The King's Afrikaners? Enlistment And Ethnic Identity in the Union of South Africa's Defence Force During the Second World War, 1939–45

Abstract

In contrast to the situation in Commonwealth countries such as Canada and Australia, South Africa's participation in the Second World War has not been accorded a particularly significant place in the country's historiography. In part at least, this is the result of historiographical traditions which, although divergent in many ways, have a common denominator in that their various compelling imperatives have despatched the Second World War to the periphery of their respective scholarly discourses.Afrikaner historians have concentrated on wars on their ‘own’ soil – the South African War of 1899–1902 in particular – and beyond that through detailed analyses of white politics have been at pains to demonstrate the inexorable march of Afrikanerdom to power. The Second World War only featured insofar as it related to internal Afrikaner political developments. Neither was the war per se of much concern to English-speaking academic historians, either of the so-called liberal or radical persuasion. For more than two decades, the interests of English-speaking professional historians have been dominated by issues of race and class, social structure, consciousness and the social effects of capitalism. While the South African War did receive some attention in terms of capitalist imperialist expansion, the Second World War was left mostly to historians of the ‘drum-and-trumpet’ variety. In general, the First and Second World Wars did not appear a likely context in which to investigate wider societal issues in South Africa.

Literary imaginings: Personal narratives and the ‘Springbok Tale’?

“…This is what Albert Grundlingh referred to as 'the touristic potential of the war'. 19 During the Second World War Springbok volunteers served in campaigns fought somewhere else. This somewhere else was firstly in East Africa and Abyssinia, then in North Africa and Palestine, and finally Italy, before repatriation for some through the United Kingdom, for others through the Middle East, and for a few through Odessa and the Black Sea.…”

The Springbok and the Skunk: War Veterans and the Politics of Whiteness in South Africa during the 1940s and 1950s

“…concentrates on the social history of white servicemen, it goes without saying that other volunteer categories played an important role in the war effort, and in the social and political processes under discussion. 18 Nevertheless, Director of Military Intelligence, E.G. Malherbe, estimated that 50 to 70 per cent of male volunteers were Afrikaans-speakers, 19 most drawn from the poorer sections of white society.…”

Alien Springboks: Foreign Volunteers in South Africa’s Union Defence Force, 1940–1945

“…Grundlingh explains that in the South African historiography, the two world wars were often relegated to the periphery of scholarship, usually by Afrikaner historians who concentrated on 'wars on their own soil', such as the Anglo-Boer War. 28 As indicated above, Stapleton produced an interesting study on the 'extraterritorial forces' of Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and how they were utilised as the 'coercive power' to control the British colony. Bolliger 29 also recently examined an interesting case of black Namibians who served on the side of apartheid South Africa during the Namibian struggle for independence.…”