge had considerable latitude in deciding who was to be interned. Apart from assessments of the individual’s political opinions and activities, the necessity of preventing ‘physically fit enemy aliens, and especially enemy technicians’ from joining the Axis war effort was also occasionally cited as the rationale for detaining civilians.⁴¹ Those whose loyalties were doubtful but were deemed to abstain from incendiary conduct were to be left alone under exemption orders that prescribed various degrees of domestic confinement. They were instructed to regularly report to the police, to abstain from political activities, and to surrender their passports. These regulations also affected women, as may be concluded from a letter by a teacher in Springs who bitterly complained about the ‘height of inhumanity’ of being required to report at a distant police station despite being physically incapacitated.⁴² Individuals who could be expected to be on their best behaviour were granted some leeway, such as obtaining permission to travel for job interviews. During the early phase of the war, German nationals who wanted to leave the country were escorted to the Mozambiquan border to arrange for their passage back home from the neutral territory of the Portuguese colony.⁴³

Government officials summoned suspects for interviews.⁴⁴ Especially when German residents were alleged of inciting Africans, administrators were keen to rout out seditious tendencies. In one instance, magistrate and police correspondence noted that a Xhosa-speaking white man, identified as C.C. Spann, held ‘propaganda meetings’ in the Indwe district in the Eastern Cape, telling indigenous audiences that Germany would win the war. Since this was a recruitment area for workers for the Transvaal mines, officials feared that his activities could have a snowballing effect among Africans.⁴⁵ He was earmarked for internment.⁴⁶ In a similar vein, a statement by an African cook working for the South African Railways was sure to raise eyebrows. Klaas Kunene reported that a German employee ‘ told me that all natives must support Germany, for if we do not support Hitler, he will kill all natives when he comes to South Africa, but on the other hand, if we do support him (Hitler) he will do away with all Englishmen, and he would give the natives European wives and farms to live on’.⁴⁷

English or Anglicised South Africans were not spared investigations of their political loyalties, as the following case shows. John Robert Sutherland in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) was accused of praising the virtues of Nazi policies among white road construction workers. His accuser reported that Sutherland spoke German fluently and conducted himself like a German, whatever that meant. That ‘his diet consisted mainly of potatoes and pork’ was mentioned as substantiating incriminating evidence.⁴⁸

Detentions did not occur in secret. Lists with the names of interned and released Germans were published in newspapers. This information was publicised without any further explanations and would therefore have allowed suspicions to linger among members of the public after internees were released.⁴⁹ Identifying persons that posed a plausible security threat placed a considerable burden on local government officials. Magistrates were also frustrated by having to deal with requests from residents that had been placed in self-confinement but constantly asked for permission to enjoy ‘trivial relaxations’, such as visiting the zoo or going to the cinema.⁵⁰ Lawrence advised magistrates to act leniently and not to take measures to extremes.⁵¹ In the early phase of the war, the Union government did not even bother to discuss plans for the general internment of ‘Reich Germans’. Chief Control Officer Sir Theodore Truter⁵² explained that ‘it is the present policy to release on parole from internment any subject who is vouched for by responsible persons and can find occupation outside or maintained by friends’.⁵³

Such relaxed attitudes were more difficult to uphold after Germany invaded Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France in the first half of 1940. Truter received new instructions for ‘a more decided and firmer policy’.⁵⁴ In June 1940, his staff were informed that the government had revised its policies ‘as a result of recent happenings overseas’.⁵⁵ A wave of dismissals from government departments had already hit naturalised German employees in May.⁵⁶ The new policy prescribed more thorough investigations into individual cases which led to a sharper distinction between naturalised and non-naturalised Germans. This extended to dividing German internees among different camps according to their residential status.⁵⁷ The Ministry of the Interior instructed the control officers to commit naturalised Germans if they did not pass a careful test of the merits or demerits of their case. This included an assessment of the suspect’s social environment to establish whether he lived in an area where ideological indoctrination could ignite discontent into more pronounced forms of subversion. Special emphasis was placed on Germans who lauded the German war effort in the presence of Africans or in areas identified as hot spots of Nazi propaganda. A thorough examination of the suspect’s character included questions such as ‘Does he speak when he is sober or when he is in his cups?’⁵⁸

Anti-German sentiment in the Union gained more intensity with the escalation of the war in Europe. The Natal Mercury demanded that ‘much sterner measures’ against the German ‘scum’ needed to be taken. The government was accused of prematurely releasing German internees after a transitory period of detention. The newspaper opined that ‘undue tenderness’ imperilled upstanding South African citizens when the Germans ‘were ready to shoot us when our backs are turned’.⁵⁹ F.K. Dixon, president of the Natal Chamber of Industries, requested that all German men and women should be interned, whether innocent or guilty. Similar demands were raised by the Durban Chamber of Commerce.⁶⁰ In this heated atmosphere, even somewhat eccentric denunciations found their way into government files, such as the claim that the wife of a police sergeant at Marquard in the Free State had been ‘in communication with Hitler just before [the] war’.⁶¹ The magistrate of Nylstroom refused to grant an applicant permission to travel to Pietersburg (now Polokwane) because the area was rumoured to be a ‘hot-bed of Hun intrigue’. He conceded that his opinions ‘may appear to be strong but it is useless to be considerate to these murderous barbarians. I would just strongly and emphatically recommend that ALL [sic] Huns be repatriated to Germany forthwith.’⁶²

The officer in charge of the selection of internees in the Pietermaritzburg area, E.D. Beale, preferred a more paternalistic approach to disciplining men whose political loyalty seemed questionable. He warned 20-year-old Gerald Wilhelm Hartmann, who had been reported by fellow students at Natal University College, that his ‘expression of racial disposition and academic views in favour of Germany’ would not be tolerated. Beale argued, however, against the recommendation made by the police to intern the student. He seems to have been inclined to taking a lenient stance towards young men whom he depicted as mere immature loudmouths, sometimes also claiming his superior judgement when he was personally acquainted with suspects. He favoured reprimanding them to keep a low profile or risk more serious consequences.⁶³ Beale gruffly regretted that such ‘hot-headed’ young men could not be subjected to a dose of ‘the cane and castor oil’, the latter being the favourite method of Italian fascists of humiliating their opponents.⁶⁴ Hartmann got away with an exemption order that obliged him to report to the police twice per week.⁶⁵

When the war in Europe escalated, the Ministry of the Interior responded to the growing anti-German sentiment in large parts of the public by tightening the selection process. Earlier the decision had been made to create the office of an Appeal Advisory Commissioner.⁶⁶ The right to appeal against internment was, however, qualified at some point in 1940.⁶⁷ Only Union nationals were entitled to appeal, but they could not submit their applications until they were behind barbed wire.⁶⁸ The internee had to be informed of the accusations that led to his detention either in writing or in an interview with the chief control officer within 14 days.⁶⁹ He had to appeal in writing and was permitted to present character testimonies given under oath. The chief control officer was to submit the case to the appeal advisory commissioner and to make a recommendation to the minister of the interior.⁷⁰

After Germany had overrun large parts of Europe, rumours of an imminent German victory were feared to gain more credibility among black South Africans. An avalanche of cautionary reports began to be circulated among government departments.⁷¹ Officials carefully registered incidents of outspoken belligerence, such as the comments made by Zinqume Gwayi who refused to cooperate with the castration of his bulls. The irate farmer told the white livestock inspector that ‘the Germans had us on the run until we were destroyed, then Africa would belong to the Germans and we natives would be freed from the white man like you castrating all our bulls and interfering with our rights’.⁷² In June 1941, a government directive instructed all control officers that ‘persons of enemy origin’ were banned from entering ‘native areas’ and that ‘enemy aliens’ in such areas had to be placed in self-confinement if not into internment camps as a matter of state security.⁷³

By 1942 at the latest, the mass killings of European Jews was reported in South African newspapers.⁷⁴ It is noteworthy, however, that government officials were not always prepared to consider that the Jewish identity of some German residents was unlikely to make them avid supporters of Nazism.⁷⁵ The lawyers of M.M. Engel submitted to the chief control officer that their client wanted to be relieved from the obligation to apply for a travel permit in South Africa. They explained that Engel was a German Jew who had resided in South Africa since 1936, not under residential control, and a member of the Johannesburg Civic Guard. The Chief Control Office rejected the request. Despite his credentials Engel was to be treated as an ‘enemy subject’ whose mobility had to be restrained.⁷⁶

The camps

The Rand Daily Mail continuously emphasised that the circumstances of the internees were not comparable to the grim conditions in Nazi concentration camps, as polemically insinuated by right-wing Afrikaners.⁷⁷ Nationalist deputies in the House of Assembly were fond of needling the government with accusations that internment was a ploy for locking up all of its opponents.⁷⁸ When a later wave of internments targeted members of organisations that engaged in sabotage acts, such as the Ossewa Brandwag (Ox-Wagon Sentinel), right-wing propaganda stirred up memories of the suffering of Afrikaner civilians in British concentration camps in the South African War (1899–1902).⁷⁹ Nationalist parliamentarians postured as the defenders of the ‘spiritually suppressed’ German internees.⁸⁰ Conversely, government supporters insisted that internment had more in common with luxurious holiday camps.⁸¹ The Rand Daily Mail praised the kitchens at Baviaanspoort as ‘among the most modern in the Union’.⁸² Criticism was reserved for lamenting lax security measures and for calling out the machinations of scheming Nazi inmates.⁸³ Reports of sporadic protest and complaints from internees were cited as proof of the civilised way in which the South African state dealt with seditious residents. After all, as the same newspaper opined, ‘there are no strikes in Dachau’.⁸⁴

At the beginning of 1940, only Baviaanspoort and Leeuwkop existed where German civilians, besides prisoners of other nationalities, were held. The other four camps were opened and closed during the course of the war in order to manage and redistribute the growing numbers of internees. In June 1940, the opening of three new camps – Andalusia, Ganspan, and Koffiefontein – was announced.⁸⁵

As soon as internment started, the Dutch envoy visited the Leeuwkop and Baviaanspoort camps in his capacity as the representative of German interests in the Union.⁸⁶ The Red Cross representatives, Dr E. Grasset and H. Junod, visited the camps more regularly and provided more in-depth reports. These credibly indicate that the overall material conditions in the camps were acceptable, at least after an initial period of consolidation.⁸⁷ The reports allow for some noteworthy insights into the living conditions of a camp population divided by political allegiances and social fault lines. As will be shown, it is doubtful, however, that these inspections dug too deep into the political tensions that simmered under the surface of an efficiently organised life in captivity.

