It seems the post-war drive towards greater Afrikaner unity proved more important than charging fellow Afrikaners with high treason, despite the overwhelming evidence against them.Īfter 1948 there was a determined move towards reconciliation within the Afrikaner community. The Ossewabrandwag movement was dissolved in 1952. Van Rensburg disappeared from the political scene in South Africa soon thereafter. The case was terminated following the 1948 electoral victory of the National Party, which would go on to formalize apartheid. A case of high treason was built against Van Rensburg. He, along with a trusted inner circle, acted as the nodal point for German agents operating in wartime South Africa. The Barrett Mission was particularly interested in the charismatic leader of the Ossewabrandwag, Hans van Rensburg. Missions headed by the state prosecutors Rudolph Rein and Lawrence Barrett were established to interview key suspects and collect evidence with the view of bringing criminal charges against known South African traitors and collaborators. Consequencesįollowing the war, the South African authorities were anxious to charge known war criminals, traitors, and collaborators. These are filled to the brim with documentary evidence detailing every minute aspect of this episode in South African history. This is evidenced by the existence of several British Security Service (MI5) case files at the National Archives of the UK. Through the combined efforts of the South African authorities, all illicit wireless communications between South Africa, Mozambique, and Germany were intercepted and decoded. These largely failed due to the dubious loyalties of some of the members involved. They planned several unsuccessful raids on the illicit radio transmitter near Vryburg.
#Sophisticated spy network set up in dc full
The British and South African authorities were aware of the full extent of contact and cooperation that existed between key members of the Ossewabrandwag and the German agents operational in South Africa. This radio transmitter eventually allowed for direct, two-way radio contact between agents and Berlin.īut the cooperation between the Ossewabrandwag and the German agents did not go unnoticed. The Felix Organization was headed by the agent Lothar Sittig and was the premier German intelligence organization in wartime South Africa. Due to the neutrality of Portugal during the war, Mozambique, then a Portuguese colony, was a safe haven for German agents and diplomats in southern Africa.īy mid-1942 a radio transmitter was built by the Felix Organization with the help of the Ossewabrandwag and located near Vryburg, a large farming town in what is now South Africa’s North West province.
These agents used a variety of channels to send coded messages to German diplomats in neighboring Mozambique for onward transmission to Berlin. Story continues Hitler’s spies in South AfricaĪ network of German agents was established in South Africa with the help of the Ossewabrandwag. These agents undermined the overall Allied war effort to varying degrees of success. German agents were dispatched across the globe during the war to collect military and political intelligence. At the time, this was a dominion-a self-governing entity within the British Empire with English and Afrikaner populations.
Political intelligence could further help the Germans to spread sedition within the then- Union of South Africa. Accurate naval intelligence on ships from Europe and the Far East rounding the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa’s southernmost point, would allow German submarines to attack them. The Germans were especially interested in naval and political intelligence. Remembering the architect who birthed our obsession with beautiful office interiors The government regarded it as the proverbial “enemy within.” During the war, the movement became decidedly anti-imperial and increasingly militaristic. This group was founded as an Afrikaner cultural organization in Bloemfontein in 1939. My research shows how, between 19, the German government secretly reached out to the political opposition in South Africa, the Ossewabrandwag (ox wagon sentinels). My book also details the hunt in post-war Europe for witnesses to help the South African government bring charges of high treason against those who aided the German war effort. The book offers a new perspective on this lesser-known episode of South African history.Īfter six years of research at various archival depots in South Africa and the UK, I was able to provide a fresh account of the German intelligence networks that operated in wartime South Africa.
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