Hermann Giliomee: Historian. Hermann Giliomee

1956 a commission chaired by Prof. FR Tomlinson recommended that the state should spend £104 million (about R45 billion today) over the next ten years to develop the homelands. As Minister of Native Affairs, Dr Verwoerd rejected some of the key recommendations and budgeted for a much smaller amount. He also torpedoed a recommendation that white private capital be allowed to facilitate industrial development in these territories. This gave rise to the question that would haunt me later: Was the government really serious about its policy of viable homelands?

      Verwoerd’s clever plans

      And then, in 1958, Verwoerd became prime minister. Within the first year or two he transformed apartheid from unvarnished white supremacy into a coherent ideology of a “commonwealth” that would ultimately consist of a white state or two and a number of prosperous black states. NP followers started believing in this model with growing conviction.

      Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, who arrived at Stellenbosch in 1960 to study theo­logy, would later describe “the excitement, even the thrill” of academics and students in discussing this ideology. The policy, Slabbert added, had “a coherence and systematic quality which cannot be dismissed as racism pure and simple”. It “made logical sense and addressed some very prickly issues”.27 The homelands were still just an abstraction at the time, and, like many of my contemporaries, I initially saw the policy as one that, under a dynamic leader, could open up new possibilities.

      Verwoerd’s policy with regard to coloured people was a huge disappointment. In 1960 he sharply rejected Piet Cillié’s call in Die Burger that coloured MPs be permitted to represent the coloured community in Parliament. Cillié also wrote approvingly of the resolutions of church leaders at the Cottesloe conference which declared that certain aspects of apartheid were incompatible with the demands of the Gospel. Verwoerd reacted critically, however, and at his urging the synods of the various Reformed Churches quickly condemned the Cottesloe resolutions. Cillié later told me: “When Verwoerd cracked the whip, you just saw coat-tails flapping as the ministers took to their heels and disappeared round the corner.”

      My sympathy lay with Cillié, but the majority of the students at Stellenbosch regarded Verwoerd as an infallible political giant. Verwoerd not only impressed NP supporters. Allister Sparks once told me how he had been riveted by Verwoerd when, as a young reporter at the Rand Daily Mail, he sat listening to him explaining his policy in a hotel room.

      In 1964 CW de Kiewiet, the liberal historian whom I would later come to admire above all, wrote in the influential American journal Foreign Affairs that Verwoerd was confronting the country’s grave problems with “boldness, shrewdness and even imagination”, and that it was by no means absurd to suggest a comparison between him and Charles de Gaulle, “the stern, headstrong but deeply imaginative leader of France”. In August 1966 Time magazine featured an article that was highly critical of apartheid yet described Verwoerd as “one of the ablest white leaders Africa has ever produced”.28

      Job hunting

      My studies as a full-time student progressed reasonably successfully. In 1958 I obtained a BA degree with history and Afrikaans as majors. At the end of 1960 I was awarded the honours degree in history with distinction, and the following year I embarked on my master’s thesis. I was very conscious of my limitations, however, which included a poor mastery of English. Having remained a “Kakamasian” through all my years of study, I decided that only drastic measures could resolve the problem. When I heard that Graeme College, an English-medium state school in Grahamstown, was looking for a social studies teacher, I notified the principal of my availability.

      In 1962 I spent a productive year in the major stronghold of the British settlers. My spoken English improved with the help of my colleagues, and that of a music teacher in particular. Socialising with colleagues and with teammates in the Albany rugby team helped me gain a much better understanding of the English community.

      On completion of my MA thesis in mid-1963, I accepted a position as cadet in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pretoria. At the time, apartheid was not yet as discredited as it would be a few years later. De Kiewiet’s article in Foreign Affairs offered the hope that at least in some countries there could be a meaningful debate on South Africa. It was in any case not expected of diplomats to defend apartheid in all its facets but rather the standpoint that peaceful change in the country was possible.

      On 1 July 1964 I started my employment at Foreign Affairs at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. I had the good fortune to work directly under Donald Sole, with whom I had had my job interview in Cape Town. He was one of the most respected persons in the department.

      Eric Louw was still the responsible minister till the end of 1963, and GP Jooste the secretary of the department. Pik Botha, however, roamed the corridors with a furrowed brow in a way that could suggest to the uninformed that all of South Africa’s diplomatic burdens rested on his shoulders, which in due course would indeed be the case. At that stage he was chief law adviser charged with the coordination of South Africa’s defence at the International Court of Justice against the claim that the country had violated its mandate over South West Africa (now Namibia).

      After just over a year in the Department of Foreign Affairs, I abandoned the idea of a career in the diplomatic service and became a history lecturer at the University of South Africa (Unisa). There were certainly people such as Neil van Heerden, a colleague in the department, who would continue to serve the country and the cause of reform with great distinction, but my heart was not in a career of that nature.

      Instead of trying to influence international opinion-makers, I wanted to lecture and to participate in the debate in Afrikaner ranks about apartheid and an alternative form of survival. I was itching to delve much deeper into issues than I had been able to do in the short pieces I wrote as part of my responsibilities as a cadet. I also resolved to embark on a doctorate in history as soon as possible.

      The Pretoria of the mid-1960s was an ideal city for young graduates, who lived in large numbers in Arcadia and Sunnyside and worked for the state, for parastatals or for professional firms. I threw myself wholeheartedly into the rugby world and played for a season for the Pretoria Rugby Club’s first team in the formidable Carlton league.

      In Pretoria I met Annette van Coller. She would qualify as an architect at the University of the Free State shortly after our marriage, and had started working at an architectural firm in Pretoria in 1963. Our family backgrounds were very similar: our paternal grandfathers had both fought in the Anglo-­Boer War, our parents were all teachers at Afrikaans schools, and she and I both identified with the Afrikaner volksbeweging. For me, she was the ideal partner from the outset. Today, fifty years later, she is still my greatest source of inspiration, strength and encouragement.

      We were married on 3 April 1965 in the Pretoria East Dutch Reformed church, which is adjacent to the Loftus Versfeld Stadium. The date coincided with the start of the rugby season. I knew that if I failed to take the field for the Pretoria Club team at Loftus at 15h00 on that day, I would lose my place in the first team. The marriage service was due to start at 17h30, and I contemplated combining a rugby match and a marriage ceremony in one afternoon. My mother considered it highly irresponsible, and I had to drop the plan. This was also the end of my rugby career, which would in any case not have reached great heights.

      In 1966 I took a year’s leave from Unisa to pursue postgraduate studies in history in the Netherlands. Annette and I spent an unforgettable year in Amsterdam. At the University of Amsterdam I completed a course that focused on Hitler’s assumption of power, but the other courses dealt with themes such as “The Medieval Diary”, which held no appeal for me. There was a lively group of South African students in Amsterdam who met once a month for a sociable “koffietafel”.

      One day, out of the blue, I received a letter from Prof. Dirk Kotzé, professor in general history at the University of Stellenbosch, asking me to apply for a vacant post in the department. My application was successful, and I started at the beginning of the 1967 academic year. I was back at the “university with attitude” and in the town of Stellenbosch. Francine, our elder daughter, was born in that year, and Adrienne about three years later. They have continued to give us great joy in our lives.

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