In January 1940, the deputy chief health officer, Dr H.S. Gear, inspected Baviaanspoort and reported that the camp was in a period of transition from double-walled marquee tents and corrugated iron buildings to permanent dwellings with appropriate rooms, which he expected to remedy the ‘slight overcrowding’.⁸⁸ In the temporary absence of a water reservoir and filtration plant, the internees would have to make do with a borehole for drinking water and the adjacent Pienaars River ‘for general needs’.⁸⁹ Most reports described Leeuwkop as providing satisfactory living conditions, although the Dutch representative noted that the general mood was more confrontational than at Baviaanspoort. Improvements introduced by the camp administration, such as a tennis court, did not assuage feelings of deprivation. After a golf course had been added to the existing sports facilities, internees complained to him that it only had three holes.⁹⁰ Sanitation and hygiene, nutrition, medical support, and facilities for sport, studying, and entertainment were usually described as appropriate under the circumstances, notwithstanding the psychological costs for men who felt the considerable pressure of being separated from their families and who faced the loss of their jobs or businesses.⁹¹

Baviaanspoort became a frequently mentioned reference point in the press, as may be gleaned from many articles in the Rand Daily Mail. It accommodated the largest number of interned Germans, and it was relatively close to both Johannesburg and Pretoria, which also may explain why it received a livelier press coverage than the other camps, which were located in more remote surroundings. Much public interest was generated by a riot on 1 July 1940 that erupted when the internees refused to hand over two inmates who were to be transferred to another camp for disciplinary reasons. An official statement claimed that the military successes of Germany had incited a defiant mood among the internees, which needed a determined response.⁹² The police was able to restore control, but the accompanying violence offered an opportunity for the nationalist opposition to launch vastly embroidered attacks on Smuts for reputedly brutalising peaceful protesters.⁹³ The incident was gleefully taken up by Radio Zeesen and by German newspapers.⁹⁴

A Red Cross report from January 1942 registered a total of 1852 internees at Baviaanspoort.⁹⁵ At the time, this camp population comprised of 625 internees from the Union, 60 from South West Africa, and also Germans from other British territories in Africa, such as Tanganyika (Tanzania) and Uganda.⁹⁶ These internees were joined by captured sailors from the merchant navies of Germany and Vichy France.⁹⁷ The latter contingent included 43 French Foreign Legionnaires, most of whom were Germans. The legionnaires were about to be repatriated from French Indo-China for health or disciplinary reasons – 20 of them were diagnosed with syphilis in South Africa⁹⁸ – when their ship was seized by the British. The prisoners were accommodated in two different dormitories as 15 of them requested to be treated as French citizens while 25 of their comrades demanded to be repatriated to Germany.⁹⁹ The report reiterated that the camp was equipped with the necessary facilities for cooking and showering, and food of reasonable quality and quantity. Apart from the mentioned cases of syphilis, the inspectors did not report any infectious diseases. Some internees were treated for ‘light injuries sustained while taking part in sports’.¹⁰⁰ There were 120 more serious cases, including men who needed ‘special treatment’ for unspecified ailments, who had received medical care at a hospital in Pretoria during the preceding six months. Elderly internees were placed in ‘special barracks’ close to the camp medical bay and were exempted from roll calls and camp exercises.¹⁰¹ Three times per week the camp was visited by a dentist, and an ophthalmologist was called in when necessary.¹⁰² Radios were not permitted, but there was a library with 1420 books (one year later the number of books reportedly had risen to 8960).¹⁰³ Six copies each of an English and an Afrikaans newspaper were circulated on a daily basis, and the camp liaison person (or trustee) compiled a daily news bulletin that was read in the meeting hall. The internees were given the opportunity to present and attend courses and lectures on different subjects.¹⁰⁴

Supporters and opponents of National Socialism in the camps

By September 1939, Nazi policies had generated a stream of 1.2 million refugees, of whom 420,000 were Jewish.¹⁰⁵ British internment policies generally treated Jewish refugees as German and Austrian nationals without automatically making allowances for their status as the victims of Nazi terror.¹⁰⁶ Commenting on the initial phase of civilian internment in Britain, Louise Burletson has pointedly stated that the focus on the national identity of refugees resulted in ‘the mixing of fascists and Jewish refugees’ in camps.¹⁰⁷ Even though thousands of Jewish refugees were recognised as ‘refugees from Nazi oppression’ in Britain, they were categorised according to arbitrary assessments of the danger they reputedly still could pose to their host country. Any communication between German refugees and their families and friends in belligerent countries raised suspicions about refugees being lured or blackmailed into spying for the Nazis. Similar to the situation of German residents in South Africa, many were forced to live under strict restrictions of their mobility even if not interned.¹⁰⁸ In South Africa, biographical sketches compiled by camp commandants of internees who were detained in other African countries and transferred to the Union provide glimpses into lives disrupted by the rise of the Nazis and the ensuing world war. It is noteworthy that some officials relied on Nazi terminology in providing brief assessments of their internees. Markers of ethnic or cultural identity encompassed a wide variety of classifications. The Ganspan commandant employed categories such as ‘Full Jew’, ‘50% Jew’, ‘German Jew’, ‘Full German Jew – Non-Aryan’, ‘Full Aryan’, ‘Austrian Jew’ as well as ‘Austrian Jew – Non-Aryan’, and also ‘Jewish Protestant’.¹⁰⁹ Many of these internees were eventually released to be returned to the British African territories where they had been arrested.¹¹⁰ Even in those cases where anti-Nazi credentials of internees seemed convincing, the different British colonial governments initially preferred to pay the costs for their internment elsewhere¹¹¹ while the Union government refused to allow them to stay in South Africa.¹¹² After some haggling, the authorities reluctantly accepted that these men hardly fit the profile of Nazi agents. Many of them had left Germany in their early 20s or as minors with their parents.¹¹³ Adventurous journeys had taken them to Tanganyika, Uganda, Kenya, Nyasaland (Malawi), or Basutoland (Lesotho). For example, 29-year-old Walter Awin, a Jewish refugee from Austria who was captured in Uganda and interned at Jagersfontein, complained that he was condemned to ‘sit here aimlessly instead of being allowed to help to destroy Nazism and Fascism’.¹¹⁴ Another internee had taken a detour via Palestine before settling in Kenya after the Nazis confiscated his business and sent his brother to a concentration camp.¹¹⁵ One man stated that he had been persecuted for his allegiance to the Protestant theologian Martin Niemöller, whom the Nazis kept in a concentration camp since 1938.¹¹⁶ On their return to the respective colony, the men were screened to make sure they would be released into employment. They were not allowed to live unsupervised in isolated areas, and they were forbidden to be in charge of African workers.¹¹⁷

That South African internment policy locked up victims and opponents of Nazism together with hardened Nazis did not escape the attention of the public. As one incensed reader wrote to the Rand Daily Mail, the reason why some of the internees had ended up in South Africa in the first place was because of ‘the vicious Nazi racial “theory”’, only to find themselves treated as ‘pariahs in the land of their refuge’.¹¹⁸ Some internees were again confronted with the same anti-Semitism that had driven them out of Germany.¹¹⁹ In the early phase of the war, strong assertions of Nazi ideology in the camps reverberated with the initial successes of German military power. Post-war memoirs mention the euphoric mood at Andalusia after the German victories in 1940. As one former inmate reminisced, ‘the first months in internment were the merriest by far’.¹²⁰ Some internees expected to be called up any moment by Germany to join the war. Military exercises were secretly organised until banned by the camp commandant.¹²¹

The South African authorities knew of the divisions between Nazi disciples and their opponents. Baviaanspoort commandant Lieutenant-Colonel Pepler mentioned that some internees had to be accommodated in a different barracks to separate them from the devoted Nazis.¹²² It is difficult to glean from the records whether every inmate who greeted his companions by bellowing ‘Heil Hitler’, as was the custom in the camps, did so out of conviction or because of intimidation. But visible demonstrations of non-compliance, such as the refusal to raise one’s arms for the Hitler salute, carried risks. Open disagreement with the tenets of Nazi ideology could be expected to result in serious altercations. One Baviaanspoort internee declared that ‘it is not safe in the camp if you were not a Nazi’.¹²³ One internee at the Andalusia camp stated that on arrival the commandant welcomed him by saying:

They are all Nazis in this Camp. If you happen not to be a Nazi yourself you will have to behave like one. If you don’t, I cannot guarantee your personal safety once you are inside the camp. Yes, you will have to give the Nazi salute. If you wish to express any views about the war they will have to be the German views, even if your views as a South African should differ.¹²⁴

Truter admitted that ‘we are not always convinced of a man’s pro-enemy sentiments when he is locked up’.¹²⁵ He demanded a firm response to the request made by the ‘Camp Fuhrer’ of Andalusia that outgoing letters had to be submitted to him for preliminary inspection.¹²⁶ Letters were collected by a designated internee and had to be unsealed to facilitate censoring.¹²⁷ Koffiefontein, which also accommodated a sizeable number of Ossewa Brandwag members, had a reputation of not exercising effective control of the mail traffic of internees.¹²⁸ As inefficient as the censorship in the camps seems to have been, the laborious process of monitoring in- and outgoing letters led to complaints about the slow distribution of the mail.¹²⁹ Intelligence reports raised suspicions about ongoing communication between internees and the remnants of the disbanded Nazi organisation in South West Africa.¹³⁰ Truter also warned that cruder methods of forcing fellow internees to toe the party line were being replaced by subtler ways of coercion, such as preventing them from accessing the available camp amenities.¹³¹ Accusations were occasionally levelled at the inappropriate familiarity between Nazi internees and camp management or guards. A report to the German Foreign Office seems to substantiate such concerns. The informant was permitted to return to Germany after a brief period of internment at Baviaanspoort and stated:

