Editing History of South Africa (section)

===Second World War===
{{Main|Military history of South Africa during World War II}}
During [[World War II]], South Africa's ports and harbours, such as at [[Cape Town]], [[Durban]], and [[Simon's Town]], were important strategic assets to the British [[Royal Navy]]. South Africa's top-secret Special Signals Service played a significant role in the early development and deployment of [[radio detection and ranging]] (radar) technology used in protecting the vital coastal shipping route around southern Africa.<ref>South African Military History Society, [http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol112ml.html "The Special Signals Service"], ''Military History Journal'', Vol 11 No 2, December 1998. Accessed 30 July 2015</ref> By August 1945, South African Air Force aircraft in conjunction with British and Dutch aircraft stationed in South Africa had intercepted 17 enemy ships, assisted in the rescue of 437 survivors of sunken ships, attacked 26 of the 36 enemy submarines operating the vicinity of the South African coast, and flown 15,000 coastal patrol sorties.<ref>Andre Wessels, ''South African Military History Journal'', Vol. 11 No. 5, June 2000, South African Military History Society.</ref><ref name="John Keene 1995">{{cite book|author=John Keene|title=South Africa in World War II|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_iN6AAAAIAAJ|year=1995|publisher=Human & Rousseau|isbn=978-0-7981-3388-3}}</ref>[[File:Simonstown Harbour.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Simon's Town harbour and naval base in South Africa were used by the Allies during World War II.]]

About 334,000 South Africans volunteered for full-time military service in support of the Allies abroad. Nearly 9,000 were killed in action.<ref>Commonwealth War Graves Commission [http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx?cpage=1 War dead]. Accessed 11 August 2015</ref> On 21 June 1942 nearly 10,000 South African soldiers, representing one-third of the entire South African force in the field, were taken prisoner by German Field Marshal [[Rommel]]'s forces in the fall of [[Tobruk]], Libya.<ref>Neil Orpen, ''South African Forces in World War II'' (3 vols.), Cape Town: Purnell 1971, Vol. II ''War in the Desert''.</ref> A number of South African fighter pilots served with distinction in the Royal Air Force during the [[Battle of Britain]], including Group Captain Adolph "Sailor" Malan who led 74 Squadron and established a record of personally destroying 27 enemy aircraft.<ref>Alfred Price, ''Spitfire Mark V Aces, 1941–45''. Oxford: Osprey Publishing 1997, p. 65. {{ISBN|978-1-85532-635-4}}.</ref>

General Jan Smuts was the only important non-British general whose advice was constantly sought by Britain's war-time Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2015}} Smuts was invited to the [[Imperial War Cabinet]] in 1939 as the most senior South African in favour of war. On 28 May 1941, Smuts was appointed a Field Marshal of the [[British Army]], becoming the first South African to hold that rank. When the war ended, Smuts represented South Africa in San Francisco at the drafting of the [[United Nations Charter]] in May 1945. Just as he had done in 1919, Smuts urged the delegates to create a powerful international body to preserve peace; he was determined that, unlike the [[League of Nations]], the UN would have teeth. Smuts also signed the [[Paris Peace Treaty]], resolving the peace in Europe, thus becoming the only signatory of both the treaty ending the First World War, and that which ended the Second.<ref name="John Keene 1995"/>

====Pro-German and pro-Nazi attitudes====
After the suppression of the abortive, pro-German [[Maritz Rebellion]] during the South African World War I campaign against German [[South West Africa]] in 1914, the South African rebel General [[Manie Maritz]] escaped to Spain.<ref>Denys Reitz, ''Adrift on the Open Veld: The Anglo–Boer War and its Aftermath'', Cape Town: Stormberg 1999, p.227, {{ISBN|0-620-24380-5}}</ref> He returned in 1923, and continued working in the Union of South Africa as a German Spy for the Third Reich.

