Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « World War, 1939-1945 – South Africa – Propaganda »

During World War II and the Holocaust, the Nazi regime engaged in an intensive effort to appeal to Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa. It did so by presenting the Nazi regime as a champion of secular anti-imperialism, especially against Britain, as well as by a selective appropriation and reception of the traditions of Islam in ways that suggested their compatibility with the ideology of National Socialism. This article and the larger project from which it comes draw on recent archival findings that make it possible to expand on the knowledge of Nazi Germany's efforts in this region that has already been presented in a substantial scholarship. This essay pushes the history of Nazism beyond its Eurocentric limits while pointing to the European dimensions of Arabic and Islamic radicalism of the mid-twentieth century. On shortwave radio and in printed items distributed in the millions, Nazi Germany's Arabic language propaganda leapt across the seemingly insurmountable barriers created by its own ideology of Aryan racial superiority. From fall 1939 to March 1945, the Nazi regime broadcast shortwave Arabic programs to the Middle East and North Africa seven days and nights a week. Though the broadcasts were well known at the time, the preponderance of its print and radio propaganda has not previously been documented and examined nor has it entered into the intellectual, cultural, and political history of the Nazi regime during World War II and the Holocaust. In light of new archival findings, we are now able to present a full picture of the wartime propaganda barrage in the course of which officials of the Nazi regime worked with pro-Nazi Arab exiles in Berlin to adapt general propaganda themes aimed at its German and European audiences to the religious traditions of Islam and the regional and local political realities of the Middle East and North Africa. This adaptation was the product of a political and ideological collaboration between officials of the Nazi regime, especially in its Foreign Ministry but also of its intelligence services, the Propaganda Ministry, and the SS on the one hand, and pro-Nazi Arab exiles in wartime Berlin on the other. It drew on a confluence of perceived shared political interests and ideological passions, as well as on a cultural fusion, borrowing and interacting between Nazi ideology and certain strains of Arab nationalism and Islamic religious traditions. It was an important chapter in the political, intellectual, and cultural history of Nazism during World War II and comprises a chapter in the history of radical Islamist ideology and politics.

The article is devoted to the study of the role of historical memory of the Great Patriotic War as a resource of soft power of the Russian Federation. The research methods used are the method of historicism, institutional approach and comparative analysis. In this context, the countries that are members of the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan) and the BRICS (Russia, Brazil, India, China, South Africa) are considered as objects of implementation of the domestic soft power policy. The author reveals the awareness of the peoples of these states about the history of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War, the attitude of political elites to the events of 1939-1945, peculiarity of state politics of historical memory in relation to this global conflict. Based on this analysis, proposals are formulated to optimize the Russian strategy of soft power in the EEU and BRICS countries. The author concludes that the narrative of the Great Victory is potentially a very effective resource of modern Russia’s soft power.

THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGNS DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (1939–1945). Part 1: The African Mirror Newsreels IntroductionAccording to Danny Schechter, when one fights a war, "there is a need to create and maintain ties of sentiment between soldiers and citizens, as well as a need for popular mobilisation and media support" (2004:25). During the Second World War the case was no different in South Africa. The Union of South Africa propaganda campaigns in all its forms were aimed at "motivating, managing, and feeding the media" - which in turn fed the nation. This was a key strategic imperative to try to build, strengthen and maintain a consensus and united front behind the war effort (Schechter, 2004:25).The significance of contemporary filmic visualisation or off-screen enactments of war experiences and their place in South African historiography of the Second World War has long been an under-researched area....

In this year of REFO 500 the author investigates the question why the Reformation with its ‘theology of sola Scriptura and solus Christus’ could not prevent the successive identification of church and ‘volk’ in history and why it could not prevent the fatal consequences this identification had for the gospel message of reconciliation, the exemplary existence of the church of Christ and the coming of the kingdom of God. Three examples serve as proof for this statement: the attitude of the Anglican Church in England during the second Anglo-Boer War (now called the South African War)(1899-1902); the Lutheran Church in Germany during the Second World War (1939-1945) and the Reformed Churches in South Africa during the years of apartheid (1948-1994). All three examples reveal an untenable identification of church and ‘volk’, although in varying degrees. How could that happen?

The defeat of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in World War II (1939-1945) and the approval of Resolution 39 by the General Assembly on February 9th, 1946, which determined the exclusion of Spain from international organizations established by the United Nations, forced the Francoist regime to modify its fascist agenda and territorial ambitions in Europe, North Africa, and its former colonies in America. Under this scenario, the Francoist regime affirmed that the USSR’s political and military intervention was to blame for the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and for the socioeconomic crisis that followed. The Spanish sentiment of Russophobia and Anglophobia was politically justified and promoted by the Francoist regime’s propaganda since the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, and it proceeded during the Cold War period as well. The virtual isolation of Spain ended with the signature of the Pact of Madrid on September 23rd, 1953. The strategic pact with the United States allowed the Francoist regime to: consolidate a new military alliance; legitimize its power over victors and vanquished of the Spanish Civil War; revive the economy after the failure of autarchic policies; and refocus its gaze on its foreign enemies. The following movies: “He Died Fifteen Years Ago” (Dir. Rafael Gil, 1954); “The Woman Who Came from the Sea” (Dir. Francesco de Robertis, 1957); and “Blood Rhapsody” (Dir. Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi, 1957) embrace the forceful Francoist regime’s cinematic rhetoric that aims to delegitimize its historical political nemeses: USSR and United Kingdom, Communism and the unresolved Gibraltar issue, respectively.

This volume is based on NRF-funded research cooperation between the Institute for Political Studies of Defence and Military History in Bucharest and the Faculty of Military Science at Stellenbosch University, dealing with the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy. It discusses the transition to multi-party democracy, the consequent changes in the security environment and the current role and defensive posture of these countries in their respective regions. All contributions are abstracted separately in the introductory chapter (pp 1-11). The specific chapters discuss the joint experiences and challenges in facing the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy (1. Liebenberg, I: "Transition from Authoritarian Rule to Democracy": 13-36; 2. Sasz, P V: "Transition to Democracy in Romania": 37-57; 4. Mangayani, C: "The Role of Youth in South Africa's Transition": 87-121), the reform of the armies (3. Ionesco, M: "Transition, Alliances and Military Reform in Romania in the post-Cold War Period": 59-86; 5. Ferreira, R: "South Africa: From Apartheid Army to a Post-Apartheid Defence Force": 123-135; 7. Mangayani, C: "Structures for Political Oversight of the Military": 171-204; 8. Otu, P: "Military Reform in Romania": 205-231) as well as the repositioning of Romania's security strategy (6. Cioculescu, S: "Romania's National Security Strategy in the Post-Cold War Period": 137-170). South Africa's change in strategy concerning its interests in the Indian Ocean is the main focus of T Potgieter in chapter 10 (pp 267-305)and Romania's status within the Euro-Atlantic security architecture after the end of the Cold War and its entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the European Union (EU) has been dealt with by Carmen Rijnoveanu in chapter 11 (pp307-340). Worthy of special attention is chapter 9 (Liebenberg, I: "The Arms Industry, Reform and Civil-Military Relations in South Africa": 233-266), bridging the purchase of arms and ammunition during the inter-war years (1919-1939) to the period of World War II (1939-1945) and even further to the establishment of South Africa's own defence industry under apartheid rule (1948-1989), emphasising the enormous cost of maintaining a military superiority in southern Africa paving the way for South Africa's economic decline by the end of the 1980s and leading to the political demise of apartheid in the 1994 elections. In chapter 12 ("Waves of Change, Military-Political Reorientation, Economic Alliances and Uncertain Futures": 341-357), the editors make a comparison Strategic Review for Southern Africa, Vol 38, No 2 Book Reviews 181 of the different starting positions of both countries and the national security strategies that emerged from it.

