South African Anti-Fascism and the Nazi Foreign Office: Antisemitism, Anti-communism and the Surveillance of the Third Reich’s International Enemies

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article offers a new analysis of how the Third Reich’s Foreign Office reported on anti-fascist activities in the Union of South Africa during the 1930s. Based on letters, dispatches and reports written by the German legation and official German representatives in South Africa, the article reveals and discusses how Nazi officials followed and reacted to anti-fascist activity in South Africa. The article demonstrates how the German legation perceived anti-fascist movements and analysed them as a part of a rising global anti-German sentiment, Jewish activism, and ‘international bolshevism’. South African anti-fascism reveals itself also as a direct concern for the official bilateral relations between South Africa and Nazi Germany during the 1930s. Germany was intensely concerned with South African public opinion when it came to protests against German Nazism, international fascism and local fascist groups in South Africa. The article thus offers to expand our understanding of South Africa’s place in the global struggle between anti-fascism and fascism and discusses the ways in which anti-fascism was delegitimised. Furthermore, it shows how German clubs, offices, ships and consulates became important sites of protest and targets of anti-fascist activities and boycotts.