The internees at Baviaanspoort are well! This is no exaggeration […] The commandant is very sympathetic to Germans and personally participated in the splendid Christmas celebration, and he even procured a big Christmas tree. A big swastika flag was hoisted at the party, speeches on Hitler were given, the national anthem and the Horst-Wessel anthem were sung, etc., and at the end the gentleman expressed his thanks for having witnessed a proper German Christmas celebration […] The food is good and plenty.¹³²

An internee from an unidentified camp hinted at the bullying of Catholic inmates who dared to speak out against the Nazis at their church services:

The longer one stays here the more every one moves away from this crowd and a compromise is out of the question here. Every Sunday there is a divine service and sermon for the Catholics. It has already come so far that our preachers had to appear before the Camp Leaders to answer for their attitude. They threaten to take other measures against us, if similar attacks against the National Socialism occur again.¹³³

Another letter writer, evidently a Nazi supporter, boldly claimed:

We meet every Saturday at a certain spot; the Hitler youth, about 50, march past the speakers [sic] stand, and our brass band plays the Comrade’s song in memory of the men who have fallen in battle. A short address follows, and we all sing the National Hymn. Unfortunately, we have some men here who play around in the huts while this goes on. On January 30th we had a bigger affair. For this occasion I drew a large eagle in charcoal on linen, with which the speaker’s stand was draped.¹³⁴

Such open displays of partisanship were complemented by a mixture of violence and less visible forms of intimidation towards non-conforming inmates. Two reports from anonymised writers who had been released after a few months of internment from Leeuwkop and Baviaanspoort respectively were submitted to Truter from the director of intelligence. These sources mention physical attacks on and various instances of intimidation of suspected or outspoken opponents of Nazism. The former internee at Leeuwkop was Jewish¹³⁵ while the comments on Baviaanspoort were made by a man who defiantly stated that he was unable to prove his ‘Aryan’ ancestry according to Nazi race laws.¹³⁶ These reports attest to instances of victimisation of inmates at the hands of Nazi internees.¹³⁷ Leeuwkop was pictured as a ‘Nazi hell’, where harassment of Jewish internees was ignored by the camp authorities. The German leadership exerted considerable power over the camp population under the cover of self-administration. This entailed the opening of internee correspondence as well as luggage checks of new arrivals.¹³⁸ A secret German camp police, according to the report, terrorised fellow inmates.¹³⁹ Jewish internees were prohibited from entering the kitchen and received an inferior quality of food, which was ‘placed for them outside the kitchen door on the floor’.¹⁴⁰ A café run by internees refused to serve Jews and non-Nazis. Jewish internees were warned ‘in their own interest’ not to enter the showers while their ‘Aryan’ fellow prisoners were using them.¹⁴¹ One man was beaten up to the point that his dentures were destroyed, and others had their hair punitively shaved in a disfiguring style. Truter admonished camp administrators for allowing such excesses and insisted that

this can certainly not be tolerated and such practices must cease forthwith […] It is the policy of the Government that all internees will be entitled to liberty of conscience and that they shall not be interfered with as long as they behave themselves as reasonable beings.¹⁴²

The informant on abuses at Leeuwkop also complained about fraternisation between guards and Nazi internees, openly expressed by warders giving the Hitler salute. Similar impressions were conveyed by a former Baviaanspoort inmate who was interned from November 1940 to January 1941. He claimed that ‘the first words I heard at the camp were “Heil Hitler”’ when he was received by the German camp leader. The trustee advised him to reconsider his critical opinions of the Nazis because Germany was sure to ‘play a decisive role on the African continent’ after the war.¹⁴³ The same informant claimed that the internal leadership collected a secret record of all the inmates, purportedly for the compensation for hardships suffered by a victorious post-war Germany. Defiant internees were warned that they had already been tagged for being shipped off to concentration camps after the war.¹⁴⁴ It is hardly surprising that some internees were reported to keep their ‘non-Aryan’ status hidden from their fellow prisoners.¹⁴⁵ The Leeuwkop commandant was described as being indifferent to the conditions suffered by Jewish and non-Nazi prisoners, although in a tacit acknowledgement of the existing tensions several cells were ‘converted to living quarters for Jews and any others who preferred to stay there’.¹⁴⁶

Amongst all belligerent countries, South Africa accommodated the largest number of German civilian internees, after those who were interned later in the United States of America.¹⁴⁷ The German Foreign Office was well informed of the conditions in South African camps. It carefully examined the reports from the Red Cross and the Spanish consulate (first represented by Manuel Manzuco and from 1944 by Pedro Ygual) that had replaced the Dutch consul after the German invasion of the Netherlands.¹⁴⁸ The consular reports recorded not only the numbers of internees and camp guards but also the types of weapons the latter carried, as well as the material conditions, including sketches of camp structures.¹⁴⁹ The segregation between Jewish and ‘Aryan’ internees was an obsession of the German Foreign Office. In June 1941, Manzuco reported to Berlin that he had visited the separate ‘Jewish concentration camp’ at the Ganspan camp.¹⁵⁰ In October 1942, the Foreign Office responded to a report by Red Cross delegate Junod of a visit to the Jagersfontein camp by insisting again that ‘Aryan’ Germans must be transferred ‘to Concentration Camps for Germans only’.¹⁵¹ The Germans claimed that this was already the accepted practice in other territories of the Empire.¹⁵² There is no evidence, however, that separation between Jewish and non-Jewish internees was practiced in South Africa to satisfy Nazi anti-Semitism. As mentioned earlier, where such separations took place, it was implemented to protect Jewish and non-Jewish internees, often at their express wish, from abuse at the hands of Nazi sympathisers.¹⁵³

Reports on the camps also reached Berlin through repatriated internees. Their relatives in Germany were requested to inform the Foreign Office of any communication from South Africa.¹⁵⁴ Camp regulations regarding correspondence prohibited political comments and negative observations on the conditions of internment. Aside from platitudinous patriotic comments, such as expressing confidence in Hitler’s wise leadership, censorship barred more enthusiastic declarations of Nazi ideology. But there also existed clandestine communication channels.¹⁵⁵ In contrast to the less alarming Red Cross and consular reports, these secret sources emphasise internment as marked by deprivation and oppression. Without being specific, one unnamed internee described Andalusia in the bleakest colours as lacking basic resources with systemic harassment of the internees. He suggested that for every German internee two British prisoners in German captivity should be put in chains and solitary detention.¹⁵⁶ Equally negative reports on Andalusia and Baviaanspoort were submitted to the German Upper Command of the Armed Forces by members of a group of 900 repatriated internees who returned to Germany via Portugal in August 1944.¹⁵⁷ Exaggerated accounts of the hardships of internment may have been presented by returnees to forestall accusations of having enjoyed a comparatively easy life during a trying period for the fatherland or to deflect suspicions of disloyalty. Critical comments on the Nazi regime made during captivity could have serious consequences, as demonstrated by the case of two repatriated Germans, named Peycke and J. von Hohnhorst, who were temporarily arrested by the Gestapo for expressing their ‘anti-national attitude’ to their fellow internees.¹⁵⁸ The urge to prove one’s loyalty to the regime may also explain some statements that seem oblivious to the reality of the war.¹⁵⁹ Irrespective or plainly ignorant of the grim situation in Germany that was marked by heavy Allied bombing raids and staggering military casualties,¹⁶⁰ a repatriated South West African farmer wrote after his arrival in Lisbon:

I believe that it is exceptionally desirable that all children from the age of ten should come to Germany in order not to be exposed to hostile influences and enemy propaganda and to let them share the experience of war in Germany.¹⁶¹

Overtly dark depictions of the camp experience grate with other accounts, as cited earlier, that accentuated camp life as being dominated by a great degree of self-administration, the uninhibited use of Nazi symbols, and satisfactory material resources. A Foreign Office memo compiled from internees’ accounts and from the reports by the Spanish consular representatives noted that internees at Baviaanspoort had the liberty to decide on the selection of their room-mates. The equipment and furniture were described as appropriate, and ‘the picture of the Führer and the swastika decorated every room’.¹⁶² The internees could organise and attend a wide range of concerts, theatre performances, art exhibitions, lectures, and language courses. Internees who were eager to stay physically fit had the option of competing for the ‘Baviaanspoort sports badge’.¹⁶³ Butter, meat, and jam were available in abundance. Unpleasant menial tasks such as doing the laundry and the cleaning of the latrines and washrooms was the job of black prisoners.¹⁶⁴ While the conditions in the more remote camps, such as Andalusia, were described as more rustic than those at Baviaanspoort, the memo acknowledged that the Union authorities were responsive to complaints and made efforts to improve substandard conditions, such as upgrading unhygienic sanitary facilities and dilapidated barracks.¹⁶⁵ The camps for women and children in Southern Rhodesia were described as being loosely monitored and as providing a comparatively unconstrained environment. The absence of any doubts expressed by the Foreign Office on this rather sunny portrayal of camp life suggests that these reports were accepted as credible.¹⁶⁶ Those internees who remained in the camps pitied the returnees because ‘they had to live through the last terrible months of the war, often thinking back in their air raid shelters to the sunshine and good food of Andalusia’.¹⁶⁷