The twentieth was, from one perspective, the democratic century — a span of one hundred years which began with no fully functioning democracies in existence anywhere on the planet (if one defines democracy as a political system in which there is both universal suffrage and competitive elections), and ended with 120 countries out of 192 classified by the Freedom House think tank as ‘democratic’. There are of course still many societies where democracy is denied or effectively neutered — the remaining outposts of state socialism, such as China, Cuba, and North Korea; most if not all of the Islamic countries; exceptional states such as Singapore, unapologetically capitalist in its economic system but resolutely authoritarian in its political culture. Many self-proclaimed democracies, including those of the UK, Australia and the US, are procedurally or conceptually flawed. Countries emerging out of authoritarian systems and now in a state of democratic transition, such as Russia and the former Soviet republics, are immersed in constant, sometimes violent struggle between reformers and reactionaries. Russia’s recent parliamentary elections were accompanied by the intimidation of parties and politicians who opposed Vladimir Putin’s increasingly populist and authoritarian approach to leadership. The same Freedom House report which describes the rise of democracy in the twentieth century acknowledges that many self-styled democracies are, at best, only ‘partly free’ in their political cultures (for detailed figures on the rise of global democracy, see the Freedom House website Democracy’s Century). Let’s not for a moment downplay these important qualifications to what can nonetheless be fairly characterised as a century-long expansion and globalisation of democracy, and the acceptance of popular sovereignty, expressed through voting for the party or candidate of one’s choice, as a universally recognised human right. That such a process has occurred, and continues in these early years of the twenty-first century, is irrefutable. In the Gaza strip, Hamas appeals to the legitimacy of a democratic election victory in its campaign to be recognised as the voice of the Palestinian people. However one judges the messianic tendencies and Islamist ideology of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it must be acknowledged that the Iranian people elected him, and that they have the power to throw him out of government next time they vote. That was never true of the Shah. The democratic resurgence in Latin America, taking in Venezuela, Peru and Bolivia among others has been a much-noted feature of international politics in recent times (Alves), presenting a welcome contrast to the dictatorships and death squads of the 1980s, even as it creates some uncomfortable dilemmas for the Bush administration (which must champion democratic government at the same time as it resents some of the choices people may make when they have the opportunity to vote). Since 9/11 a kind of democracy has expanded even to Afghanistan and Iraq, albeit at the point of a gun, and with no guarantees of survival beyond the end of military occupation by the US and its coalition allies. As this essay was being written, Pakistan’s state of emergency was ending and democratic elections scheduled, albeit in the shadow cast by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. Democracy, then — imperfect and limited as it can be; grudgingly delivered though it is by political elites in many countries, and subject to attack and roll back at any time — has become a global universal to which all claim allegiance, or at least pay lip service. The scale of this transformation, which has occurred in little more than one quarter of the time elapsed since the Putney debates of 1647 and the English revolution first established the principle of the sovereignty of parliament, is truly remarkable. (Tristram Hunt quotes lawyer Geoffrey Robertson in the Guardian to the effect that the Putney debates, staged in St Mary’s church in south-west London towards the end of the English civil war, launched “the idea that government requires the consent of freely and fairly elected representatives of all adult citizens irrespective of class or caste or status or wealth” – “A Jewel of Democracy”, Guardian, 26 Oct. 2007) Can it be true that less than one hundred years ago, in even the most advanced capitalist societies, 50 per cent of the people — women — did not have the right to vote? Or that black populations, indigenous or migrant, in countries such as the United States and Australia were deprived of basic citizenship rights until the 1960s and even later? Will future generations wonder how on earth it could have been that the vast majority of the people of South Africa were unable to vote until 1994, and that they were routinely imprisoned, tortured and killed when they demanded basic democratic rights? Or will they shrug and take it for granted, as so many of us who live in settled democracies already do? (In so far as ‘we’ includes the community of media and cultural studies scholars, I would argue that where there is reluctance to concede the scale and significance of democratic change, this arises out of continuing ambivalence about what ‘democracy’ means, a continuing suspicion of globalisation (in particular the globalisation of democratic political culture, still associated in some quarters with ‘the west’), and of the notion of ‘progress’ with which democracy is routinely associated. The intellectual roots of that ambivalence were various. Marxist-leninist inspired authoritarianism gripped much of the world until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the cold war. Until that moment, it was still possible for many marxians in the scholarly community to view the idea of democracy with disdain — if not quite a dirty word, then a deeply flawed, highly loaded concept which masked and preserved underlying social inequalities more than it helped resolve them. Until 1989 or thereabouts, it was possible for ‘bourgeois democracy’ to be regarded as just one kind of democratic polity by the liberal and anti-capitalist left, which often regarded the ‘proletarian’ or ‘people’s’ democracy prevailing in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba or Vietnam as legitimate alternatives to the emerging capitalist norm of one person, one vote, for constituent assemblies which had real power and accountability. In terms not very different from those used by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology, belief in the value of democracy was conceived by this materialist school as a kind of false consciousness. It still is, by Noam Chomsky and others who continue to view democracy as a ‘necessary illusion’ (1989) without which capitalism could not be reproduced. From these perspectives voting gave, and gives us merely the illusion of agency and power in societies where capital rules as it always did. For democracy read ‘the manufacture of consent’; its expansion read not as progressive social evolution, but the universalisation of the myth of popular sovereignty, mobilised and utilised by the media-industrial-military complex to maintain its grip.) There are those who dispute this reading of events. In the 1960s, Habermas’s hugely influential Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere critiqued the manner in which democracy, and the public sphere underpinning it, had been degraded by public relations, advertising, and the power of private interests. In the period since, critical scholarly research and writing on political culture has been dominated by the Habermasian discourse of democratic decline, and the pervasive pessimism of those who see democracy, and the media culture which supports it, as fatally flawed, corrupted by commercialisation and under constant threat. Those, myself included, who challenged that view with a more positive reading of the trends (McNair, Journalism and Democracy; Cultural Chaos) have been denounced as naïve optimists, panglossian, utopian and even, in my own case, a ‘neo-liberal apologist’. (See an unpublished paper by David Miller, “System Failure: It’s Not Just the Media, It’s the Whole Bloody System”, delivered at Goldsmith’s College in 2003.) Engaging as they have been, I venture to suggest that these are the discourses and debates of an era now passing into history. Not only is it increasingly obvious that democracy is expanding globally into places where it never previously reached; it is also extending inwards, within nation states, driven by demands for greater local autonomy. In the United Kingdom, for example, the citizen is now able to vote not just in Westminster parliamentary elections (which determine the political direction of the UK government), but for European elections, local elections, and elections for devolved assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The people of London can vote for their mayor. There would by now have been devolved assemblies in the regions of England, too, had the people of the North East not voted against it in a November 2004 referendum. Notwithstanding that result, which surprised many in the New Labour government who held it as axiomatic that the more democracy there was, the better for all of us, the importance of enhancing and expanding democratic institutions, of allowing people to vote more often (and also in more efficient ways — many of these expansions of democracy have been tied to the introduction of systems of proportional representation) has become consensual, from the Mid West of America to the Middle East. The Democratic Paradox And yet, as the wave of democratic transformation has rolled on through the late twentieth and into the early twenty first century it is notable that, in many of the oldest liberal democracies at least, fewer people have been voting. In the UK, for example, in the period between 1945 and 2001, turnout at general elections never fell below 70 per cent. In 1992, the last general election won by the Conservatives before the rise of Tony Blair and New Labour, turnout was 78 per cent, roughly where it had been in the 1950s. In 2001, however, as Blair’s government sought re-election, turnout fell to an historic low for the UK of 59.4 per cent, and rose only marginally to 61.4 per cent in the most recent general election of 2005. In the US presidential elections of 1996 and 2000 turnouts were at historic lows of 47.2 and 49.3 per cent respectively, rising just above 50 per cent again in 2004 (figures by International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance). At local level things are even worse. In only the second election for a devolved parliament in Scotland (2003) turnout was a mere 48.5 per cent, rising to 50.5 in 2007. These trends are not universal. In countries with compulsory voting, they mean very little — in Australia, where voting in parliamentary elections is compulsory, turnout averages in the 90s per cent. In France, while turnouts for parliamentary elections show a similar downward trend to the UK and the UK, presidential contests achieve turnouts of 80-plus per cent. In the UK and US, as noted, the most recent elections show modest growth in turnout from those historic lows of the late 1990s and early Noughties. There has grown, nonetheless, the perception, commonplace amongst academic commentators as well as journalists and politicians themselves, that we are living through a ‘crisis’ of democratic participation, a dangerous decline in the tendency to vote in elections which undermines the legitimacy of democracy itself. In communication scholarship a significant body of research and publication has developed around this theme, from Blumler and Gurevitch’s Crisis of Public Communication (1996), through Barnett and Gaber’s Westminster Tales (2000), to more recent studies such as Lewis et al.’s Citizens or Consumers (2005). All presume a problem of some kind with the practice of democracy and the “old fashioned ritual” of voting, as Lewis et al. describe it (2). Most link alleged inadequacies in the performance of the political media to what is interpreted as popular apathy (or antipathy) towards democracy. The media are blamed for the lack of public engagement with democratic politics which declining turnouts are argued to signal. Political journalists are said to be too aggressive and hyper-adversarial (Lloyd), behaving like the “feral beast” spoken of by Tony Blair in his 2007 farewell speech to the British people as prime minister. They are corrosively cynical and a “disaster for democracy”, as Steven Barnett and others argued in the first years of the twenty first century. They are not aggressive or adversarial enough, as the propaganda modellists allege, citing what they interpret as supine media coverage of Coalition policy in Iraq. The media put people off, rather than turn them on to democracy by being, variously, too nice or too nasty to politicians. What then, is the solution to the apparent paradox represented by the fact that there is more democracy, but less voting in elections than ever before; and that after centuries of popular struggle democratic assemblies proliferate, but in some countries barely half of the eligible voters can be bothered to participate? And what role have the media played in this unexpected phenomenon? If the scholarly community has been largely critical on this question, and pessimistic in its analyses of the role of the media, it has become increasingly clear that the one arena where people do vote more than ever before is that presented by the media, and entertainment media in particular. There has been, since the appearance of Big Brother and the subsequent explosion of competitive reality TV formats across the world, evidence of a huge popular appetite for voting on such matters as which amateur contestant on Pop Idol, or X Factor, or Fame Academy, or Operatunity goes on to have a chance of a professional career, a shot at the big time. Millions of viewers of the most popular reality TV strands queue up to register their votes on premium phone lines, the revenue from which makes up a substantial and growing proportion of the income of commercial TV companies. This explosion of voting behaviour has been made possible by the technology-driven emergence of new forms of participatory, interactive, digitised media channels which allow millions to believe that they can have an impact on the outcome of what are, at essence, game and talent shows. At the height of anxiety around the ‘crisis of democratic participation’ in the UK, observers noted that nearly 6.5 million people had voted in the Big Brother UK final in 2004. More than eight million voted during the 2004 run of the BBC’s Fame Academy series. While these numbers do not, contrary to popular belief, exceed the numbers of British citizens who vote in a general election (27.2 million in 2005), they do indicate an enthusiasm for voting which seems to contradict declining rates of democratic participation. People who will never get out and vote for their local councillor often appear more than willing to pick up the telephone or the laptop and cast a vote for their favoured reality TV contestant, even if it costs them money. It would be absurd to suggest that voting for a contestant on Big Brother is directly comparable to the act of choosing a government or a president. The latter is recognised as an expression of citizenship, with potentially significant consequences for the lives of individuals within their society. Voting on Big Brother, on the other hand, is unmistakeably entertainment, game-playing, a relatively risk-free exercise of choice — a bit of harmless fun, fuelled by office chat and relentless tabloid coverage of the contestants’ strengths and weaknesses. There is no evidence that readiness to participate in a telephone or online vote for entertainment TV translates into active citizenship, where ‘active’ means casting a vote in an election. The lesson delivered by the success of participatory media in recent years, however — first reality TV, and latterly a proliferation of online formats which encourage user participation and voting for one thing or another — is that people will vote, when they are able and motivated to do so. Voting is popular, in short, and never more so, irrespective of the level of popular participation recorded in recent elections. And if they will vote in their millions for a contestant on X Factor, or participate in competitions to determine the best movies or books on Facebook, they can presumably be persuaded to do so when an election for parliament comes around. This fact has been recognised by both media producers and politicians, and reflected in attempts to adapt the evermore sophisticated and efficient tools of participatory media to the democratic process, to engage media audiences as citizens by offering the kinds of voting opportunities in political debates, including election processes, which entertainment media have now made routinely available. ITV’s Vote for Me strand, broadcast in the run-up to the UK general election of 2005, used reality TV techniques to select a candidate who would actually take part in the forthcoming poll. The programme was broadcast in a late night, low audience slot, and failed to generate much interest, but it signalled a desire by media producers to harness the appeal of participatory media in a way which could directly impact on levels of democratic engagement. The honourable failure of Vote for Me (produced by the same team which made the much more successful live debate shows featuring prime minister Tony Blair — Ask Tony Blair, Ask the Prime Minister) might be viewed as evidence that readiness to vote in the context of a TV game show does not translate directly into voting for parties and politicians, and that the problem in this respect — the crisis of democratic participation, such that it exists — is located elsewhere. People can vote in democratic elections, but choose not to, perhaps because they feel that the act is meaningless (because parties are ideologically too similar), or ineffectual (because they see no impact of voting in their daily lives or in the state of the country), or irrelevant to their personal priorities and life styles. Voting rates have increased in the US and the UK since September 11 2001, suggesting perhaps that when the political stakes are raised, and the question of who is in government seems to matter more than it did, people act accordingly. Meantime, media producers continue to make money by developing formats and channels on the assumption that audiences wish to participate, to interact, and to vote. Whether this form of participatory media consumption for the purposes of play can be translated into enhanced levels of active citizenship, and whether the media can play a significant contributory role in that process, remains to be seen. References Alves, R.C. “From Lapdog to Watchdog: The Role of the Press in Latin America’s Democratisation.” In H. de Burgh, ed., Making Journalists. London: Routledge, 2005. 181-202. Anderson, P.J., and G. Ward (eds.). The Future of Journalism in the Advanced Democracies. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007. Barnett, S. “The Age of Contempt.” Guardian 28 October 2002. < http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media/comment/0,12123,820577,00.html >. Barnett, S., and I. Gaber. Westminster Tales. London: Continuum, 2001. Blumler, J., and M. Gurevitch. The Crisis of Public Communication. London: Routledge, 1996. Habermas, J. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989. Lewis, J., S. Inthorn, and K. Wahl-Jorgensen. Citizens or Consumers? What the Media Tell Us about Political Participation. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 2005. Lloyd, John. What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics. London: Constable, 2004. McNair, B. Journalism and Democracy: A Qualitative Evaluation of the Political Public Sphere. London: Routledge, 2000. ———. Cultural Chaos: News, Journalism and Power in a Globalised World. London: Routledge, 2006.


