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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 September 2012
Well into their rule, at a time when South Africa was increasingly perceived as a police state, the Nationalists, the party of apartheid, depended for the implementation of their policies on structures and personnel inherited from previous governments. Even in the South African Police, the institution most associated with the country's authoritarian reputation, key developments of the early apartheid decades originated in and cannot properly be understood without reference to the preceding period. A legacy of conflict between pro- and anti-war white policemen after 1939 was particularly significant. Concentrating on the careers and views of illustrative officers, notably members of the Special Branch, rather than on ‘the police’ in abstraction, this article analyses the complexities and continuities in the South African state's handling of domestic dissent in the years before and after the apartheid election of 1948.
I thank Max Bolt, Saul Dubow, Tom McCaskie, Isaac Ndlovu, Insa Nolte, Benedetta Rossi, Kate Skinner, Paul Ugor, and the Journal of African History's reviewers for their readings of earlier versions of this article. Piet Swanepoel kindly emailed responses to the many questions I put to him.
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37 TNA Records of the Security Service (KV) 3/10, ‘Appendix’, 5.
38 Interview with R. de Villiers, Cape Town, 18 Nov. 1994; R. de Villiers, responses to follow-up written questions, 28 Oct. 1995.
39 Interview with Pattle.
40 D'Oliveira, Vorster, 140; The Nongqai, 40:10 (1949), 1,371; The Nongqai, 40:11 (1949), 1,491.
41 Pensions (Supplementary) Act, No. 32 of 1950, Schedule, Section 1; D'Oliveira, Vorster, 140; The Nongqai, 41:5 (1950), 633; interview with Pattle.
42 D'Oliveira, Vorster, 84–7 and 140.
43 CAD JUS 1/49/39, CCO to SJ, 9 Oct. 1942, encl. H. J. van den Bergh et al. to Minister of Justice (MJ), 21 Sept. 1942.
44 Ibid. Baston to SJ, 21 Oct. 1942.
45 Dippenaar, The History, 160 and 258.
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47 CAD K80, 28 Apr. 1937, U. R. Boberg, 7,663.
48 Ibid. 15 Apr. 1937, J. T. Clarke, 6,839.
49 CAD Archives of the South African Police (SAP) 9/6/46, Palmer to Secretary, Public Service Commission (PSC), 21 Jan. 1947.
50 Fedorowich, ‘German’, 219.
51 TNA KV 3/10, ‘Southern Africa’, 24 (footnote), 66 and ‘Appendix’, 5; J. S. Chavkin, ‘British intelligence and the Zionist, South African, and Australian intelligence communities during and after the Second World War’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2009), 203–4.
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53 D'Oliveira, Vorster, 64.
54 Dippenaar, The History, 163.
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56 TNA KV 3/10, ‘Southern Africa’, 71 (capitals in original).
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58 Strydom, For Volk, 231.
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61 P. C. Swanepoel, ‘The South African Police during and after the Second World War’ (unpublished document emailed by Swanepoel to author, 23 Apr. 2011).
62 TNA KV 3/10, ‘Southern Africa’, 77; The Nongqai, 35:8 (1944), 943.
63 De Villiers, responses; Strydom, For Volk, 264.
64 Visser, OB, 107–8; Dippenaar, The History, 258.
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66 Interview with Marais and McLennan.
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70 CAD SAP 9/6/46, Palmer to Secretary, PSC, 21 Jan. 1947; Visser, OB, 176.
71 CAD SAP 9/6/46, Palmer to Secretary, PSC, 21 Jan. 1947.
72 CAD SAP 9/15/50, Palmer to MJ, 26 Oct. 1950.
73 Ibid.; Swanepoel, ‘The South African Police’; Chavkin, ‘British’, 227–44; Dippenaar, The History, 209–11.
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76 Visser, OB, 133.
77 SAPS Museum 1/4/1/49, Verklaring van Luitenant-Generaal H. J. du Plooy, 5 Feb. 1968.
78 Ibid.
79 Chavkin, ‘British’, 238, citing Minute by Baring, 6 Dec. 1949.
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90 The Nongqai, 40:9 (1949), 1,241.
92 CAD SAP 2/85/40, F. J. Verster to Compol, 15 Aug. 1940, encl. ‘“On Service” Badges: Members of the Criminal Investigation Branch: List of Members Who Took New Oath’.
93 CAD JUS 1/49/39: Coetzee to SJ, 24 Jan. 1942, encl. lists of detainees’ names; CCO to SJ, 9 Oct. 1942, encl. H. J. van den Bergh et al. to MJ, 21 Sept. 1942.
94 Ibid. Baston to SJ, 21 Oct. 1942.
95 Act No. 32 of 1950, Schedule, Section 1, showing A. C. Spengler's service resumed on 31 July 1949.
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99 See tables for authorised establishments in CAD SAP 9/19/60, kindly copied for me by Fred Kooijmans.
100 ‘Country Internal Defense Plan’, encl. in A-278, J. C. Satterthwaite, American Embassy, Pretoria, to Department of State, Washington, 18 Dec. 1962, reproduced in Declassified Documents Reference System (Farmington Hills, 2011).
101 Swanepoel e-mail to author, 28 Aug. 2011.