Repatriation and the termination of internment

To the surprise of both parties, the option of repatriation was raised by the South Africans for the first time on 3 September 1942.¹⁶⁸ The reasons for this unexpected initiative from the Union Government cannot be established from the consulted sources. The German Foreign Office submitted a request for information about the motives of the Union Government to the Spanish consul and the Red Cross, but was unable to obtain a satisfactory response.¹⁶⁹ The camp commandants requested the German camp leadership to identify volunteers within 24 hours.¹⁷⁰ The question of repatriation provoked disputes among both internees and officials in Germany. At both Andalusia and Baviaanspoort a majority initially signalled their interest in returning to Germany. At Baviaanspoort a majority argued that it was the patriotic duty of every prisoner to apply for repatriation, irrespective of the resulting loss of his material or financial assets in South Africa. In Andalusia the German leadership demanded that only those without a secure livelihood in South Africa and those who were fit for military duty or work in Germany should apply. In both camps a minority expressed disagreement with these guidelines. Thus, ‘in Andalusia volunteers for repatriation were defamed while those who refused to be repatriated were defamed in Baviaanspoort’.¹⁷¹ The Foreign Office explained these incongruities by pointing to the differences in the social composition of the camp population. Most internees in Baviaanspoort were South African Germans while Andalusia’s German population was represented by a majority of farmers from South West Africa. The latter viewed repatriation as the abandonment of older German colonial aspirations in southern Africa.¹⁷² This first attempt at establishing a repatriation scheme came to naught until this initiative was renewed again in the spring of 1943, apparently under the banner of selecting returnees for medical reasons.¹⁷³ This initiative was also slow to take off because, in the absence of clear directives from Germany, rumours circulated that the Nazi party had given instructions at the beginning of the war not to leave South Africa under any circumstances.¹⁷⁴ The debate among the internees about whether or not the ‘German element’ in southern Africa should be maintained at all costs continued until the end of the war. In July 1943, the Union authorities disseminated application forms for repatriation in the camps. At Baviaanspoort, only a minority of 200 internees declined to respond. In Andalusia, 300 internees initially applied. These latter numbers rose to 600 when the Union’s repatriation scheme became more clearly defined by May 1944.¹⁷⁵ In June 1944, about 900 German internees, including women and children, from South Africa, South West Africa, and East Africa were transported by train to Port Elizabeth to leave for Lisbon on board of the Drottningholm.¹⁷⁶ In August they arrived at Heilbronn in Germany.¹⁷⁷ At the same time, Ygual reported that the restrictions at the Salisbury camp for the 209 men, 288 women, and 227 children left had been noticeably relaxed. The authorities had received 365 applications for repatriation, and 124 internees were released on their ‘word of honour’.¹⁷⁸ The internees in the Union continued their dispute about the pros and cons of repatriation until the undeniable final collapse of Nazi Germany. A few days before the German capitulation Ygual noted that at this stage even some of the most fanatical Nazis preferred to stay in the Union rather than to return to their devastated home land.¹⁷⁹

As mentioned earlier, throughout the war the internees had been moved among the different camps as the government constantly streamlined the numbers and the administration of the camp population. Leeuwkop was closed on 25 July 1941, and all internees were transferred to the Ganspan camp.¹⁸⁰ Ganspan was shut down briefly afterwards on 6 December 1941, with the internees being transferred to Koffiefontein. Jagersfontein was closed in March 1943 and the internees were also transferred to Koffiefontein.¹⁸¹ Andalusia was finally closed in August 1945, and the internees were transferred to the last two camps that remained, Baviaanspoort and Koffiefontein.¹⁸²

It is difficult to establish a clear picture of the numbers involved, but during this last phase of internment the government’s attention focused on the remaining internees from South West Africa. In July 1945, a Government Notice declared that ‘enemy aliens’ still had to ask for permission if they wanted to leave a magisterial district, especially if they wanted to leave or enter South West Africa.¹⁸³ Two weeks after the German capitulation, Dr H.O. Simon, Chair of the Independent Cultural Association and Secretary of the Central Committee for German Refugees,¹⁸⁴ complained to the Prime Minister’s Office that ‘the victims of Nazi persecution are being treated on the same footing as their persecutors’.¹⁸⁵ Anti-Nazi refugees were still among the internees, and the restrictions of German residents had not yet entirely been lifted. Simon insisted that ‘persons of Jewish or partly Jewish descent’ were by definition not Nazis and should therefore not be labelled as ‘enemy subjects’ and be recognised as ‘genuine refugees’.¹⁸⁶ This request was rejected by the Chief Control Officer and both the Departments of the Interior and Justice. They insisted that ‘there is evidence of “subversive activity” for any refugee with right of residence and still in internment’.¹⁸⁷ In November 1945, an unspecified number of Union nationals were still categorised as ‘enemy aliens’ and kept at Baviaanspoort and Koffiefontein.¹⁸⁸

By March 1946, 1500 Germans were reported to remain interned.¹⁸⁹ Two thirds of these were from South West Africa. In the same month, Koffiefontein was finally closed, and all internees transferred to the last remaining camp, Baviaanspoort.¹⁹⁰ Minister of the Interior Lawrence stated that the government was keen to close the camps. All Germans who had lived in the Union at the time of their internment were to be released. Baviaanspoort remained operational until September 1947 when the last German prisoners were released on parole.¹⁹¹ The final decision on the deportation of South West African residents would be decided by a judicial tribunal.¹⁹² The debate about whether or not 245 former internees should be returned to Germany continued until 1948 when the Cape Supreme Court decided that the Union had the right to deport them.¹⁹³ This ruling was reversed after Malan’s National Party won the elections in May 1948.¹⁹⁴ One prisoner, however, had to wait for his release from the Baviaanspoort camp. Erich Holm, whose transmissions from Radio Zeesen had found a ready audience among Afrikaners during the war, had been arrested in Europe in July 1946. He was extradited to South Africa where he was sentenced to 10 years of hard labour for high treason. In the light of the pro-German wartime record of Malan and his colleagues, few South Africans may have been surprised when the new government pardoned him on Christmas Day 1948.¹⁹⁵

Conclusion

The Second World War marked the continuation of a pattern in South Africa and other belligerent countries that had manifested itself during the Great War when a world of multi-ethnic and global empires was disrupted by interstate hostilities. Both wars brought up questions about the ethnic identity and political loyalty of alien residents, whether or not they had already acquired citizenship in their host country. Immigrants and refugees faced an imposed transition to the status of ‘enemy aliens’.

As several studies on German internees in Britain and its dominions have pointed out, anti-Semitic, nationalist, and ethnic biases affected refugees and residents who could not shake off suspicions of acting as ‘fifth columnists’ for the Germans, even if they belonged to groups that were victimised by the Nazis.¹⁹⁶ These contradictions were especially cogent in South Africa, the only dominion whose loyalty to the British Empire could not be taken for granted. The open declarations of sympathy with Hitler’s war and anti-Semitism from Afrikaner nationalists added a sense of urgency to the internment of Germans in South Africa, especially when right-wing propaganda escalated towards acts of subversion and sabotage. Government supporters accepted that internment was necessary to preserve the unity of the Union as a member of the British Empire and to consolidate mandate rule in South West Africa. In this context, this article has emphasised the colonial aspect of the Union’s domestic politics, which added an important dimension to South African internment policies. At a moment of global crisis, anxieties about losing control of the black majority also motivated the decision to intern Germans when they were suspected of hoodwinking Africans by praising Nazism as a better kind of white supremacy.

In contrast to the period of the previous world war, South Africa was spared a repetition of the anti-German riots that disrupted many urban centres in 1915.¹⁹⁷ Significantly, however, the tensions between nationalist Afrikaners and their English-speaking compatriots remained as a factor that influenced not only the internment but also the post-war reintegration of German civilians into the white South African society. In 1919, the vocal support of Afrikaners for the German minority prevented the acceptance of the xenophobic Enemies Repatriation and Denaturalisation Bill.¹⁹⁸ After 1945, the rise to power of Malan’s National Party signalled that any sympathies German residents might have had for Nazi Germany would not be held against them.

This article has shown that internment policies were applied in an erratic manner. This also implied that the majority of German residents in South Africa were not confined to camps. Especially during the early stage of the war, some internees were released after only a few months of imprisonment.¹⁹⁹ Camp life in South Africa was not dominated by the lethal negligence or murderous intent that killed millions of civilians in other parts of the world, although Afrikaner and Nazi propaganda tried to conjure alarming memories of the mass deaths in the camps in the South African War. Irrespective of these differences, the history of the camps for ‘enemy aliens’ in South Africa is part of a wider history of camps in the twentieth century that has been discussed by historians in the context of a progressively totalising conduct of war that drew increasing numbers of civilians into its orbit.²⁰⁰

Acknowledgements

The author reports there are no competing interests to declare. I wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and criticisms. I also would like to express my gratitude to Ms Anne-Lore Bramley for making some less accessible sources available to me.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tilman Dedering

Tilman Dedering is Professor Emeritus at the University of South Africa (Unisa) after having been a member of its Department of History for thirty years. He has published on precolonial and colonial Namibian history and modern South African history. He is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf). His current research interests focus on the social and technological history of South Africa in the 1930s and 1940s.

Notes

1 T. Dedering, ‘“Avenge the Lusitania!”: The Anti-German Riots in South Africa in 1915’, in P. Panayi, ed, Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 235–262. The same also in Immigrants and Minorities, 31, 3 (2013), 256–288.

2 ‘Police Charge Crowds of 700’, Rand Daily Mail, 4 September 1939, 10; ‘Wild Scenes as 2000 Riots in City Centre’, Rand Daily Mail, 5 September 1940, 10.

3 ‘Bigger Camp Needed for SA Nazis’, Rand Daily Mail, 19 September 1939, 8. On the early history of Baviaanspoort as a work colony and an ‘inebriate asylum’, see N. Roos, ‘Work Colonies and South African Historiography’, Social History, 36, 1 (2011), 61–62.

4 ‘No Prison Rules for S.A. Internees,’ Rand Daily Mail, 22 September 1939, 11.

5 M. Eberhardt, ‘Deutsche Siedlergemeinschaften im südlichen Afrika und das “Dritte Reich”: Hoffnungen – Erwartungen – Herausforderungen’, in H. Lessing, T. Dedering, J. Kampmann, and D. Smit, eds, in collaboration with R. Hinz, C. Lienemann-Perrin, C. Marx, and K. Rüther, Umstrittene Beziehungen: Protestantismus zwischen dem südlichen Afrika und Deutschland von den 1930er Jahren bis in die Apartheidzeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015), 91–92, 95, 103.

6 Eberhardt, ‘Deutsche Siedlergemeinschaften’, 95.

7 According to A. Hagemann, party membership in South Africa increased from 31 to 336 members after Hitler became the German chancellor in January 1933. A. Hagemann, Südafrika und das ‘Dritte Reich’: Rassenpolitische Affinität und machtpolitische Rivalität (Frankfurt und New York: Campus, 1989), 66.

8 Ibid., 50, 56, 65–66.

9 Eberhardt, ‘Deutsche Siedlergemeinschaften’, 97–98.

10 S. Manz and T. Dedering, ‘“Enemy Aliens” in Wartime: Civilian Internment in South Africa during World War I’, South African Historical Journal, 68, 4 (2016), 536–556.