 
 
 The twentieth was, from one perspective, the democratic century — a span of one hundred years which began with no fully functioning democracies in existence anywhere on the planet (if one defines democracy as a political system in which there is both universal suffrage and competitive elections), and ended with 120 countries out of 192 classified by the Freedom House think tank as ‘democratic’. There are of course still many societies where democracy is denied or effectively neutered — the remaining outposts of state socialism, such as China, Cuba, and North Korea; most if not all of the Islamic countries; exceptional states such as Singapore, unapologetically capitalist in its economic system but resolutely authoritarian in its political culture. Many self-proclaimed democracies, including those of the UK, Australia and the US, are procedurally or conceptually flawed. Countries emerging out of authoritarian systems and now in a state of democratic transition, such as Russia and the former Soviet republics, are immersed in constant, sometimes violent struggle between reformers and reactionaries. Russia’s recent parliamentary elections were accompanied by the intimidation of parties and politicians who opposed Vladimir Putin’s increasingly populist and authoritarian approach to leadership. The same Freedom House report which describes the rise of democracy in the twentieth century acknowledges that many self-styled democracies are, at best, only ‘partly free’ in their political cultures (for detailed figures on the rise of global democracy, see the Freedom House website Democracy’s Century). Let’s not for a moment downplay these important qualifications to what can nonetheless be fairly characterised as a century-long expansion and globalisation of democracy, and the acceptance of popular sovereignty, expressed through voting for the party or candidate of one’s choice, as a universally recognised human right. That such a process has occurred, and continues in these early years of the twenty-first century, is irrefutable. In the Gaza strip, Hamas appeals to the legitimacy of a democratic election victory in its campaign to be recognised as the voice of the Palestinian people. However one judges the messianic tendencies and Islamist ideology of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it must be acknowledged that the Iranian people elected him, and that they have the power to throw him out of government next time they vote. That was never true of the Shah. The democratic resurgence in Latin America, taking in Venezuela, Peru and Bolivia among others has been a much-noted feature of international politics in recent times (Alves), presenting a welcome contrast to the dictatorships and death squads of the 1980s, even as it creates some uncomfortable dilemmas for the Bush administration (which must champion democratic government at the same time as it resents some of the choices people may make when they have the opportunity to vote). Since 9/11 a kind of democracy has expanded even to Afghanistan and Iraq, albeit at the point of a gun, and with no guarantees of survival beyond the end of military occupation by the US and its coalition allies. As this essay was being written, Pakistan’s state of emergency was ending and democratic elections scheduled, albeit in the shadow cast by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. Democracy, then — imperfect and limited as it can be; grudgingly delivered though it is by political elites in many countries, and subject to attack and roll back at any time — has become a global universal to which all claim allegiance, or at least pay lip service. The scale of this transformation, which has occurred in little more than one quarter of the time elapsed since the Putney debates of 1647 and the English revolution first established the principle of the sovereignty of parliament, is truly remarkable. (Tristram Hunt quotes lawyer Geoffrey Robertson in the Guardian to the effect that the Putney debates, staged in St Mary’s church in south-west London towards the end of the English civil war, launched “the idea that government requires the consent of freely and fairly elected representatives of all adult citizens irrespective of class or caste or status or wealth” – “A Jewel of Democracy”, Guardian, 26 Oct. 2007) Can it be true that less than one hundred years ago, in even the most advanced capitalist societies, 50 per cent of the people — women — did not have the right to vote? Or that black populations, indigenous or migrant, in countries such as the United States and Australia were deprived of basic citizenship rights until the 1960s and even later? Will future generations wonder how on earth it could have been that the vast majority of the people of South Africa were unable to vote until 1994, and that they were routinely imprisoned, tortured and killed when they demanded basic democratic rights? Or will they shrug and take it for granted, as so many of us who live in settled democracies already do? (In so far as ‘we’ includes the community of media and cultural studies scholars, I would argue that where there is reluctance to concede the scale and significance of democratic change, this arises out of continuing ambivalence about what ‘democracy’ means, a continuing suspicion of globalisation (in particular the globalisation of democratic political culture, still associated in some quarters with ‘the west’), and of the notion of ‘progress’ with which democracy is routinely associated. The intellectual roots of that ambivalence were various. Marxist-leninist inspired authoritarianism gripped much of the world until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the cold war. Until that moment, it was still possible for many marxians in the scholarly community to view the idea of democracy with disdain — if not quite a dirty word, then a deeply flawed, highly loaded concept which masked and preserved underlying social inequalities more than it helped resolve them. Until 1989 or thereabouts, it was possible for ‘bourgeois democracy’ to be regarded as just one kind of democratic polity by the liberal and anti-capitalist left, which often regarded the ‘proletarian’ or ‘people’s’ democracy prevailing in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba or Vietnam as legitimate alternatives to the emerging capitalist norm of one person, one vote, for constituent assemblies which had real power and accountability. In terms not very different from those used by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology, belief in the value of democracy was conceived by this materialist school as a kind of false consciousness. It still is, by Noam Chomsky and others who continue to view democracy as a ‘necessary illusion’ (1989) without which capitalism could not be reproduced. From these perspectives voting gave, and gives us merely the illusion of agency and power in societies where capital rules as it always did. For democracy read ‘the manufacture of consent’; its expansion read not as progressive social evolution, but the universalisation of the myth of popular sovereignty, mobilised and utilised by the media-industrial-military complex to maintain its grip.) There are those who dispute this reading of events. In the 1960s, Habermas’s hugely influential Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere critiqued the manner in which democracy, and the public sphere underpinning it, had been degraded by public relations, advertising, and the power of private interests. In the period since, critical scholarly research and writing on political culture has been dominated by the Habermasian discourse of democratic decline, and the pervasive pessimism of those who see democracy, and the media culture which supports it, as fatally flawed, corrupted by commercialisation and under constant threat. Those, myself included, who challenged that view with a more positive reading of the trends (McNair, Journalism and Democracy; Cultural Chaos) have been denounced as naïve optimists, panglossian, utopian and even, in my own case, a ‘neo-liberal apologist’. (See an unpublished paper by David Miller, “System Failure: It’s Not Just the Media, It’s the Whole Bloody System”, delivered at Goldsmith’s College in 2003.) Engaging as they have been, I venture to suggest that these are the discourses and debates of an era now passing into history. Not only is it increasingly obvious that democracy is expanding globally into places where it never previously reached; it is also extending inwards, within nation states, driven by demands for greater local autonomy. In the United Kingdom, for example, the citizen is now able to vote not just in Westminster parliamentary elections (which determine the political direction of the UK government), but for European elections, local elections, and elections for devolved assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The people of London can vote for their mayor. There would by now have been devolved assemblies in the regions of England, too, had the people of the North East not voted against it in a November 2004 referendum. Notwithstanding that result, which surprised many in the New Labour government who held it as axiomatic that the more democracy there was, the better for all of us, the importance of enhancing and expanding democratic institutions, of allowing people to vote more often (and also in more efficient ways — many of these expansions of democracy have been tied to the introduction of systems of proportional representation) has become consensual, from the Mid West of America to the Middle East. The Democratic Paradox And yet, as the wave of democratic transformation has rolled on through the late twentieth and into the early twenty first century it is notable that, in many of the oldest liberal democracies at least, fewer people have been voting. In the UK, for example, in the period between 1945 and 2001, turnout at general elections never fell below 70 per cent. In 1992, the last general election won by the Conservatives before the rise of