Hendrik Verwoerd
 Hendrik Verwoerd    (politician, professor++++++++++++++++, newspaper editor) | |
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| Born | Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd 8 September 1901 |
| Died | 6 September 1966 (Age 64) |
| Alma mater | University of Leipzig, University of Berlin, University of Hamburg, University of Stellenbosch |
| Party | SA/National Party |
Verwoerd nicknamed the "father of apartheid" | |
Hendrik Verwoerd was a Dutch-born South African politician, scholar, and newspaper editor who was Prime Minister of South Africa and is commonly regarded as the architect of apartheid. Verwoerd played a significant role in socially engineering apartheid, the country's system of institutionalised racial segregation and white supremacy, and implementing its policies, as Minister of Native Affairs (1950–1958) and then as prime minister (1958–1966). Furthermore, Verwoerd played a vital role in helping the far-right SA/National Party come to power in 1948, serving as their political strategist and propagandist, becoming party leader upon his premiership. He was the Union of South Africa's last prime minister, from 1958 to 1961, when he proclaimed the founding of the Republic of South Africa, remaining its prime minister until his assassination in 1966.
Verwoerd was an authoritarian, socially conservative leader and an Afrikaner nationalist. He was a member of the Afrikaner Broederbond (Afrikaans: Brotherhood), a secret white and Calvinist organisation dedicated to advancing the Afrikaner "volk" interests, and protested against South Africa's declaration of war on Germany during World War II. Following the Nationalist electoral victory in 1948, Verwoerd assumed high positions in the government and wielded strong influence over South African society.
Verwoerd became prime minister in 1958. His desire to ensure white, and especially Afrikaner dominance in South Africa, to the exclusion of the nonwhite majority, was a major aspect of his support for a republic. When attempting to justify apartheid to international audiences, he branded it as a policy of "good-neighbourliness", stating that as different races and cultures have different beliefs and values, they could only reach their full potential if they lived and developed apart from each other. He stated that the white minority had to be protected from the nonwhite majority by pursuing a "policy of separate development" and keeping power in the hands of whites. Apartheid saw the complete disfranchisement of the nonwhite population.
Verwoerd heavily repressed opposition to apartheid during his premiership. He ordered the detention and imprisonment of tens of thousands of people and the exile of further thousands, while at the same time greatly empowering, modernising, and enlarging the white apartheid state's security forces (police and military). He banned black organizations such as the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress, and it was under him that future president Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for life for sabotage. Verwoerd's South Africa had one of the highest prison populations in the world and saw a large number of executions and floggings. By the mid-1960s Verwoerd's government to a large degree had put down internal civil resistance to apartheid by employing extraordinary legislative power, draconian laws, psychological intimidation, and the relentless efforts of the white state's security apparatus.
Although apartheid began in 1948 with D. F. Malan's premiership, Verwoerd's role in expanding and legally entrenching the system, including his theoretical justifications and opposition to the limited form of integration known as baasskap, have led him to be described as the "Architect of Apartheid". His actions prompted the passing of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1761 of 6 November 1962, condemning apartheid, and ultimately leading to South Africa's international isolation and economic sanctions.
On 6 September 1966, Hendrik Verwoerd was stabbed several times by parliamentary aide Dimitri Tsafendas. He died shortly after, and Tsafendas was jailed until his death in 1999.
References
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