11 E. Kleynhans, Hitler’s Spies: Secret Agents and the Intelligence War in South Africa, 1939–1945 (Jeppestown: Jonathan Ball, 2021).

12 ‘Naturalisation of Germans to Cease. Exceptions to New Measures’, Rand Daily Mail, 30 September 1939, 11.

13 ‘Major Van Der Byl Warns Nazi Missionaries’, Rand Daily Mail, 16 November 1939, 8.

14 ‘State Spending on Internment Camp’, Rand Daily Mail, 20 December 1939, 8.

15 Canada limited its intake of internees to 7000 and Newfoundland to 1000. Only Australia agreed to accept an unlimited number of internees that were categorised as ‘most dangerous characters’. L Burletson, ‘The State, Internment and Public Criticism in the Second World War’, Immigrants and Minorities, 11, 3 (1992), 112–113.

16 Lawrence referred to ‘3778 internees, of whom 2658 were Germans, 863 Italians, 142 Union nationals by naturalisation, and 83 Union nationals by birth. The balance was made up by other nationals.’ ‘Details of Internees in Union Camps’, Rand Daily Mail, 13 November 1940, 7.

17 The statistical numbers are not entirely reliable, but a majority of nearly 30,000 residents were ‘Volksdeutsche’, that is, Union citizens. Eberhardt, ‘Deutsche Siedlergemeinschaften’, 95.

18 J. Lawrence, Harry Lawrence (Cape Town: David Philip, 1978), 173. Some white members of Communist organisations also were interned for agitating against the war in the spirit of the 1939 Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union. The German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 caused an about-turn, after which the government softened its stance and released interned Communists. A. Drew, Discordant Comrades. Identities and Loyalties on the South African Left (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 234.

19 Chief Control Officer Truter suggested that the removal of their men was sufficient to neutralise any seditious activities of women. ‘Present Control Effective, Says Sir T. Truter’, Rand Daily Mail, 18 January 1940, 8; National Archives of South Africa, Pretoria (hereafter NASA), Department of Justice (hereafter JUS), Box 1586, Folder 1/105/43,1940, Part 1, Internees from other British Territories Admission of – to Union, J.S. Hurter, Secretary for the Interior, to Secretary for External Affairs, 1 November 1940; NASA, JUS, Box 1579, Folder 1/98/43, 1943, Part 1, Female Internees: Treatment of = from the Union in Southern Rhodesia, R. Hamilton, Director of Internment Camps and Refugee Settlements, Salisbury, to Secretary to the Prime Minister, 5 July 1943; ibid., Chief Control Officer to Secretary for Justice, 14 September 1943.

20 Political Archives of the Foreign Office, Berlin (hereafter PAAA), Rechtsabteilung (hereafter RZ) 405/41871, Deutsche Zivilgefangene in der Südafrikanischen Union, Band 4, 1941–1944, Deutsches Konsulat Genf an Auswärtiges Amt, Rotes Kreuz, 19 June 1941. Southern Rhodesia accommodated civilian German and Italian prisoners taken in Tanganyika and Abyssinia in five camps. E. Takura, J. Mujere, and G. Bishi, ‘Southern Rhodesia’s Adherence to the 1929 Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Italian and German Internees, 1939–1945’, Journal of African Military History, 7 (2023), 103.

21 Hagemann, Südafrika und das ‘Dritte Reich’, 281–282; P. Spargo, ‘German Internees in South Africa in World War Two: One Man’s Story’, Quarterly Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa, 57, 4 (2003), 70–74; I. van der Waag, A Military History of Modern South Africa (Jeppestown: Jonathan Ball, 2015), 179–180.

22 NASA, JUS, Box 1485, Folder 1/49/39, 1939–1940, Enemy Subjects – Internment of – Control of Subversive Propaganda in Union, Repatriation of Enemy Subjects, Secretary of Justice, Part I, Magistrate Tzaneen to Secretary for Justice, 25 August 1939; ibid., G.M. Botha, Magistrate Vryheid, to Secretary for Justice, 8 September 1939.

23 Hagemann, Südafrika und das ‘Dritte Reich’, 287–291; C. Marx, ‘“Dear Listeners in South Africa”: German Propaganda Broadcasts to South Africa, 1940–1941’, South African Historical Journal, 27, 1 (1992), 148–172.

24 L. Koorts, D.F. Malan and the Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2014), 246; K. Bachmann, ‘A Life in Limbo: Otto von Strahl’s Activities for and against Germany in the Union of South Africa’, South African Historical Journal, 73, 3 (2021), 634; W. Schellack, ‘The Afrikaners’ Nazi Links Revisited’, South African Historical Journal, 27,1 (1992), 178.

25 See E. Bradlow, ‘Anti-Semitism in the 1930s: Germany and South Africa’, Historia, 49, 2 (2004), 45–58.The Cape National Congress of the National Party declared that ‘the Jewish race is not assimilable with the European population of the Union’. ‘“Be as Cautious as Snakes: There Is an Enemy” – Says Malan’, Rand Daily Mail, 4 November 1939, 10. Also E. Bradlow, ‘South African Policy and Jewish Refugee Immigration in the 1930s’, in P.R. Bartrop, ed, False Havens: The British Empire and the Holocaust (London: University Press of America, 1995), 239–252; M. Shain, The Roots of Antisemitism in South Africa (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1994).

26 PAAA, RZ 405/41868, 1939–1940, Deutsche Zivilgefangene in der Südafrikanischen Union, Trompke, Lourencomarques [sic], 18 September 1939. On the anti-Semitic prism through which the German Foreign Office viewed all protest against Nazi Germany in South Africa, see K. Braskén, ‘South African Anti-Fascism and the Nazi Foreign Office: Antisemitism, Anti-communism and the Surveillance of the Third Reich’s International Enemies’, South African Historical Journal, 74, 1 (2022), 30–54.

27 A. Grundlingh, ‘Afrikaner Nationalism and White Politics’, in B.J. Liebenberg and S.B. Spies, eds, South Africa in the 20th Century (Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik Academic, 1993), 267–284.

28 Bachmann, ‘A Life in Limbo’, 634. See also F. L. Monama, ‘Enemy within the Gates: Militarism, Sabotage, Subversion and Counter-Subversion in South Africa, 1939–1945’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 34, 2 (2022), 494–519.

29 The internment of Germans in the Dutch colonies was also motivated by fears of indigenous unrest. K. Wünschmann, ‘“Enemy Aliens” and “Indian Hostages”: Civilians in Dutch-German Wartime Diplomacy and International Law during the Second World War’, German History, 39, 2 (2021), 274.

30 ‘Crisis Measures Taken in Africa’, Rand Daily Mail, 2 September 1939, 12. Also F. L. Monama, ‘Creating the Correct Frame of Mind: State Propaganda towards Black South Africans during the Second World War, 1939–1945’, South African Historical Journal, 73, 3 (2021), 601–632.

31 NASA, JUS, Box 1485, Folder 1/49/39, part I, C.H. Blaine, Secretary for Defence, to Secretary for Native Affairs, 30 October 1939; ibid., Control Officer and Chief Magistrate of the Transkeian Territories, Umtata, to all Magistrates in the Transkeian Territories, 7 November 1939; ibid., District Commandant Aliwal North to Deputy Commissioner South African Police, Grahamstown, 5 February 1940.

32 ‘Railwaymen Accused by Native’, Rand Daily Mail, 29 November 1939, 11; ‘Nazifying the Natives’, Rand Daily Mail, 1 December 1939, 11; ‘Natives Warned of Nazi Propaganda’, Rand Daily Mail, 9 December 1939, 13.

33 ‘Nazi Propaganda among Natives’, Rand Daily Mail, 1 December 1939, 16. On the more realistic assessment of the impact of fascism on Africa that was developed by some African activists and intellectuals, see M.A. Houser, ‘“Open Fascism Has Appeared on this Continent”: South Africa’s Independent Press and Anti-Fascism, 1937–1947, South African Historical Journal, 74, 1 (2022), 120–134.

34 K. Shear, ‘‘Colonel Coetzee’s War: Loyalty, Subversion and the South African Police, 1939–1945’, South African Historical Journal, 65, 2 (2013), 225.

35 F.L. Monoma, ‘Wartime Propaganda in the Union of South Africa,1939–1945’ (PhD dissertation, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, 2014), 68–70.

36 Monoma, ‘Wartime Propaganda’, 73–75.

37 J. Lambert, ‘“Their Finest Hour?” English-Speaking South Africans and World War II’, South African Historical Journal, 60, 1 (2008), 70–71.

38 Wünschmann, ‘“Enemy Aliens” and “Indian Hostages”’, 270.

39 T. Kushner and D. Cesarani, ‘Alien Internment in Britain during the Twentieth Century: An Introduction’, Immigrants and Minorities, 11, 3 (1992), 13.

40 Being placed in Category A meant internment. Category B involved restricted liberties, and aliens in the Category C remained free. K. Saunders, ‘“The Stranger in Our Gates”: Internment Policies in the United Kingdom and Australia during the Two World Wars, 1914–39’, Immigrants and Minorities, 22,1 (2003), 32.

41 ‘Enemy Technicians Not Allowed to Leave Union’, Rand Daily Mail, 28 February 1940, 11.

42 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Enemy Subjects – Internment of – Control of Subversive Propaganda in the Union, Repatriation of Enemy Subject, Releases from Internment, Part 7, July 1944–February 1946, Enemy Subjects – Internment of – Control of Subversive Propaganda in the Union, Repatriation of Enemy Subject, Releases from Internment, Folder contains letter from M.A. Gaiger to Spanish Consul-General, 4 August 1944.

43 Lawrence, Harry Lawrence, 114. ‘Enemy aliens’, exempting persons travelling between the Union and South West Africa, had to apply for a permit to leave South Africa. NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 6, 1942–June 1944, Office of the Chief Control Officer, General Minute No. 21, Emergency Measures: Departures from the Union, 9 October 1941.

44 The German consul Otto von Strahl became ‘South Africa’s most important intelligence asset against Nazi Germany’ after his suspension from the Foreign Office. From 1939 he provided the South African authorities with lists of names of Nazi agitators. Bachmann, ‘A Life in Limbo’, 636.

45 NASA, JUS, Box 1485, Folder 1/49/39, 1939–1940, Part I, Van Zyl, Magistrate Indwe, to Magistrate Queenstown, 9 January 1940.