Tony Blair and New Labour, turnout was 78 per cent, roughly where it had been in the 1950s. In 2001, however, as Blair’s government sought re-election, turnout fell to an historic low for the UK of 59.4 per cent, and rose only marginally to 61.4 per cent in the most recent general election of 2005. In the US presidential elections of 1996 and 2000 turnouts were at historic lows of 47.2 and 49.3 per cent respectively, rising just above 50 per cent again in 2004 (figures by International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance). At local level things are even worse. In only the second election for a devolved parliament in Scotland (2003) turnout was a mere 48.5 per cent, rising to 50.5 in 2007. These trends are not universal. In countries with compulsory voting, they mean very little — in Australia, where voting in parliamentary elections is compulsory, turnout averages in the 90s per cent. In France, while turnouts for parliamentary elections show a similar downward trend to the UK and the UK, presidential contests achieve turnouts of 80-plus per cent. In the UK and US, as noted, the most recent elections show modest growth in turnout from those historic lows of the late 1990s and early Noughties. There has grown, nonetheless, the perception, commonplace amongst academic commentators as well as journalists and politicians themselves, that we are living through a ‘crisis’ of democratic participation, a dangerous decline in the tendency to vote in elections which undermines the legitimacy of democracy itself. In communication scholarship a significant body of research and publication has developed around this theme, from Blumler and Gurevitch’s Crisis of Public Communication (1996), through Barnett and Gaber’s Westminster Tales (2000), to more recent studies such as Lewis et al.’s Citizens or Consumers (2005). All presume a problem of some kind with the practice of democracy and the “old fashioned ritual” of voting, as Lewis et al. describe it (2). Most link alleged inadequacies in the performance of the political media to what is interpreted as popular apathy (or antipathy) towards democracy. The media are blamed for the lack of public engagement with democratic politics which declining turnouts are argued to signal. Political journalists are said to be too aggressive and hyper-adversarial (Lloyd), behaving like the “feral beast” spoken of by Tony Blair in his 2007 farewell speech to the British people as prime minister. They are corrosively cynical and a “disaster for democracy”, as Steven Barnett and others argued in the first years of the twenty first century. They are not aggressive or adversarial enough, as the propaganda modellists allege, citing what they interpret as supine media coverage of Coalition policy in Iraq. The media put people off, rather than turn them on to democracy by being, variously, too nice or too nasty to politicians. What then, is the solution to the apparent paradox represented by the fact that there is more democracy, but less voting in elections than ever before; and that after centuries of popular struggle democratic assemblies proliferate, but in some countries barely half of the eligible voters can be bothered to participate? And what role have the media played in this unexpected phenomenon? If the scholarly community has been largely critical on this question, and pessimistic in its analyses of the role of the media, it has become increasingly clear that the one arena where people do vote more than ever before is that presented by the media, and entertainment media in particular. There has been, since the appearance of Big Brother and the subsequent explosion of competitive reality TV formats across the world, evidence of a huge popular appetite for voting on such matters as which amateur contestant on Pop Idol, or X Factor, or Fame Academy, or Operatunity goes on to have a chance of a professional career, a shot at the big time. Millions of viewers of the most popular reality TV strands queue up to register their votes on premium phone lines, the revenue from which makes up a substantial and growing proportion of the income of commercial TV companies. This explosion of voting behaviour has been made possible by the technology-driven emergence of new forms of participatory, interactive, digitised media channels which allow millions to believe that they can have an impact on the outcome of what are, at essence, game and talent shows. At the height of anxiety around the ‘crisis of democratic participation’ in the UK, observers noted that nearly 6.5 million people had voted in the Big Brother UK final in 2004. More than eight million voted during the 2004 run of the BBC’s Fame Academy series. While these numbers do not, contrary to popular belief, exceed the numbers of British citizens who vote in a general election (27.2 million in 2005), they do indicate an enthusiasm for voting which seems to contradict declining rates of democratic participation. People who will never get out and vote for their local councillor often appear more than willing to pick up the telephone or the laptop and cast a vote for their favoured reality TV contestant, even if it costs them money. It would be absurd to suggest that voting for a contestant on Big Brother is directly comparable to the act of choosing a government or a president. The latter is recognised as an expression of citizenship, with potentially significant consequences for the lives of individuals within their society. Voting on Big Brother, on the other hand, is unmistakeably entertainment, game-playing, a relatively risk-free exercise of choice — a bit of harmless fun, fuelled by office chat and relentless tabloid coverage of the contestants’ strengths and weaknesses. There is no evidence that readiness to participate in a telephone or online vote for entertainment TV translates into active citizenship, where ‘active’ means casting a vote in an election. The lesson delivered by the success of participatory media in recent years, however — first reality TV, and latterly a proliferation of online formats which encourage user participation and voting for one thing or another — is that people will vote, when they are able and motivated to do so. Voting is popular, in short, and never more so, irrespective of the level of popular participation recorded in recent elections. And if they will vote in their millions for a contestant on X Factor, or participate in competitions to determine the best movies or books on Facebook, they can presumably be persuaded to do so when an election for parliament comes around. This fact has been recognised by both media producers and politicians, and reflected in attempts to adapt the evermore sophisticated and efficient tools of participatory media to the democratic process, to engage media audiences as citizens by offering the kinds of voting opportunities in political debates, including election processes, which entertainment media have now made routinely available. ITV’s Vote for Me strand, broadcast in the run-up to the UK general election of 2005, used reality TV techniques to select a candidate who would actually take part in the forthcoming poll. The programme was broadcast in a late night, low audience slot, and failed to generate much interest, but it signalled a desire by media producers to harness the appeal of participatory media in a way which could directly impact on levels of democratic engagement. The honourable failure of Vote for Me (produced by the same team which made the much more successful live debate shows featuring prime minister Tony Blair — Ask Tony Blair, Ask the Prime Minister) might be viewed as evidence that readiness to vote in the context of a TV game show does not translate directly into voting for parties and politicians, and that the problem in this respect — the crisis of democratic participation, such that it exists — is located elsewhere. People can vote in democratic elections, but choose not to, perhaps because they feel that the act is meaningless (because parties are ideologically too similar), or ineffectual (because they see no impact of voting in their daily lives or in the state of the country), or irrelevant to their personal priorities and life styles. Voting rates have increased in the US and the UK since September 11 2001, suggesting perhaps that when the political stakes are raised, and the question of who is in government seems to matter more than it did, people act accordingly. Meantime, media producers continue to make money by developing formats and channels on the assumption that audiences wish to participate, to interact, and to vote. Whether this form of participatory media consumption for the purposes of play can be translated into enhanced levels of active citizenship, and whether the media can play a significant contributory role in that process, remains to be seen. References Alves, R.C. “From Lapdog to Watchdog: The Role of the Press in Latin America’s Democratisation.” In H. de Burgh, ed., Making Journalists. London: Routledge, 2005. 181-202. Anderson, P.J., and G. Ward (eds.). The Future of Journalism in the Advanced Democracies. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007. Barnett, S. “The Age of Contempt.” Guardian 28 October 2002. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media/comment/0,12123,820577,00.html>. Barnett, S., and I. Gaber. Westminster Tales. London: Continuum, 2001. Blumler, J., and M. Gurevitch. The Crisis of Public Communication. London: Routledge, 1996. Habermas, J. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989. Lewis, J., S. Inthorn, and K. Wahl-Jorgensen. Citizens or Consumers? What the Media Tell Us about Political Participation. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 2005. Lloyd, John. What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics. London: Constable, 2004. McNair, B. Journalism and Democracy: A Qualitative Evaluation of the Political Public Sphere. London: Routledge, 2000. ———. Cultural Chaos: News, Journalism and Power in a Globalised World. London: Routledge, 2006. 
 
