Oswald Pirow
Encyclopedia
Oswald Pirow was a South Africa
n lawyer and far right
politician, who held office as minister of Justice and Defence.
immigrants, he was educated at Potchefstroom, Transvaal, before continuing his education in Germany and England
. He was called to the bar by the Inner Temple
in 1913, then practised law in Pretoria
, becoming a King's Counsel in 1925. He married Else Piel in 1919, the marriage producing two sons and two daughters. During this time Pirow was a keen sportsman and was a champion at the javelin throw
, whilst also excelling at boxing
, wrestling
, fencing
, sprinting, swimming
, horsemanship and big game hunting
.
, an important figure in Transvaal and became a member of James Barry Munnik Hertzog
's National Party
being elected to parliament
for Zoutpansberg
in 1924
. He was eliminated in 1929
however after running against Jan Smuts
in Standerton
. However, despite this he was appointed to the Cabinet as Minister of Justice in place of Roos, who stood down, initially as a nominated senator. He won a by-election
in October 1929 in Gezina however to confirm things and continued to represent the seat until 1943.
Pirow advocated the merger of the National Party to the South African Party and became a leading member of their new government, forming Hertzog's 'inner cabinet' alongside Smuts and N.C. Havenga. Aviation
had been an early hobby of Pirow's and thus was to influence his work as a cabinet minister. His role in the cabinet also included responsibility for railways and harbours and from this basis he founded South African Airways
and furnished it with Junkers aircraft. For Pirow, a strong advocate of both republicanism
and a greatly increased role for South Africa in Africa
as a whole, the foundation of the national airline was an important step in making the country more powerful.
A vehement anti-communist (indeed, when running in Gezina in 1929 Pirow vowed to legislate communism
out of existence), Pirow became an admirer of Adolf Hitler
after meeting him in 1933. He toured Europe in 1938 and claimed to offer Hitler a free role in Eastern Europe in return for allowing the Jews to leave Germany. During this tour he also met Benito Mussolini
, António de Oliveira Salazar
and Francisco Franco
and became convinced that a European war was imminent, with Nazi victory assured. Pirow's Germanophilia was such that the family spoke only German
at home and his daughter Else even caused a minor controversy in Britain in June 1939 when she told the Daily Express
that the Pirows felt more German than South African.
Pirow supported Hertzog's calls for neutrality
when war did arrive and followed his leader in to the new Herenigde Nasionale Party
(HNP). By September 1940 he had launched his own New Order group within the HNP, backing a Nazi style dictatorship
. This group took its name from his 1940 New Order in South Africa pamphlet in which he embraced the ideology. The pamphlet ran through seven editions in its first year of existence.
Daniel François Malan
initially tolerated the actions of the New Order but soon came to see it as a divisive influence on the HNP and at the Transvaal
party congress of August 1941 he forced through a motion ending the group's propaganda
activities, particularly their insistence on a one-party state. Pirow and 17 of his supporters in Parliament reconstituted as the New Order on 16 August, although they continued to be associated with the HNP and attend their caucus meetings. The group finally broke from the HNP altogether in 1942 after both Malan and Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom
openly rejected the Nazis. Pirow did not run in the 1943 election
although a number of New Order candidates did and they were all heavily defeated. Although Pirow continued to publish a newsletter until 1958 his political career was effectively over, leaving him to return to legal practice.
Having been removed from the political scene, largely by Malan's influence, Pirow became a friend of Oswald Mosley
and with him developed an idea for the division of Africa into exclusively black and white areas. The two met after Pirow read a copy of Mosley's book The Alternative and by 1947 they were in discussion over founding an anti-communist
group to be known as the "enemies of the Soviet Union
" (although this plan never reached fruition). The two co-operated during the early 1950s, with Pirow writing articles for the Union Movement
journals Union and The European, some of which were reprinted in German magazine Nation Europa
. By 1953 however Pirow had lost interest in Mosley due to his lack of real influence and instead began to co-operate with A. F. X. Baron
's NATINFORM, which was largely hostile towards Mosley.
Pirow acted as a prosecutor for a time during the Treason Trial
of 1956. Despite his Nazi past some admiration for him grew amongst the African National Congress
defendants, with Nelson Mandela
being said to have 'developed a certain affection' for him, largely due to his politeness in referring to the accused as 'Africans'.
Following the trial Pirow largely lived in retirement, publishing several books on wildlife and adventure books for boys. He died of heart failure. He was cremated and his ashes are kept at his Valhalla Farm residence near Pilgrim's Rest
.