46 NASA, JUS, Box 1485, Folder 1/49/39, 1939–1940, Part I, District Commandant Aliwal North to Deputy Commissioner SAP [South African Police], Grahamstown, 5 February 1940.

47 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Enemy Subjects – Internment of – Control of Subversive Propaganda in the Union, Repatriation of Enemy Subject, Part 3, August 1940–December 1940, Klaas Kunene Jack, N.M., Glencoe, 22 July 1940.

48 NASA, JUS, Box 1485, Folder 1/49/39, 1939–1940, Part I, District Commandant Aliwal North to Deputy Commissioner SAP, Grahamstown, 5 February 1940.

49 For example, ‘Full List of Internees’, Rand Daily Mail, 8 January 1940, 2; ‘Internments and Releases’, Rand Daily Mail, 10 Feb 1940, 12; ‘Internee Released’, Rand Daily Mail, 2 March 1940, 8; ‘Internment’, Rand Daily Mail, 6 March 1940, 13; ‘Interned’, Rand Daily Mail, 19 March 1940, 13.

50 NASA, JUS, Box 1485, Folder 1/49/39, 1939–1940, Part II, M. Page to W.G. Hoal, Johannesburg, 17 April 1940.

51 NASA, JUS, Box 1485, Folder 1/49/39, 1939–1940, Part II, W.G. Hoal to Maynard Page, 25 April 1940.

52 Truter had been the first South African Police commissioner from 1913 until his retirement in 1928. Wikipedia, ‘Theodor Gustaff Truter’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodorus_Gustaff_Truter, accessed 10 April 2024.

53 NASA, Ministry for Foreign Affairs (hereafter BTS), Internment of Enemy Subjects in the Union and South West Africa, 1939–1940, Box 154, vol. 9/55, Sub-File Internment in S.W.A. Appeals, etc., M. 9/55, Chief Control Officer to Secretary to Prime Minister, 31 October 1939.

54 ‘Many More People in S. Africa Interned’, Rand Daily Mail, 27 May 1940, 9.

55 NASA, JUS, Box 1524, Folder 1/34/40, 1942–1944, Part 1, Disloyalty of Government Officials and Employees – Internment and/or, General Minute No. 11, Emergency Measures, J.H. Basson to all Control Officers in the Union, 10 June 1940. A similar shift towards a stricter internment policy occurred in Australia at the same time. C. Winter, ‘Removing Danger: The Making of “Dangerous Internees” in Australia’, in M. J. Crowley and S.T. Dawson, eds, Home Fronts: Britain and the Empire at War, 1939–45 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2017), 206–223.

56 ‘Many More People in S. Africa Interned’, Rand Daily Mail, 27 May 1940, 9.

57 ‘Rand Italian Round-Up Almost Completed’, Rand Daily Mail, 13 June 1940, 8. Only Union nationals were reported to be kept at Leeuwkop. ‘Many More People in S. Africa Interned’, Rand Daily Mail, 27 May 1940, 9. In September 1940, Leeuwkop was reported to accommodate 546 German nationals out of a total of 613 internees, which may be explained by a new intake of German nationals from other British territories in Africa. ‘Police Baton Charge Against Internees’, Rand Daily Mail, 4 September 1940, 10.

58 NASA, JUS, Box 1524, Folder 1/34/40, 1942–1944, Part 1, General Minute No. 11, J.H. Basson to all Control Officers in the Union, 10 June 1940.

59 ‘The Enemy in our Midst’, Natal Mercury, 16 May 1940. See also ‘Hotbed of Nazi Intrigue Revealed in Natal’, Rand Daily Mail, 19 January 1940, 10.

60 ‘Internment of Germans Demanded’, Natal Mercury,17 May 1940.

61 NASA, JUS, Box 1485, Folder 1/49/39, 1939–1940, Part II, L.M. Ambler, Secretary for Justice, to Commissioner South African Police, 29 May 1940.

62 NASA, JUS, Box 1485, Folder 1/49/39, 1939–1940, Part II, Daly, Magistrate Nylstroom, to Director of Intelligence and the District Commandant SAP, 4 June 1940.

63 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 3, E.D. Beale, Control Officer, Pietermaritzburg Area, to Chief Control Officer and Secretary for Justice, 22 August 1940; ibid., E.D. Beale to Chief Control Officer and Secretary for Justice, 27 August 1940.

64 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 3, E.D. Beale to Chief Control Officer and Secretary for Justice, 22 August 1940,

65 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 3, Exemption Order, signed by E.D. Beale, 5 November 1940.

66 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 6, 1942–June 1944, Bulletin No. 66, 15 January 1940. Charles William de Villiers, the former attorney general of the Transvaal, was appointed as advisory commissioner for appeals. ‘Present Control Effective’, Rand Daily Mail, 18 January 1940, 8.

67 Lawrence, Harry Lawrence, 118; NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 4, January 1941–December 1941, Confidential: General Minute No. 17, Office of the Chief Control Officer, 1 April 1941. In July 1942, German residents in South West Africa who had been automatically naturalised by an agreement in 1928 were classified as ‘enemy subjects’ unless they had applied for naturalisation. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Finland, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Japan, and Thailand were categorised as enemy countries. NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 6, General Minute No. 23, Office of the Chief Control Officer, 1 July 1942. Czechoslovakians were later removed from the list of ‘enemy aliens’. Ibid., Confidential: General Minute No. 24, Enemy Subjects, Office of the Chief Control Officer, 3 November 1942.

68 NASA, JUS, Box 1579, Folder 1/99/43, ‘Appeals for Release from Internment’, Part 1, Internments: Union Nationals: Procedure in respect of appeals, H. Lawrence, 16 May 1941.

69 During the initial phase of internments, Truter reportedly visited the two existing camps, Leeuwkop and Baviaanspoort, to speak personally with internees every two weeks. ‘Internees Released on Promise’, Rand Daily Mail, 7 February 1940, 10. There is no evidence that these visits continued on a regular basis with the proliferation of camps and the concomitant increase in the numbers of internees.

70 NASA, JUS, Box 1579, Folder 1/99/43, Part 1, Internments: Union Nationals: Procedure in respect of appeals, H. Lawrence, 16 May 1941.

71 For example: NASA, JUS, Box 1485, Folder 1/49/39, 1939–1940, Part II, Subversive propaganda among natives, M.G. Fannin, Magistrate Pinetown, to Chief Native Commissioner, Pietermaritzburg, 28 May 1940; ibid., Subversive propaganda: Pinetown District, M.G. Fannin to Chief Magistrate Durban, 30 May 1940; ibid., Secretary for Native Affairs, circular ‘To all Native Commissioners throughout the Union’, 3 June 1940; ibid., Dissemination of War News among Natives, Lockwood, Native Commissioner, Howick, to Chief Native Commissioner, Pietermaritzburg, 3 June 1940; ibid., Enemy Propaganda: Dissemination of Authentic News, Department of Native Affairs, Circular No. 20 of 1940, 11 June 1940.

72 NASA, JUS, Box 1485, Folder 1/49/39, 1939–1940, Part II, J. Pedlar, Live Stock Officer, Bizana, to Magistrate Bizana, 8 June 1940.

73 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 4, January 1941–December 1941, General Minute No. 18, Control of Persons in Native Areas, To All Control Officers in the Union, Office of the Chief Control Officer, 5 June 1941.

74 ‘Mass Slaughter of Jews by Axis Powers’, Rand Daily Mail, 30 June 1942, 7.

75 The British government initially also interned Jewish refugees as ‘fifth columnists’. R. Overy, Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931–1945 (Kindle edn, New York: Viking, 2021), 625. Australian internment policies also assumed that Jewish and anti-Nazi refugees could be blackmailed into cooperation with the Nazis if they had left family behind in Germany. Winter, ‘Removing Danger’, 212.

76 The application was also rejected on the grounds that the Civic Guard was integrated into the Coast Guard of the Active Citizen Force (ACF). As in the First World War, keeping ‘enemy subjects’ away from the coastal areas was always a priority of the authorities. NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Enemy subjects – Internment of – Control of Subversive Propaganda in the Union, Repatriation of Enemy Subject, Releases from Internment, Part 7, July 1944–February 1946, Chief Control Officer to Secretary for Justice, 27 July 1944.

77 One member of the opposition called the South African camps ‘murder camps’. ‘Pity the Poor Internees’, Rand Daily Mail, 3 February 1940, 6. Opposition leader Malan described the conditions at Leeuwkop camp as ‘humiliating in the extreme’ and as worse than the prison-like compounds that held African mine workers. ‘Malan Accuses Premier of Flouting Parliament’, Rand Daily Mail, 30 January 1940, 11. He also compared the Leeuwkop camp to the ‘black hole of Calcutta’. ‘Secession Only Way to S.A. Unity, Says Malan’, Rand Daily Mail, 25 January 1940, 11. The suffering of British and Indian refugees seeking shelter in the dungeon of Fort Williams during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 became a popular, and mythologised, episode in British colonial history. On the condemnatory terminology for internment camps that was used by nationalists, see A. la Grange and C. Blignaut, ‘Die ikonografie van Afrikanernasionalisme en die “vryheidsideaal” van die Ossewa-Brandwag in die Suid-Afrikaanse interneringskampe van die Tweede Wêreldoorlog’, Historia, 66, 1 (2021), 93–94.

78 ‘House Again Makes Rapid Progress’, Rand Daily Mail, 14 May 1940, 9.

79 Marx, ‘Dear Listeners’, 160–161. See also C. Marx, Oxwagon Sentinel: Radical Afrikaner Nationalism and the History of the ‘Ossewa Brandwag’ (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2009).

80 As argued by C.R. Swart, who became the first President of the Republic of South Africa in 1961, in the House of Assembly. ‘Army Doctors Laying Ground Plan for State Medical Service’, Rand Daily Mail, 18 February 1941, 9.

81 ‘[T]he people in the camps are having a far better time than many good law-abiding citizens in the Union’. ‘A Firm Hand Needed at the Camps’, Rand Daily Mail, 19 January 1940, 6.