 
 
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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: After the First World War (1914-1918) – the first “total war” in modern history, where whole populations, not just military forces, became participants in the war effort, the potential power of propaganda was realised, through the exploitation of mass communication media to manipulate public opinion. Alongside politico-diplomatic, economic and military manoeuvres, governments needed to mobilise the minds of their population to secure support, to mobilise them behind the war policy and to avoid discontent and dissension. This was particularly crucial to South Africa during the Second World War (1939-1945), especially as the country was threatened by deeply ingrained political tensions and internal divisions. The wartime Union, under General Jan Smuts, experienced an escalation of political extremism and militancy from radical sections of white Afrikaner nationalists who opposed the government’s war policy. Furthermore, some elements within even the Union Defence Force (UDF) displayed disloyal tendencies which threatened the morale of the armed forces. Thus, in response, the government waged a massive propaganda campaign during the war aimed at stimulating recruitment, at preserving national morale, at combating anti-war resistance and at minimising disruptions to the implementation of its war policy. To this end, the authorities exploited information avenues such as radio broadcasts, the press, films, mobile recruiting tours and military demonstrations for publicity and propaganda purposes. As propaganda delivery channels, radio, the press and films were potentially powerful. However, the strategy pursued by the authorities failed to maximise their full impact. The government also did not enjoy a media monopoly for the conduct of its war propaganda. The SABC continued operating independently and its airtime was not handed over to the authorities. Similarly, while the government relied on the support of sympathetic newspaper editors for its propaganda campaign, newspapers themselves sometimes ignored censorship regulations and published material which was unhelpful to the national war effort. Meanwhile, the opposition press also contested the propaganda terrain by waging anti-war campaigns. Films were the weakest link due to limited government control, production obstacles and an English language dominance which alienated the majority of white Afrikaans speakers. Another problem was persistent rivalry among various official and semiofficial propaganda agencies and a lack of clarity over a common propaganda policy. When it came to recruitment, government propaganda achieved particularly limited success. Despite patriotic appeals for volunteer enlistment, the shortage of manpower remained a persistent problem throughout the war. Alongside this, social and economic problems such as food and housing shortages also had a negative impact on public morale. The positive reach of propaganda efforts within the military, especially education, information and social welfare services, was also limited in that they were unable to dispel dissatisfaction resulting from poor service conditions, military policies, and the growing influence of war weariness. Towards the end of hostilities, there was a perceptible decline in troop discipline and morale. In general, therefore, the Union government’s overall war publicity and propaganda effort failed to produce a solid sense of national war cohesion or war unity. Although the country remained stable and was able to sustain war participation, it could not be said that South Africa’s leadership was able to persuade inhabitants – whether white or black - to participate in the Second World War as a war to be embraced as a people’s war.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die Eerste Wêreldoorlog (1914-1918), die eerste “totale oorlog” in kontemporêre geskiedenis waartydens nie net militêre magte nie, maar hele gemeenskappe by die oorlogspoging betrek is, het die potensiaal van propaganda om die openbare mening met behulp van die massamedia te manipuleer, tuisgebring. Naas polities-diplomatiese, ekonomiese en militêre maneuvrering, moes regerings ook die gesindheid van die bevolking beïnvloed om hulle agter die oorlogspoging te skaar en twis en tweedrag te vermy. Gesindheidsbeïnvloeding was vir die Unieregering van kardinale belang gedurende die Tweede Wêreldoorlog (1939-1945), aangesien Suid-Afrika onder diepgaande politieke verdeeldheid en interne spanning oor die oorlogskwessie gebuk gegaan het. Die Smuts-bewind het hewige politieke druk en militante weerstand ervaar van Afrikanernasionaliste wat teen die regering se oorlogsbeleid gekant was. Ontevrede elemente in die Unieverdedigingsmag (UVM) het insgelyks dislojale neigings openbaar, wat die moraal van die gewapende magte ondermyn het. Die regering het gevolglik gedurende die oorlog ’n omvattende propagandaveldtog van stapel gestuur om weerstand teen sy oorlogspoging te beveg, ontwrigting in die implementering van die oorlogsbeleid tot ’n minimum te beperk, die werwing van soldate te bevorder en die nasionale moraal hoog te hou. Die Smuts-regering het ’n verskeidenheid van instrumente, waaronder radio-uitsendings, die gedrukte media, rolprente, mobiele werwingsveldtogte en miltêre demonstrasies, vir hul reklame- en propagandaveldtogte ingespan. Die regering se propagandastrategieë het egter nie dié kragtige instrumente optimaal uitgebuit om maksimum trefkrag te verseker nie. Daarby het die regering ook nie ’n monopolie oor alle mediaplatvorms vir geniet om hul propagandaveldtogte te bedryf nie. Die SAUK het onafhanklik gefunksioneer en min lugtyd aan die regering afgestaan om radio-uitsendings vir publisiteit en propagande te benut. Die regering het voorts sterk op koerantredakteurs gesteun om hul propagandaveldtog te bevorder, maar redakteurs het soms sensuurregulasies geïgnoreer en artikels geplaas wat regeringsbeleid ondermyn het. Die opposisiepers het uiteraard ook die regeringspropaganda met anti-oorlogpropaganda beveg. Rolprente was die swakste skakel in die regering se reklame- en propagandastelsels vanweë hul swak beheer daaroor, ’n gebrek aan tegniese vaardigheid, die hoë koste van rolprentproduksies, asook die oorheersing van die bedryf deur die Engelse taal, wat die meerderheid Afrikaanssprekendes die harnas ingejaag het. ’n Verdere probleem was die voortdurende wedywering tussen die verskillende amptelike en halfamptelike propaganda-agentskappe. Dit was veral die gebrek aan ’n duidelike propaganda-beleid wat tot oorvleueling en mededinging gelei het. Wat werwingspropaganda betref, het die regering beperkte sukses behaal. Naas ’n beroep op pligsbesef, eer en glorie, het die regering oor geen hefkrag beskik om werwing te bevorder nie. ’n Gebrek aan mannekrag het derhalwe die UVM dwarsdeur die oorlog gekortwiek in weerwil van die regering se omvattende reklame- en propagandaprogramme. Teen 1945 het slegs sowat 330 000 uit die Unie se bevolking van nagenoeg tien miljoen vir vrywillige krygsdiens aangemeld. Sosio-ekonomiese uitdagings soos ’n gebrek aan voedselvoorrade en behuising het ook negatief op die openbare en burgerlike moraal ingewerk. Interne propaganda in die UVM, veral deur middel van die opvoedings-, informasie- en welsynsdienste, het ook beperkte sukses behaal as gevolg van ontevredenheid met militêre beleid, swak diensvoorwaardes en oorlogsmoegheid. Dié ontevredenheid het moraal en dissipline ondermyn en teen die einde van die oorlog tot uitdagende gedrag en oproer onder die troepe gelei. Oor die algemeen genome, was die Unie-regering se totale reklame- en propagandapoging dus oneffektief. Alhoewel die hele die stelsel nie in duie gestort het nie en Unie se oorlogspoging sonder groot ontwrigting voortgegaan het, het oorlogsmoegheid, oneffektiewe beleide en die invloed van sosio-ekonomiese probleme uiteindelik tot openbare en militêre ontnugtering gelei.