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n lawyer and far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
politician, who held office as minister of Justice and Defence.
Early life
The son of GermanGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
immigrants, he was educated at Potchefstroom, Transvaal, before continuing his education in Germany and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. He was called to the bar by the Inner Temple
Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
in 1913, then practised law in Pretoria
Pretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
, becoming a King's Counsel in 1925. He married Else Piel in 1919, the marriage producing two sons and two daughters. During this time Pirow was a keen sportsman and was a champion at the javelin throw
Javelin throw
The javelin throw is a track and field athletics throwing event where the object to be thrown is the javelin, a spear approximately 2.5 metres in length. Javelin is an event of both the men's decathlon and the women's heptathlon...
, whilst also excelling at boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
, wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...
, fencing
Fencing
Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...
, sprinting, swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
, horsemanship and big game hunting
Big game hunting
Big game hunting is the hunting of large game. The term is historically associated with the hunting of Africa's Big Five game , and with tigers and rhinos on the Indian subcontinent. In North America, animals such as bears and bison were hunted...
.
Move into politics
Pirow came under the influence of Tielman RoosTielman Roos
Tielman Johannes de Villiers Roos was a right wing South African politician and sometime Cabinet minister.-Labour politics:...
, an important figure in Transvaal and became a member of James Barry Munnik Hertzog
James Barry Munnik Hertzog
James Barry Munnik Hertzog, better known as J. B. M. Hertzog was a Boer general during the second Anglo-Boer War who later went on to become Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1924 to 1939...
's National Party
National Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
being elected to parliament
Parliament of South Africa
The Parliament of South Africa is South Africa's legislature and under the country's current Constitution is composed of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces....
for Zoutpansberg
Zoutpansberg
Zoutpansberg was the north-eastern division of the Transvaal, South Africa. This was the district to which Louis Tregardt and Jan van Rensburg, the forerunners of the Great Trek, journeyed in 1835. In 1845 Hendrik Potgieter, a prominent leader of the Voortrekkers, moved there...
in 1924
South African general election, 1924
The 1924 South African general election was a realigning election in the Union of South Africa's House of Assembly held on June 19, 1924 to elect 135 members...
. He was eliminated in 1929
South African general election, 1929
In the 1929 South African general election, held on 14 June of that year, the National Party under James Barry Munnik Hertzog won an outright majority in tne House of Assembly. Hertzog had the opportunity to form a government without the aid of the Labour Party. In fact the Pact government...
however after running against Jan Smuts
Jan Smuts
Jan Christiaan Smuts, OM, CH, ED, KC, FRS, PC was a prominent South African and British Commonwealth statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various cabinet posts, he served as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924 and from 1939 until 1948...
in Standerton
Standerton
Standerton is a large commercial and agricultural town lying on the banks of the Vaal River in Mpumalanga, South Africa which specialises in cattle, dairy, maize and poultry farming. The town was established in 1876 and named after Boer leader Commadant AH Stander. During the Second Boer War a...
. However, despite this he was appointed to the Cabinet as Minister of Justice in place of Roos, who stood down, initially as a nominated senator. He won a by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
in October 1929 in Gezina however to confirm things and continued to represent the seat until 1943.
Pirow advocated the merger of the National Party to the South African Party and became a leading member of their new government, forming Hertzog's 'inner cabinet' alongside Smuts and N.C. Havenga. Aviation
Aviation
Aviation is the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft, especially heavier-than-air aircraft. Aviation is derived from avis, the Latin word for bird.-History:...
had been an early hobby of Pirow's and thus was to influence his work as a cabinet minister. His role in the cabinet also included responsibility for railways and harbours and from this basis he founded South African Airways
South African Airways
South African Airways is the national flag carrier and largest airline of South Africa, with headquarters in Airways Park on the grounds of OR Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park, Ekurhuleni, Gauteng. The airline flies to 36 destinations worldwide from its hub at OR Tambo International...
and furnished it with Junkers aircraft. For Pirow, a strong advocate of both republicanism
Republicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
and a greatly increased role for South Africa in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
as a whole, the foundation of the national airline was an important step in making the country more powerful.
Nazism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
out of existence), Pirow became an admirer of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
after meeting him in 1933. He toured Europe in 1938 and claimed to offer Hitler a free role in Eastern Europe in return for allowing the Jews to leave Germany. During this tour he also met Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
, António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...
and Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
and became convinced that a European war was imminent, with Nazi victory assured. Pirow's Germanophilia was such that the family spoke only German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
at home and his daughter Else even caused a minor controversy in Britain in June 1939 when she told the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
that the Pirows felt more German than South African.