82 ‘46 Men Interned’, Rand Daily Mail, 14 March 1940, 8

83 ‘Holiday “Homes” of the Internees’, Rand Daily Mail, 19 April 1940, 12; ‘Homes from Home’, Rand Daily Mail, 3 July 1940, 6; ‘Changes in the Camps’, Rand Daily Mail, 8 October 1940, 6.

84 ‘Internees Are Very Well Off’, Rand Daily Mail, 15 January 1940, 6.

85 ‘Three More Camps for Internees’, Rand Daily Mail, 12 June 1940, 8.

86 PAAA, RZ 405/41868, (Band 1), 1939–1940, Gezantschap der Niederlanden to German Foreign Office, 23 September 1939, Kgl. Niederländischer Gesandter, W.F. van Lennep, 4 October 1939.

87 NASA, BTS, Box 154, 9/55/1/1 C, Defence: Visits to and Reports on Internment Camps in the Union, 6 March 1940–15 December 1944, Guillaume Favre, Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, to Minister of External Affaires, 24 September 1941 [in French].

88 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 6, 1942–June 1944, Internment Policy, Union, 22 January 1940.

89 Ibid.

90 ‘One could respond by saying that even the General-Governor has only three in his park’, commented the Dutch representative. PAAA, RZ 405/41869, (Band 2),1940, Deutsche Zivilgefangene in der Südafrikanischen Union, Botschaft der Niederlande, E. Star Busmann, 4 March 1940.

91 The Union government financially supported the families of the internees with a monthly contribution of £1.10–£2.10, depending on the number of children, but not exceeding £9. PAAA, RZ 405/41868, (Band 1), 1939–1940, Deutsche Zivilgefangene in der Südafrikanischen Union, Deutsche Gesandschaft Den Haag an Auswärtiges Amt, 18 December 1939.

92 ‘Secret “Putsch” Planned by Internees: Defiance Coincided with Fall of France’, Rand Daily Mail, 6 July 1940, 9; ‘Trouble in Union Internment Camp’, Rand Daily Mail, 2 July 1940, 8.

93 ‘100 Injured in Internment Camp Riot’, Rand Daily Mail, 5 July 1940, 10; ‘No Truth in Rumour that Internees were killed’, Rand Daily Mail, 6 August 1940, 9.

94 ‘500 internees were beaten up: Bloody act of terror by Smuts’s police goons’, Das 12 Uhr Blatt, 19 July 1940 (all translations from the original German by the author), newspaper clip in PAAA, RZ 512/127718 (Referat Kult E/Nf), Deutsche in Feindesland, Internierten-Lagerberichte der Schutzmächte, des IRK u.a. Organisationen, sowie sonstige Lagerinformationen, Südafrika (Privat- u. Einzelnachrichten aus Baviaanspoort), (Band 55).

95 NASA, BTS, Box 154, 9/55/1/1 C, Baviaanspoort Internment Camp Visited by Dr E. Grasset on 14 January 1942.

96 Ibid.

97 The Dutch colonial authorities followed the same practice of detaining seamen on German merchant ships as civilian internees. Wünschmann, ‘“Enemy Aliens” and “Indian Hostages”’, 272.

98 NASA, BTS, Box 154, 9/55/1/1 C, Baviaanspoort Internment Camp Visited by Dr E. Grasset on 14 January 1942.

99 Ibid.

100 Ibid.

101 Ibid.

102 Ibid.

103 Ibid.; NASA, BTS, Box 154, 9/55/1/1 B, Vol. 2, Prisoners of War: Camps in the Union, Visits to and Reports on 4 November 1943–23 October 1946, Baviaanspoort Internment Camp, visited by Dr Grasset on 26 May 1943.

104 Ibid.

105 E. Haddad, The Refugee in International Society. Between Sovereigns (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 107.

106 ‘Fact File: Civilian Internment 1939–1945’, WW2 People’s War, BBC History, https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a6651858.shtml, accessed 10 April 2024.

107 Burletson, ‘The State, Internment and Public Criticism’, 104.

108 J. Craig-Norton, ‘We Had the Most Marvellous Time’, Jewish Historical Studies, 52 (2020), 41–42.

109 See the brief assessments by Ganspan Camp Commandant Major Stanbridge of internees to be released for their return to those British African territories where they had originally been detained, all dated 24 November 1941. NASA, JUS, Box 1592, Folder 1/110/43, December 1940–July 1942, Part 1, Release from Internment of Extra-Union Internees Interned in the Union of S.A. The office of the South African High Commissioner in Nairobi mentioned that the Kenyan authorities harboured ‘serious military objections to any of the Aryan Germans […] returning to this Colony’. Ibid., Secret, C.A. Weaving for Chief Secretary to Commissioner for the Union of South Africa, Nairobi, 24 December 1940.

110 NASA, JUS, Box 1592, Folder 1/110/43, Release from Internment of Extra-Union Internees Interned in the Union of SA, Anti-Nazi Internees Ex Kenya and Tanganyika Territories, Director of Internment Camps to Secretary for the Interior, 19 December 1941.

111 ‘Police Baton Charge against Internees: Minister’s Story of Baviaanspoort Trouble’, Rand Daily Mail, 4 September 1940, 10.

112 NASA, JUS, Box 1592, Folder 1/110/43, August 1942–February 1943, Part 2, Extra-Union Internees, Release of Interned in the Union, Chief Secretary, Entebbe, to Secretary for External Affairs, 28 January 1943.

113 The Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden in Germany (Support Association of German Jews) advised Jews as late as in May 1934 to stay in Germany and recommended emigration only to the young generation in the belief that these had a better chance of starting a new life elsewhere. F.H. Sichel, From Refugee to Citizen: A Sociological Study of the Immigrants from Hitler-Europe Who Settled in Southern Africa (Cape Town: A.A. Balkema, 1966), 10.

114 NASA, JUS, Box 1592, Folder 1/110/43, Part 1, W. Awin, Jagersfontein, to Minister of the Interior, 3 February 1942.

115 NASA, JUS, Box 1592, Folder 1/110/43, Part 1, Internment Camp Ganspan, Particulars Regarding Internee No.111/40, A.D. Ellenbogen.

116 NASA, JUS, Box 1592, Folder 1/110/43, Part 1, Internment Camp Ganspan, Particulars Regarding Internee No.77/40 A.L. Schottlaender.

117 NASA, JUS, Box 1592, Folder 1/110/43, Part 1, E.M. Hyde-Clark, Commissioner of the Union of South Africa, Nairobi, 20 February 1942.

118 ‘Anti-Nazis Who Are Interned’, Rand Daily Mail,11 September 1940, 8; also Rand Daily Mail, ‘Not All Internees Are Nazis’, 8 October 1940, 8.

119 Referring to the anti-Jewish propaganda of the Afrikaner right-wing opposition and to a longer domestic anti-Semitic tradition, Eberhardt pointedly states that South African Germans did not need National Socialism to become anti-Semites. Eberhardt, ‘Deutsche Siedlergemeinschaften’, 100.

120 R. Kock, ed, Erinnerungen an die Internierungszeit (1939–1946) und zeitgeschichtliche Ergänzungen: Berichte, Erzählungen, Fotos und Zeichnungen von Kameraden, die dabei waren (Windhoek: Selbstverlag Andalusia, 1975), 56. Many thanks to A.-L. Bramley for making this source available to me.

121 Kock, Erinnerungen, 46–47.

122 NASA, JUS, Box 1592, Folder 1/110/43, Part 1, Lieut. Colonel T. Pepler, Baviaanspoort Internment Camp, 24 November 1941.

123 ‘Internee Tells How He Was Attacked’, Rand Daily Mail, 26 February 1941, 10.

124 Ibid.

125 NASA, JUS, Box 1594, Folder 1/113/43, Part 2, Internment camps establishment and control of – in the Union, March 1940–August 1941, T.G.T. [Theo G. Truter, Chief Control Officer], 29 March 1941.

126 Ibid.

127 NASA, JUS, Box 1594, Folder 1/113/43, Part 2, Leeuwkop Internment Camp, 6 January 1940, 2.

128 NASA, JUS, Box 1594, Folder 1/113/43, Part 2, Nazi Organisation in Internment Camps, J.H. Basson to Director of Internment Camps, 7 September 1940.

129 NASA, BTS, Box 154, 9/55/1/1 C, Defence: Visits to and Reports on Internment Camps in the Union, 6 March 1940–15 December 1944, Interview between the delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross in South Africa and the Director of Internment Camps after his third visit to the Baviaanspoort Camp on the 3rd of March, 1942, 9.

130 NASA, JUS, Box 1594, Folder 1/113/43, Part 2, Nazi Organisation in Internment Camps, J.H. Basson to Director of Internment Camps, 7 September 1940, attached to T.G.T., 29 March 1941.

131 Ibid.

132 PAAA, RZ, 512/127718, (Band 55), 1941–1945, Franz A. Schuster an Oberregierungsrat Luchmann, 1 April 1940.

133 NASA, JUS, Box 1594, Folder 1/113/43, Part 2, Truter to Director of Internment Camps, 26 October 1940.

134 Ibid. On 30 January 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany.

135 NASA, JUS, Box 1594, Folder 1/113/43, Leeuwkop Internment Camp, 1, attached to T.G.T., 29 March 1941.

136 Ibid., [No date, no signature], 1, attached to T.G.T., 29 March 1941, 9.

137 These letters are in NASA, JUS, Box 1594, Folder 1/113/43, Leeuwkop Internment Camp, 8, [no date, but written 6 January 1940, as indicated in the report; unsigned, received from Director of Intelligence], attached to T.G.T., 29 March 1941; copy of another report written by the former internee from a first-person perspective, NASA, JUS, Box 1594, Folder 1/113/43, Leeuwkop Internment Camp, 9 [no date, no signature], attached to T.G.T., 29 March 1941.