Thesis (MMil)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Following South African entry into the Second World War on 6 September 1939, the Union Defence Force (UDF) transformed from an ageing peacetime defence force into a modern armed force capable of projecting offensive power. During the interwar period a certain state of melancholia had existed in the UDF in terms of military innovation, which resulted in muddled thinking in the UDF in terms of armoured warfare and mechanisation. The offensive potential of armoured forces was simply not understood by the South African defence planners, with the result that there was only a token armoured force in the UDF in September 1939. The South African entry into the war was the impetus for the development of a viable armoured force within the UDF, and the South African Tank Corps (SATC) was established in May 1940. Changes in both the nature and organisational structure of the South African defence establishment followed. The Italian presence in Abyssinia and Italian Somaliland was seen as a direct threat to the neighbouring British East African territories, and South Africa deployed to Kenya during June 1940, soon after the Italian declaration of war. The South African deployment to East Africa was the first deployment of the UDF in a situation of regular war since the First World War. Despite the doctrine that underpinned the South African deployment of armoured forces in East Africa, the SATC units soon learned that the accepted doctrine, borrowed from the British War Office during the interwar period, was but a mere guide to offensive employment. The story of the South African deployment to East Africa during the war is used as a lens through which to investigate the role and employment of both the UDF armoured cars and light tanks. By separately discussing the Allied offensives through Italian Somaliland and southern Abyssinia during 1940-1941, the tactical and operational employment of the South African armour during this time becomes paramount when evaluated against their successes and failures. The nature of the opposing Italian forces in East Africa, the ever-changing topography and climate of the theatre of operations, and the nature of the South African offensive operations throughout the campaign, all combined to shape the novel way in which the armoured cars and tanks of the SATC were employed throughout 1940-1941. The operational experiences that the UDF gained during the campaign in East Africa shaped the further deployments of South African armour to North Africa, Madagascar and Italy during the remainder of the war.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Na Suid-Afrika se toetrede tot die Tweede Wêreldoorlog op 6 September 1939, het die Unieverdedigingsmag (UVM) verander vanaf ‘n verouderde vredestydse weermag na ‘n moderne mag met offensiewe projeksievermoëns. Gedurende die tussenoorlogperiode het ‘n gevoel van swaarmoedigheid in terme van militêre inovasie in die UVM geheers. Die resultaat hiervan was verwarde denke ten opsigte van pantseroorlogvoering en meganisasie. Die Suid-Afrikaanse verdedigingsbeplanners het nie die offensiewe potensiaal van pantsermagte verstaan nie. Die gevolg was dat die UVM in September 1939 slegs oor ‘n simboliese pantsermag beskik het. Die Suid-Afrikaanse toetrede tot die oorlog het die stukrag vir die ontwikkeling van ‘n lewensvatbare pantsermag binne die UVM verleen. Gevolglik is die Suid-Afrikaanse Tenkkorps (SATK) in Mei 1940 gestig. Veranderinge in beide die aard en organisatoriese struktuur van die Suid-Afrikaanse verdedigingsinstellings het gevolg. Die Italiaanse teenwoordigheid in Abessinië en Italiaans-Somaliland is as ‘n direkte bedreiging vir die aangrensende Britse Oos-Afrika gebiede gesien. In Junie 1940, kort na die Italiaanse oorlogsverklaring, is Suid-Afrikaanse magte na Kenia ontplooi. Die UVM ontplooiing na Oos-Afrika was die eerste in ‘n gereelde oorlogsituasie sedert die Eerste Wêreldoorlog. Ten spyte van die doktrine wat die Suid-Afrikaanse ontplooiing van pantsermagte na Oos-Afrika ondersteun het, het die SATK-eenhede gou geleer dat die aanvaarde doktrine, ontleen aan die Britse Ministerie van Oorlog gedurende die tussenoorlogsjare, slegs ‘n gids was tot offensiewe aanwending. Die storie van die Suid- Afrikaanse ontplooiing in Oos-Afrika gedurende die oorlog, word as ‘n lens gebruik waardeur die rol en aanwending van beide die UVM se pantserkarre en ligte tenks ondersoek word. Die geallieerde offensiewe deur Italiaans-Somaliland en suidelike Abessiniȅ gedurende 1940 – 1941 illustreer duidelik dat die taktiese en operasionele aanwending van die Suid- Afrkaanse pantsermagte gedurende hierdie tydperk van groot belang was vir die suksesse en mislukkings van die veldtog. Die aard van die opponerende magte in Oos-Afrika, die voortdurend veranderende topografie en klimaat van die operasionele teater, asook die aard van die Suid-Afrikaanse offensiewe operasies gedurende die veldtog, het gekombineer om die unieke manier waarop die pantserkarre en tenks van die UVM van 1940 tot 1941 aangewend is, te vorm. Die operasionele ervarings wat die UVM opgedoen het gedurende die Oos-Afrika Veldtog, het die verdere ontplooiings van Suid-Afrikaanse pantser na Noord- Afrika, Madagaskar en Italiȅ gedurende die res van die oorlog gevorm.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis narrates and analyses the experiences of a sample of South Africans who were captured during the Second World War. The research is based on oral testimony, memoirs, archival evidence and to a lesser degree on secondary sources. The former prisoners-of-war (POW) who participated in the research and those whose memoirs were studied were all captured at the Battle of Sidi Rezegh in November 1941 or during the fall of Tobruk in June 1942. The aim of the research is to present oral and written POW testimony in order to augment the dearth of knowledge regarding South African POW historical experience. The scope of the research includes the decision to volunteer for the Union Defence Force, the experiences in North Africa, capture and initial experiences in the so-called ‘hell camps of North Africa’, the transportation to Italy and life in the Italian prison camps, events surrounding the Italian Armistice and the consequent escape attempts thereafter. For those POWs who did not escape, the experience of captivity continued with transport to Germany, experiences in German camps, including working in labour camps and the Allied bombing campaign. Lastly, the end of the war and the experience of liberation, which in most cases included forced marches, are dealt with before the focus turns once again towards South Africa and the experience of homecoming and demobilisation. The affective and intellectual experiences of the POWs are also investigated as their personal experience and emotions are presented and examined. These include the experience of guilt and shame during capture, the acceptance or non-acceptance of captivity, blame, attitudes towards the enemy and towards each other, as well as the experience of fear and hope, which was especially relevant during the bombing campaign and during periods when they were being transported between countries and camps. The thesis concludes with an analysis of the POW experience which looks at aspects relating to identity among South African POWs. The final conclusion is drawn that the POW identity took precedence over national identity. As a result of the strong POW identity and their desire for complete freedom and desire to claim individuality, the POWs did not, on the whole, display great interest in becoming involved in South African politics after the war even though many of them strongly disagreed with the Nationalist segregationist ideologies that claimed increasing support between 1945 and 1948.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis beskryf en ontleed die ervarings van dié Suid-Afrikaners wat tydens die Tweede Wêreldoorlog gevange geneem is. Die navorsing is gebaseer op mondelinge getuienis, memoires, argivale bewysmateriaal en, in ’n mindere mate, op sekondêre bronne. Die voormalige krygsgevangenes wat aan die navorsing deelgeneem het en wie se memoires bestudeer is, is almal in November 1941 by die Geveg van Sidi Rezegh of in Junie 1942 met die val van Tobruk gevange geneem. Die doel van die navorsing is om mondelinge en skriftelike getuienisse van krygsgevangenes aan te bied ten einde die gebrekkige kennis ten opsigte van Suid-Afrikaanse krygsgevangenes se historiese ervaring uit te brei. Die omvang van die navorsing sluit die besluit in om vrywillig diens te doen vir die Unie-verdedigingsmag, die ervarings in Noord-Afrika, gevangeneming en eerste ervarings in die sogenaamde “helkampe van Noord-Afrika”, die vervoer na Italië en lewe in die Italiaanse gevangeniskampe, gebeure rondom die Italiaanse wapenstilstand en die daaropvolgende ontsnappingspogings. Vir die krygsgevangenes wat nie ontsnap het nie, het die ervaring van gevangenskap voortgeduur deur vervoer na Duitsland, ervarings in Duitse kampe, waaronder strafkampe, en die bombarderings deur die Geallieerdes. Ten slotte word aandag gegee aan die einde van die oorlog en die ervaring van vryheid, wat in die meeste gevalle gedwonge marse behels het, voordat die fokus terugkeer na Suid-Afrika en die ervaring van tuiskoms en demobilisasie. Die affektiewe en intellektuele ervarings van die krygsgevangenes word ook ontleed, aangesien hul persoonlike ervarings en emosies ondersoek en aangebied word. Dit sluit die ervaring van skuld en skaamte tydens die gevangeneming in, die aanvaarding of nie-aanvaarding van gevangeskap, blaam, houdings teenoor die vyand en mekaar, sowel as die ervaring van vrees en hoop, wat veral belangrik was gedurende die bombarderingsveldtog en vervoer tussen lande en kampe. Die tesis sluit af met ’n ontleding van aspekte wat verband hou met identiteit onder die Suid- Afrikaanse krygsgevangenes. Die bevinding is dat die krygsgevangene-identiteit voorrang geniet het bo die nasionale identiteit. Verder het die sterk drang na volkome vryheid en die begeerte om hul individualiteit terug te kry daartoe gelei dat die voormalige krygsgevangenes na die oorlog oor die algemeen ’n ambivalensie jeens Suid-Afrikaanse politiek openbaar.

Very little scholarly work has been written about Cape Town during the Second World War. Indeed, very little has been written about South African society at all during this period. This study is an attempt to contribute towards scholarly discussion of the effects of war on South African society, and to try to understand the largely neglected effects of the War on those who took part in it. Much of this study focuses on the experiences of white Englishspeaking veterans. This is because the majority of soldiers fighting in the Second World War were from this particular population group, and also because it was this group that was about to lose commanding political influence upon its return to South Africa. A central theme of this study is the government's neglect of the returning soldiers, and their failure to live up to their promises. The change of government in 1948 was to ensure that the needs of the ex-volunteers were never fully addressed, and that the veterans would never occupy the central position in society which they thought was their right, having fought in a war which many members of the new government had opposed. The focus on Cape Town also ensures that this study remains separate from the many papers which have been written detailing the rise of Nationalism from the late 1930s until the 1948 election. Looking at the other side of the political spectrum - at the eventual losers - has important and interesting political and historical implications, and adds a new dimension to the political history of the period. The methodology used for this study is mainly oral - interviews were conducted with a small representative sample of veterans and have provided a basis for all secondary research. Using the testimony of veterans has proved a useful and original tool for examining the period in question. One further aim of the thesis is to provide an opportunity for the voices of the veterans to be recognised as an authoritative resource about the history of Cape Town during the War and in the immediate post-War period. The thesis is split into two parts to reflect the different nature of Cape Town society during and after the War. The early part deals with Cape Town during the War and the changes which were taking place there as a result of South African participation in the conflict. This section also examines the wartime experiences of the soldiers and assesses how these experiences helped to forge new identities and behaviour after the War. Part Two looks at the post-War period and the demobilisation process, examining how it treated and prejudiced the soldiers who were involved.