Pirow supported Hertzog's calls for neutrality
Neutrality (international relations)
A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...
when war did arrive and followed his leader in to the new Herenigde Nasionale Party
Herenigde Nasionale Party
The Herenigde Nasionale Party was a political party in South Africa during the 1940s. It was the product of the reunion of Daniel François Malan's Gesuiwerde Nasionale Party and J.B.M. Hertzog's breakaway Afrikaner nationalist faction of the United Party in 1940.In 1934, J.B.M...
(HNP). By September 1940 he had launched his own New Order group within the HNP, backing a Nazi style dictatorship
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...
. This group took its name from his 1940 New Order in South Africa pamphlet in which he embraced the ideology. The pamphlet ran through seven editions in its first year of existence.
Daniel François Malan
Daniel François Malan
Daniel François Malan , more commonly known as D.F. Malan, was the Prime Minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954. He is seen as a champion of Afrikaner nationalism. His National Party government came to power on the program of apartheid and began its comprehensive implementation.- Biography...
initially tolerated the actions of the New Order but soon came to see it as a divisive influence on the HNP and at the Transvaal
Transvaal Province
Transvaal Province was a province of the Union of South Africa from 1910 to 1961, and of its successor, the Republic of South Africa, from 1961 until the end of apartheid in 1994 when a new constitution subdivided it.-History:...
party congress of August 1941 he forced through a motion ending the group's propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
activities, particularly their insistence on a one-party state. Pirow and 17 of his supporters in Parliament reconstituted as the New Order on 16 August, although they continued to be associated with the HNP and attend their caucus meetings. The group finally broke from the HNP altogether in 1942 after both Malan and Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom
Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom
Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom, commonly called JG Strydom or Hans Strydom , nicknamed the Lion of the North, was Prime Minister of South Africa from 30 November 1954 to 24 August 1958...
openly rejected the Nazis. Pirow did not run in the 1943 election
South African general election, 1943
The 1943 South African general election was held for the 152 seats in the parliament of the Union of South Africa. The United Party of Jan Smuts won an absolute majority over its opponents in the House of Assembly....
although a number of New Order candidates did and they were all heavily defeated. Although Pirow continued to publish a newsletter until 1958 his political career was effectively over, leaving him to return to legal practice.
Final years
Pirow was counsel for the defence of Dr Ernst Jokl and others when they were sued in the F. M. Alexander libel case in South Africa in 1944-1948, which Alexander won.Having been removed from the political scene, largely by Malan's influence, Pirow became a friend of Oswald Mosley
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
and with him developed an idea for the division of Africa into exclusively black and white areas. The two met after Pirow read a copy of Mosley's book The Alternative and by 1947 they were in discussion over founding an anti-communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
group to be known as the "enemies of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
" (although this plan never reached fruition). The two co-operated during the early 1950s, with Pirow writing articles for the Union Movement
Union Movement
The Union Movement was a right-wing political party founded in Britain by Oswald Mosley. Where Mosley had previously been associated with a peculiarly British form of fascism, the Union Movement attempted to redefine the concept by stressing the importance of developing a European nationalism...
journals Union and The European, some of which were reprinted in German magazine Nation Europa
Nation Europa
Nation Europa is a monthly magazine, published in Germany, that was originally established in support of Pan-European nationalism...
. By 1953 however Pirow had lost interest in Mosley due to his lack of real influence and instead began to co-operate with A. F. X. Baron
A. F. X. Baron
Anthony Francis Xavier Baron was a British far-right political figure in the 1940s and 1950s who founded and headed the English branch of the Nationalist Information Bureau ....
's NATINFORM, which was largely hostile towards Mosley.
Pirow acted as a prosecutor for a time during the Treason Trial
Treason Trial
The Treason Trial was a trial in which 156 people, including Nelson Mandela, were arrested in a raid and accused of treason in South Africa in 1956....
of 1956. Despite his Nazi past some admiration for him grew amongst the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
defendants, with Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
being said to have 'developed a certain affection' for him, largely due to his politeness in referring to the accused as 'Africans'.
Following the trial Pirow largely lived in retirement, publishing several books on wildlife and adventure books for boys. He died of heart failure. He was cremated and his ashes are kept at his Valhalla Farm residence near Pilgrim's Rest
Pilgrim's Rest
Pilgrim’s Rest is a small town in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa which has been declared a national monument. After it was officially declared a gold field in September 1873, it suddenly grew to 1,500 inhabitants searching for alluvial gold. Towards the end of the 19th century claims were...
.