138 Ibid., attached to T.G.T., 29 March 1941, 5.

139 Ibid.

140 Ibid.

141 Ibid.

142 NASA, JUS, Box 1594, Folder 1/113/43, Part 2, Truter to Director of Internment Camps, 26 October 1940.

143 NASA, JUS, Box 1594, Folder 1/113/43, Leeuwkop Internment Camp, 8, [no date, but written 6 January 1940, as indicated in the report; unsigned, received from Director of Intelligence], attached to T.G.T., 29 March 1941

144 Ibid.

145 Ibid.

146 Ibid., Leeuwkop Internment Camp, 5, attached to T.G.T., 29 March 1941.

147 In 1943, the German Foreign Office counted 4185 internees in South Africa and 3714 in the USA. PAAA, RZ 512/127720 (Referat Kult E/Nf), Deutsche in Feindesland, Internierten-Lagerberichte der Schutzmächte, des IRK u.a. Organisationen, sowie sonstige Lagerinformationen, (Band 57), 1940–1945, Zahlen der deutschen Zivilinternierten in Feindesland und in Ländern, zu denen die diplomatischen Beziehungen abgebrochen sind (Stand März 1943).

148 Manzuco’s reports to the Germans often contained ill-tempered comments on his South African contacts as ‘rude’, ‘arrogant’, and ‘intransigent’. PAAA, RZ 512/127720, (Band 57), Spanischer Konsul Manuel Manzuco to Spanish Foreign Office, 27 February 1942 (German translation).

149 PAAA, RZ 405/41871, (Band 4), 1941–1944, Drittes Merkblatt über die Lage der Deutschen in Ostafrika, Süd- und Südwestafrika (Stand Juni 1941), 15.

150 PAAA, RZ 512/127716, Internierte Reichsangehörige im Internierungslager Ganspan/Südafrika, Band 53, Deutsche Botschaft, Madrid, an Auswärtiges Amt, 21 June 1941. Also PAAA, RZ 405/41870, (Band 3), Deutsche Botschaft Spanien an Auswärtiges Amt, 28 May 1941.

151 NASA, BTS, 9/55/1/1 C, Box 154, Defence: Visits to and Reports on Internment Camps in the Union, 6 March 1940–15 December 1944, Translation from Spanish, Madrid Exteriores [original included], Johannesburg, 17 October 1942.

152 Ibid.

153 Pro-Nazi Germans and Jewish civilians were interned together in some Canadian camps. P. Draper, ‘The “Camp Boys”: Interned Refugees from Nazism’, in F. Iacovetta, R. Perin, and A. Principe, eds, Enemies Within: Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad (University of Toronto Press, 2000), 173.

154 For example: PAAA, RZ 512/127719, (Band 56), Report from Engelbert Müller after his return to Germany, 15 August 1944.

155 Although this cannot be confirmed on the basis of the sources consulted, a repatriated internee reported that the internees at Baviaanspoort were able to listen to German news on a radio that was successfully hidden from the camp authorities. Ibid.; also PAAA, RZ 512/127720, (Band 57), Zonenleiter Grohé, Reichsrundfunk, an Legationsrat Dr Kundt, 9 November 1943.

156 PAAA, RZ 512/127717, Band 54, Interniertenlager Andalusia in Südafrika, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht an Auswärtiges Amt, 17 June 1941.

157 PAAA, RZ 512/127720, Band 57, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Berichte der aus Südafrika heimgekehrten Zivilgefangenen, 9 August 1944.

158 PAAA, RZ 512/127715, Band 52, Aufzeichnung betr. zeitweise Festnahme des aus Ostafrika ausgewiesenen Kaufmanns Peyke, Berlin, 18 April 1940.

159 Interestingly, one repatriated internee who complained about the conditions at Baviaanspoort on his return to Germany mentioned that two Jewish doctors went out of their way in caring for the prisoners. PAAA, RZ 512/127719, Band 56, Bericht des aus dem Lager Baviaanspoort in Südafrika mit der ‘Drottningholm’ zurückgekehrten Reichsangehörigen Engelbert Müller, 4.

160 In 1944, 1,802,000 German soldiers were killed. Overy, Blood and Ruins, 322. Only two months after the writer expressed his regret that children were not sufficiently exposed to the experience of the war, the Nazi Party called up males from the age of 16 to 60 to serve in the Volkssturm militia, which was thrown into hopeless battles in the last stage of the war. Ibid., 324.

161 PAAA, RZ 512/127595, Band 39, Alfred G.E. Kulenkampf, 21 July 1944.

162 PAAA, RZ 405/41871, Drittes Merkblatt, 3.

163 Ibid., 5.

164 Ibid., 4.

165 Ibid., 8.

166 Ibid.,13–14.

167 Kock, Erinnerungen, 101.

168 The prospect of repatriation may have been raised already in May 1940. A note in the Foreign Office archives mentions that the Foreign Organisation of the Nazi Party (Auslandsorganisation) under Secretary Bohlen recommended in negotiations with Pretoria through the Dutch consulate that repatriation should not be suggested for those ‘Reichsdeutsche’ whose livelihood in South Africa was secure. PAAA, RZ 405/41869, Band 2, St.S. [?] und A.O. [Auslandsorganisation], Berlin, 7 May 1940.

169 PAAA, RZ 512/127595, Band 39, Dr Sethe, Geheim, Aufzeichnung, 25 July 1944, 1.

170 Ibid.

171 PAAA, RZ 405/41869, Band 2, St.S. [?] und A.O. [Auslandsorganisation], Berlin, 7 May 1940, 2.

172 Ibid.

173 Ibid.

174 Ibid., 3–4.

175 Ibid.

176 ‘Sailing of Repatriation Ship Delayed’, Rand Daily Mail, 19 June 1944, 3. On the Drottningholm, see ‘SS Drottningholm’, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Drottningholm, accessed 10 April 2024.

177 PAAA, RZ (Referat Kult E/Nf), RZ 512/127719, Band 56, Deutsche in Feindesland: Internierten-, Lagerberichte der Schutzmächte, des IRK u.a. Organisationen, sowie sonstige Lagerinformationen, 1942–1945, ‘Bericht des aus dem Lager Baviaanspoort in Südafrika mit der “Drottningholm” zurückgekehrten, Reichsangehörigen Engelbert Müller’.

178 PAAA, RZ 512/127720 (Referat Kult E/Nf), Band 57, 1940–1945, Ygual, Reisebericht ueber den Besuch der Internierungslager durch Herrn Ygual, 1 August 1944, Anlage Nr. 1 zu Bericht 238, 16.

179 ‘German Die-Hard Internees Now Want to Stay in S.A.’, Rand Daily Mail, 5 May 1945, 3.

180 PAAA, RZ 512/127716 (Referat Kult E/Nf), Band 53, 1940–1944, Bericht des Delegierten des Internationalen Komitees vom Roten Kreuz, Dr Grasset über die Besichtigung des Internierungslagers Ganspan, am 11. Juli 1941.

181 PAAA, RZ 512/127716 (Referat Kult E/Nf), Band 53, 1940–1944, Note, Schliessung des Lagers Jagersfontein, Südafrika, Deutsche Botschaft Madrid, 6 April 1943; ‘Internment Camp Closed’, Rand Daily Mail, 16 March 1943, 3.

182 ‘Andalusia Internment Camp Closes’, Rand Daily Mail, 13 August 1945, 2.

183 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 7, July 1944–February 1946, Union of South Africa, Measures: Departures from the Union, Enemy subjects – Internment of – Control of Subversive Propaganda in the Union, Repatriation of Enemy Subject, Releases from Internment, Office of the Chief Control Officer, General Minute No. 30, 23 July 1945.

184 Hans Oscar Simon, the descendant from a mixed Jewish-Christian family, was a refugee from Nazi Germany himself. On Simon and network of Jewish support organisations, see Sichel, Refugee to Citizen, 46, 91–96.

185 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 7, July 1944–February 1946, Simon, Chairman, Independent Cultural Association Executive Member and Ho. Sec., Refugees’ Representation Fund to Acting Prime Minister, 21 May 1945, 1.

186 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 7, July 1944–February 1946, Simon to Secretary for the Interior, 23 June 1945.

187 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 7, July 1944–February 1946, Status and Treatment in the Union of Anti-nazi [sic] Refugees of Enemy Origin, Chief Control Officer to Secretary for Justice, 21 August 1945; ibid., Jansen, Secretary for Justice to Secretary to the Prime Minister, 15 September 1945.

188 NASA, JUS, Box 1486, Folder 1/49/39, Part 7, July 1944–February 1946, Part 7, Internment Policy: State Servants, Chief Control Officer to Secretary for Justice, 23 November 1945.

189 ‘1500 Germans Still Interned in Union’, Rand Daily Mail, 21 March 1946, 7.

190 ‘Koffiefontein Internees Moved to Baviaanspoort’, Rand Daily Mail, 28 March 1946, 4.

191 ‘Will 254 Nazis Be Deported?’, Rand Daily Mail, 14 June 1948, 1. The newspaper reported, however, that 10 Ossewa Brandwag members were still held at the camp in April 1948, at a time when the facility was converted to a ‘first offenders’ institution, that is a minimum-security prison. ‘Pretoria O.B. to Hold Sale on Church Square’, Rand Daily Mail, 17 April 1948, 10.

192 ‘Fate of Internees’, Rand Daily Mail, 22 March 1946, 9.

193 ‘Cape Supreme Court Rules S.A. Can Deport German Internees’, Rand Daily Mail, 27 February 1948, 6.

194 ‘Will 254 Nazis Be Deported?’, Rand Daily Mail, 14 June 1948, 1.

195 ‘Holm Released on Christmas Eve’, Rand Daily Mail, 28 December 1948, 1, 9. After his release, Holm was employed by the University of South Africa, as reported by Fighting Talk, the periodical of the Springbok Legion of ex-servicemen and women. Fighting Talk, June 1951, 12.

196 T. Kushner, ‘Clubland, Cricket Tests and Alien Internment, 1939–40’, Immigrants and Minorities, 11, 3 (1992), 79–101; Saunders, ‘“The Stranger in Our Gates”’, 22–43.

197 Dedering, ‘“Avenge the Lusitania!”’, 260.

198 Ibid., 277.

199 The numbers of early releases are difficult to compute, but a similar trend was observed in Britain. After a wave of xenophobic hysteria in Britain subsided in 1941 several thousands of internees were released. Saunders, ‘“The Stranger in Our Gates”’, 34.

200 S. Manz and P. Panayi, Enemies in the Empire: Civilian Internment in the British Empire during the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2020); also S. Manz, P. Panayi and M. Stibbe, eds, Internment during the First World War: A Mass Global Phenomenon (London: Routledge, 2019).