Bibliography: leaves 317-333.<br>This thesis will discuss the production of munitions of war in South Africa and Zimbabwe as a contribution to the study of the effects of the Second World War on Africa. The thesis will argue that South Africa was not well prepared for the industrial war effort mainly because there were few large factories which could be readily converted to munitions production. Such factories had to be built from scratch. Machinery for these factories had to be imported or made locally at the expense of quality.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis attempts to evaluate the influence of the Second World War on the South African food position in the years 1939 to 1948 by studying a selection of specific foodstuffs and their availability on domestic markets during the war. The food control measures which were implemented were in a unique South African wartime context where both surpluses and shortages had developed, and the effectiveness of the implementation of these controls is evaluated. In regard to the surpluses of certain foodstuffs, the effect of relevant controls on new industrial development is discussed. The impact of public opinion on the Government’s agricultural policy during the war is also assessed, and account is taken of how this impacted on the decision not to implement a formal system of rationing, despite the severe shortages of specific foodstuffs. Leading on from this, it is important to the argument to acknowledge the racially segregationist policies of South Africa, and thus a part of this story will discuss the various reasons why a conventional rationing system would not have worked in the wartime context of the Union. This research seeks to open up a new vantage point from which to view the political position of South Africa after 1939 as its legislature and war policies reflected the country’s prevailing complexities in subtle ways. It was politics which largely determined the extent of food control and the agricultural policy which was followed. In exploring this, press coverage of the food control measures is utilised, as well as the use of austerity campaigns in mass publicity. These sources present a distinctive view of public opinion in political life and thus provide an atmospheric understanding of the national mood at a major point in history. Furthermore, the coverage of food campaigns illuminates ways in which food control and the acceptance of those measures were promoted in order to encourage compliance and participation by consumers. Of equal relevance was the position of agriculture as support for the Union war effort and the imposition of food controls as a catalyst for resistance by consumers. Discussion of these themes provide further understanding of the underlying tensions which were given impetus by the stresses of war and restrictions on commodities on the home front.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis fokus daarop om ondersoek in te stel na die invloed wat die Tweede Wêreldoorlog op die Suid-Afrikaanse voedselsituasie gedurende die jare 1939 tot 1948 gehad het. Dit word gedoen deur te kyk na ’n aantal spesifieke voedselsoorte en hul beskikbaarheid op die plaaslike mark. Die voedselbeheermaatreëls wat geimplimenteer is, was uniek binne die konteks van Suid-Afrika tydens die oorlog aangesien daar beide ’n oorvloed van en ’n tekort aan sekere voedelsoorte was. Die effektiwiteit van die implementering van hierdie voedselbeheermaatreëls word gevolglik bepaal. Waar daar sekere voedselsoorte in oorvloed was, word daar ook gekyk na hoe die maatreëls van die regering nuwe industriële ontwikkelling waarin hierdie voedsel gebruik word van stapel gestuur het. Die invloed van openbare opinie op die regering se landboubeleid gedurende hierdie tyd word ook geassesseer, met klem wat geplaas word op hoe hierdie diskoers die regering genoop het om, ten spyte van ernstige voedseltekorte, van ’n formele rasioneringstelsel afstand te doen. Die Suid-Afrikaanse rassesegregasiebeleide is uiteraard ook hiermee verweef en vorm daarom deel van die argument oor waarom ’n konvensionele rasioneringstelsel waarskynlik nie in die Unie binne ’n oorlogskonteks sou werk nie. Die navorsing is daarop gerig om die politieke landskap van post-1939 Suid-Afrika vanuit ’n nuwe hoek te beskou, aangesien wetgewing en oorlogsbeleide die land se politieke kompleksiteite op subtiele maniere geaffekteer het. Politiek was ’n enorme oorweging in die ontwikkeling van voedselbeheermaatreëls en die landboubeleide wat daarna gevolg is. Dit word verder ondersoek deur te let op hoe koerante van daardie tyd die maatreëls benader het en hoe besparingsveldtogte deur die massa media versprei is. Hierdie bronne bied ’n unieke blik op die openbare opinie rakende die Suid-Afrikaanse politieke landskap en gee dus ’n indruk van die heersende nasionale gemoed gedurende hierdie belangrike tydperk. Verder belig die mediadekking oor voedselveldtogte in hoeverre die Suid-Afrikaanse publiek voedselbeheermaatreëls aanvaar en ondersteun het, sowel as die maniere waarop die publiek aangemoedig is om tot hierdie pogings by te dra. Eweveel van belang was die posisie wat landbou beklee het as ondersteunende maatreël in die Unie se oorlogspoging. Terselfdertyd het die voedselbeheermaatreëls ook ’n weerstandsbeweging onder sekere gebruikers ontketen. Deur na al hierdie temas te kyk, word dit duidelik dat die streng beperkings wat daar op sekere voedselprodukte geplaas is ook die onderliggende spanning wat daar reeds op ’n politieke front was verder op die spits gedryf het.

Thesis (MMil)-- Stellenbosch University, 2013.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Germany’s declaration of war on Poland on 1 September 1939 and the consequent war in Europe not only found the Union of South Africa politically divided but militarily unprepared to fight a modern war let alone make any worthwhile contribution toward its European allies’ war effort. The task of getting South Africa into the fight fell to newly appointed Prime Minister J.C. Smuts who cleverly outmanoeuvred J.B.M. Hertzog as leader of the nation. Not only was the Union Defence Force (UDF) severely ravaged by several budget cuts during and after the depression but it seemed to have no inclination of embracing the kind of mechanisation that was the hallmark of most European armies. Within the space of a year Smuts managed to transform the UDF and on 17 July 1940 the 1st South African Infantry Brigade set sail for East Africa where Mussolini’s Italians reigned supreme after brushing aside a couple of British border guards and laying claim to a few miles of British territory. One of the units dispatched by Smuts was the 1st Royal Natal Carbineers from Pietermaritzburg in Natal. Throughout the campaign the Regiment’s C Company fought with distinction but had the dubious honour of being the South African unit that suffered the most casualties during the whole campaign. Several of C Company’s men then become the vehicles through which the remainder of the war is experienced as the men were moved from one theatre of battle to another. Through their eyes the hunting trips into the East African bush and the death of their Commanding Officer, among other things, are relived. The victorious Springboks are then sent to Egypt where they were needed in an effort to break the deadlock that existed between the British 8th Army and the German Afrika Korps. Amidst the ebb and flow of the battle the men of C Company still found time to experience the sights and sounds of Africa’s most populous cities, Cairo and Alexandria. Here many young soldiers were exposed to pleasures and pastimes not to be had back in the Union. In spite of the eventual defeat of the German forces North Africa C Company witnessed the destruction of the 5th South African Brigade at Sidi Rezegh and suffered the loss of a combined platoon when Tobruk capitulated on 21 June 1942. After a brief period on home leave in 1943 C Company was back in action, this time in Italy as part of the 6th South African Armoured Division. Here they faced mountains, heavy snow and an enemy desperately fighting for every hill, stream and building. In the months which followed C Company were often in the midst of the action and many men lost close friends on the slopes of the Italian mountains. As final victory became apparent during the first months of 1945, C Company’s men began preparing for their post-war lives and when the first planes and ships left for the union at the end of April 1945 the men felt that they have served their country well and did their regiment proud.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ten tyde van Duitsland se oorlogsverklaring Pole op 1 September 1939 wat die weg gebaan het het vir die gevolglike oorlog in Europa was die Unie van Suid-Afrika nie net polities verdeel nie maar ook militêr onvoorbereid op 'n moderne oorlog. Die kans dat Suid Afrika n beduidende bydrae tot sy Europese bondgenote se oorlogspoging sou kon maak was ook skraal. Die taak om Suid-Afrika voor te berei vir die komende stryd het op die skouers van die nuutaangestelde premier J.C. Smuts gerus wat deur middel van politieke manuvrering vir J.B.M. Hertzog uitoorlê het as leier van die volk. Nie net was die Unie Verdedigings Mag (UVM) erg uitgemergel deur verskeie besnoeings in sy begroting tydens en ná die depressie nie, maar daar was klaarblyklik geen begrip vir die proses van meganisasie gehad waarmee die meeste Europese weermagte doenig was nie. Binne die bestek van 'n jaar het Smuts daarin geslaag om die UVM te transformeer en op 17 Julie 1940 seil die 1ste Suid-Afrikaanse Infanterie Brigade Oos-Afrika toe waar Mussolini se magte die kruin van die golf ry nadat hulle ‘n paar Britse grensposte eenkant toe gevee het en 'n paar myl Britse grondgebied beset het. Die 1st Royal Natal Carbineers van Pietermaritzburg was een van die eenhede wat in Oos Afrika teen die Italianers sou veg. Tydens die veldtog veg die Regiment met onderskeiding, maar verwerf ook die twyfelagtige eer om die Suid-Afrikaanse eenheid te wees wat die meeste ongevalle gely het gedurende die hele veldtog. Verskeie van C Kompanie se manne word gebruik as ‘n lens waardeur die res van die oorlog ervaar word soos die troepe van een front na die ander verskuif word. Deur middel van hul wedervaringe word, onder andere, die jagtogte in die Oos-Afrikaanse bos en die dood van hul bevelvoerder herleef. Na Oos-Afrika word die seëvierende Springbokke na Egipte gestuur waar hulle benodig word om die Britse 8ste Leër by te staan in in die stryd teen die Duitse Afrika Korps. Te midde van die stryd kom die manne van C Kompanie nog tyd vind om Afrika se mees digbevolkte stede, Kaïro en Alexandrië te besoek waar baie jong soldate blootgestel is aan genot en tydverdryf wat nie beskikbaar was in die Unie nie. Ten spyte van die uiteindelike nederlaag van die Duitse magte in Noord-Afrika was C Kompanie teenwoordig tydens die vernietiging van die 5de Suid-Afrikaanse Brigade by Sidi Rezegh en ervaar ook die verlies van 'n gekombineerde peloton toe Tobruk oorgegee op 21 Junie 1942. Na 'n kort tydperk in Suid Afrika is C Kompanie terug in aksie, hierdie keer in Italië as deel van die 6de Suid-Afrikaanse Pantserdivisie. Hier word hulle gekonfronteer deur berge, swaar sneeu en 'n vyand wat desperaat veg vir elke heuwel, stroom en bouval. In die daaropvolgende maande bevind C Kompanie hom dikwels te midde van die aksie sterf vele goeie vriende teen die hange van die Italiaanse bergreekse. Namate dit duidelik begin raak dat die Duitsers die oorlog gaan verloor begin C Kompanie se manne hulself voorberei vir hul na-oorlogse lewens. Met die vertrek van die eerste vliegtuie en skepe na die Unie teen die einde van April 1945 was die manne van Natal oortuig daarvan dat hulle hul land na die beste van hulle vermoë gedien het en dat hulle die goeie naam van hulle regiment gestand gedoen het.