In 1896, the German Kaiser [[Wilhelm II, German Emperor|Kaiser Wilhelm]] had enraged Britain by sending congratulations to Boer republican leader [[Paul Kruger]] after Kruger's commandos captured a column of British South Africa Company soldiers engaged in an armed incursion and abortive insurrection, known historically as the [[Jameson Raid]], into Boer territory. Germany was the primary supplier of weapons to the Boers during the subsequent [[Second Boer War|Anglo–Boer war]]. Kaiser Wilhelm's government arranged for the two [[Boer Republics]] to purchase modern [[breech-loading weapon|breech-loading]] [[Mauser rifles]] and millions of smokeless gunpowder cartridges. Germany's Ludwig Loewe company, later known as Deutsche Waffen-und Munitionfabriken, delivered 55,000 of these rifles to the Boers in 1896.<ref>Paul Scarlata, [http://www.shootingtimes.com/long-guns/longgun_reviews_st_boermodel_201007/ The 1893/95 "Boer Model" Mauser]. Accessed 21 May 2015</ref>

The early-1940s saw the pro-Nazi ''[[Ossewabrandwag|Ossewa Brandwag]]'' (OB) movement become half-a-million strong, including future prime minister [[B. J. Vorster|John Vorster]] and Hendrik van den Bergh, the future head of police intelligence.<ref>Angelo del Boca & Mario Giovana, ''Fascism Today: A World Survey''. New York: Pantheon Books. {{ISBN|0-434-18040-8}}. p. 382</ref> The anti-semitic ''Boerenasie'' (Boer Nation) and other similar groups soon joined them.<ref>Del Boca & Giovana (1969) p.382</ref> When the war ended, the OB was one of the anti-parliamentary groups absorbed into the [[National Party (South Africa)|National Party]].<ref>Del Boca & Giovana (1969), pp. 381–83</ref><ref>Ivor Wilkins & Hans Strydom, ''Broederbond: The super-Afrikaners'', London: Corgi, 1980, pp.1–2, {{ISBN|0-552-11512-6}}</ref>

The South African ''[[Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging]]'' or AWB (meaning Afrikaner Resistance Movement), a militant neo-Nazi, mainly Afrikaner white supremacist movement that arose in the 1970s, and was active until the mid-1990s, openly used a flag that closely resembled the swastika.<ref>Anti-defamation League, [http://www.adl.org/combating-hate/hate-on-display/c/triskele.html Hate on Display], Accessed 25 April 2015</ref><ref>[[:File:Afrikaner Weerstandsbewegung flag.svg|AWB neo-Nazi insignia]]</ref> In the early to mid-1990s, the AWB attempted unsuccessfully through various acts of public violence and intimidation to derail the country's transition to democracy. After the country's first multiracial democratic elections in 1994, a number of terrorist bomb blasts were linked to the AWB.<ref>''Mail & Guardian'', [http://mg.co.za/article/1997-01-10-new-bomb-blast-links-to-awb "New bomb blasts link to AWB"] 10 January 1997. Accessed 14 May 2015.</ref> On 11 March 1994, several hundred AWB members formed part of an armed right-wing force that invaded the nominally independent "homeland" territory of [[Bophuthatswana]], in a failed attempt to prop up its unpopular, conservative leader Chief Lucas Mangope.<ref>Nelson Mandela Foundation, [https://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/cis/omalley/OMalleyWeb/03lv02424/04lv03275/05lv03279/06lv03282.htm ''Mandela: 'A lesson they will never forget' '']. Accessed 29 May 2015</ref> The AWB leader [[Eugène Terre'Blanche]] was murdered by farm workers on 3 April 2010.

A majority of politically moderate Afrikaners were pragmatic and did not support the AWB's extremism.<ref>[http://sun025.sun.ac.za/portal/page/portal/Arts/Departemente1/geskiedenis/docs/coming_to_terms_with_past_present.pdf Wessel Visser, ''Coming to terms with the past and the present: Afrikaner experience and reaction to the "new" South Africa''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304191439/http://sun025.sun.ac.za/portal/page/portal/Arts/Departemente1/geskiedenis/docs/coming_to_terms_with_past_present.pdf |date=4 March 2016 }}, (Seminar lecture presented at the Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen, 30 September 2004), p.2. Accessed 3 May 2015.</ref>

[[File:The Union of South Africa, Its Land and Its People (1956), Encyclopedia Britannica Films, Inc..webm|thumb|''Encyclopedia Britannica'' documentary about South Africa from 1956]]