Thesis (MMil)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Sidi Rezegh and Tobruk are the largest disasters suffered by South Africa in its military history. Yet, despite their enormity, Sidi Rezegh and Tobruk are little understood and hardly remembered. South Africa declared war on Germany on the 6 September 1939, after a bitter internal debate, amounting to a conflict between Afrikaner nationalists and those who supported the British Empire. South Africa’s political ambivalence and disunity ran parallel to her unpreparedness for war in every important department from the lack of vital coastal defences to the miniscule size of her army and air force and complete lack of a navy. The first six months of 1941 saw the South Africans play a significant part in completely defeating the Italian colonial forces in East Africa. However, the campaign was poor preparation for what the South Africans were to encounter in the North African Desert months later. South African troops spent their time rebuilding fortifications in Egypt rather than in essential training to acclimatise this “bush war” army to harsh desert conditions. In a reluctant political decision, the unprepared South Africans were committed to Operation Crusader. The inexperienced South Africans met up with the battle hardened Afrika Korps at Sidi Rezegh on 23 November 1941 and were annihilated in the face of overwhelming odds. In revisiting this forgotten battle, it has been found, using primary and secondary sources, that the South Africans extracted an enormous price on the German armour in what may have been the true turning point of Operation Crusader. In May 1942, Rommel’s Afrika Korps sallied forth in a series of lightning moves that demonstrated the Axis grip on combined operations and managed to isolate the vital port of Tobruk commanded by an inexperienced South African, Major General H. B. Klopper. His surrender in one day is often compared to the previous siege endured under similar circumstances, where the Australians managed to hold Rommel at bay for 244 days until the siege was lifted. Klopper’s surrender of Tobruk resulted in a political crisis for Winston Churchill and for Jan Smuts, as the fiasco caused considerable tension within the Allied camp and within South Africa. On re-examination, interesting facts have emerged from the primary source material, as to the state of the Tobruk defences and of its unfortunate commander and how the United Kingdom, acting in concert with South Africa, sought to suppress the true facts. Immediate post-war memory has been shaped and distorted by sensitive political considerations that affected relations between South Africa and the United Kingdom. Thereafter, the memory of Sidi Rezegh and Tobruk was relegated first by a nationalistic Afrikaner government and then since by a democratically elected government, both of which have seen very little use in incorporating these two milestones into the national memory.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Sidi Rezegh en Tobruk is die grootste nederlae wat Suid-Afrika in sy militêre geskiedenis ervaar het. Ten spyte van hul omvang, word daar min van Sidi Rezegh en Tobruk verstaan of onthou. Na ‘n hewige interne debat wat tot konflik tussen Afrikanernasionaliste en pro-Britse Suid-Afrikaners gelei het, het Suid-Afrika op 6 September 1939 oorlog teen Duitsland verklaar. Suid-Afrika se politieke verdeeldheid het saamgeval met die Unie se totale onvoorbereidheid vir oorlog, wat gestrek het van kritieke tekortkominge in kusverdediging, tot die ontoereikende grootte van die leër en lugmag en die totale afwesigheid van ‘n vloot. Gedurende die eerste ses maande van 1941 het Suid-Afrika ‘n beduidende rol gespeel om die Italiaanse koloniale magte in Oos-Afrika te verslaan. Dié veldtog was egter nie effektiewe voorbereiding vir die uitdagings waarteen die Suid-Afrikaners kort daarna in Noord-Afrika te staan sou kom nie. Die Suid-Afrikaanse troepe het daarby hul tyd daaraan bestee om vestings in Egipte te herbou in plaas daarvan om noodsaaklike opleiding te ondergaan om hul “bosoorlog”-leër vir ruwe woestynoorlogvoering voor te berei. ‘n Huiwerige, teensinnige politieke besluit het die onvoorbereide Suid-Afrikaners tot Operasie Crusader verbind. Die onervare Suid-Afrikaners het op 23 November 1941 by Sidi Rezegh teen die geharde Afrika Korps te staan gekom, waar oorweldigende magte hulle verpletter het. ‘n Heroorweging van hierdie vergete veldslag aan die hand van primêre en sekondêre bronne het aan die lig gebring dat die Suid-Afrikaners ‘n hoë tol van die Duitse pantser geëis het, wat besmoontlik die ware keerpunt in Operasie Crusader gebring het. In Mei 1942 het Rommel se Afrika Korps deur ‘n reeks blitsige bewegings wat die greep van die Spilmagte op gekombineerde operasies gedemonstreer het, daarin geslaag om die kritiese hawe van Tobruk, waar die onervare Suid Afrikaanse generaal-majoor H.B. Klopper in bevel was, te isoleer. Sy oorgawe binne ‘n enkele dag word dikwels vergelyk met die vorige beleg van Tobruk toe die Australianers Rommel onder vergelykbare omstandighede vir 244 dae teruggehou het totdat die beleg opgehef is. Klopper se oorgawe het ‘n politieke krisis vir Winston Churchill en Jan Smuts geskep, deurdat dit aansienlike spanning binne sowel die Gealieerde kamp as Suid-Afrika veroorsaak het. Die herevaluering van die gebeure het interessante feite uit die primêre bronne na vore gebring ten opsigte van die toestand van Tobruk se verdedigingstellings, die ongelukkige bevelvoerder, en hoe die Verenigde Koninkryk in samewerking met Suid-Afrika die ware feite wou toesmeer. Die onmiddellike naoorlogse geheuebeeld van die gebeure by Sidi Rezegh en Tobruk is geskep en verwring deur sensitiewe politieke oorwegings wat die verhouding tussen Suid-Afrika en die Verenigde Koninkryk beïnvloed het. Sedertdien het ‘n nasionalistiese Afrikaner-regering en daarna ook die demokraties-verkose, post-apartheid-regering die herinneringe aan Sidi Rezegh en Tobruk tot die vergetelheid verdoem; nie een van die twee het die nut daarvan gesien om dié twee mylpale in die nasionale geheue te verewig nie. Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za

Thesis (DPhil (History))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.<br>ENGLSIH ABSTRACT: This study is a political biography of D.F. Malan (1874–1959), the first of the apartheid-era Prime Ministers, and covers the years 1874 to 1954, when Malan retired from politics. It endeavours to provide a warts-and-all account of D.F. Malan which challenges prevalent myths and stereotypes surrounding his public persona and his political orientation. While the overwhelming focus is on Malan’s political career, special attention is paid to his personal life in order to paint a multi-faceted picture of his character. The biography is written in the form of a seamless narrative and employs a literary style of writing. It is based on archival research which utilised Malan’s private collection, as well as the private collections of his Nationalist contemporaries. Malan takes the centre stage at all times, as the biography focuses on his perceptions and experiences. Malan’s views regarding Afrikaner nationalism, which was his foremost political priority, are described, and are related to his views of British imperialism as well as other ideologies such as communism and totalitarianism. This study demonstrates that there is a notable link between Malan’s perceptions of race relations and his concerns about the poor white problem. It reveals that Malan’s racial policy was, to some extent, fluid, as were his views on South Africa’s constitutional position. Debates about South Africa’s links to Britain and the nature of the envisioned republic preoccupied Afrikaner nationalists throughout the first half of the twentieth century – and served as an outlet for regional and generational tensions within the movement. Malan’s clashes with nationalists such as Tielman Roos, J.B.M. Hertzog and J.G. Strijdom are highlighted as an indication of the internecine power struggles within the National Party (NP). By emphasising these complexities, this study seeks to contribute to a nuanced understanding of the South African past.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie is politieke biografie van D.F. Malan (1874–1959), die eerste van die apartheid-era Eerste Ministers, en dek die jare 1874 tot 1954, toe Malan uit die politiek getree het. Dit poog om onversuikerde beeld van Malan te skets wat heersende mites en stereotipes aangaande sy openbare beeld en sy benadering tot die politiek uitdaag. Die fokus is hoofsaaklik op Malan se politieke loopbaan, maar besondere aandag word aan sy private lewe geskenk om sodoende veelsydige portret van sy karakter te skilder. Die biografie is in die vorm van naatlose narratief geskryf en maak van literêre skryfstyl gebruik. Dit is gebaseer op argivale navorsing, waartydens daar van D.F. Malan se privaat versameling gebruik gemaak is, sowel as die privaat versamelings van sy tydgenote. Malan is ten alle tye die sentrale figuur en die biografie fokus op sy persepsies en ervarings. Malan se denke oor Afrikaner nasionalisme, wat sy vernaamste prioriteit was, word beskryf en in verband gebring met sy opinie van Britse imperialisme, sowel as ander ideologieë soos kommunisme en totalitarisme. Die studie wys op die verband tussen Malan se denke oor rasseverhoudinge en sy besorgdheid oor die armblanke vraagstuk. Dit dui daarop dat Malan se rassebeleid tot sekere mate vloeibaar was. Dit was ook die geval met sy benadering tot Suid-Afrika se konstitusionele posisie. Afrikaner nasionaliste het tydens die eerste helfte van die twintigste eeu baie aandag geskenk aan debatte oor Suid-Afrika se verhouding tot Brittanje en die aard van die voorgenome republiek. Dit was tot mate weerligafleier vir reeds bestaande spanning tussen die onderskeie streke en generasies. Malan se botsings met nasionaliste soos Tielman Roos, J.B.M. Hertzog en J.G. Strijdom word belig as aanduiding van die diepgewortelde magstryd binne die Nasionale Party (NP). Deur op hierdie kompleksiteite klem te lê, poog die studie om bydrae te lewer tot meer genuanseerde begrip van die Suid-Afrikaanse verlede.

The German attack on Poland began on September 1 1939, and triggered the declaration of war on Germany by Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa. Germany and the Soviet Union were agreed on a dual attack on Poland from the West and East, which left Poland unable to defend itself. An important aspect of the war between Germany and the Allies was the war of the oceans. The battles between warships, targets on merchant ships, and the use of submarines in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans continued from 1939 up until Germany's surrender in May 1945 and drew in many Baltic and Scandinavian countries.