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B. J. Vorster

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B. J. Vorster
  • Birth Name:
    Balthazar Johannes Vorster
  • Date of Birth:
    December 13, 1915
  • Zodiac Sign:
    Sagittarius
  • Place of Birth:
    Eastern Province, South Africa
  • Date of Death:
    September 10, 1983
  • Sex:
    Male
  • Nationality:
    South African

Family

B. J. Vorster

    Career

    B. J. Vorster

    Trivia

    B. J. Vorster
    • In a snap election held in April 1970, the Reconstituted National party (as the Verkramptes called the party they formed) was thoroughly trounced.
    • For two stormy years, from 1967 until late in 1969, Vorster attempted to hold the party together, but finally his patience and that of his key lieutenants was exhausted, and the Verkramptes (including four Nationalist members of Parliament) were flushed out of the party.
    • The outbreak of war in September 1939 saw Vorster's first serious involvement in national politics.The decision of the South African Parliament to enter war on the side of the Allied Powers bitterly alienated Afrikaner nationalists, who resented South Africa's alliance with their ancient foe, England. Many nationalists, more out of an anti-English feeling than a positively pro-Nazi spirit, fervently hoped for a German victory.
    • Vorster channeled his activities into an organization called the Ossewabrandwag (literally, "Ox-wagon Sentinel"), which had been founded in 1938 to perpetuate the spirit engendered by the celebration in that year of the centenary of the Great Trek.
    • Under the führer-type leadership of J. F. van Rensburg, the Ossewabrandwag became an extremist neo-Nazi organization that did its best to hamstring the South African war effort.
    • Although Vorster himself claimed not to have participated, many acts of sabotage and violence committed in the country during the war were attributed to the Ossewabrandwag.
    • Rising rapidly in the organization, which was run on paramilitary lines, Vorster reached the rank of general.
    • In one statement made in those times he identified himself with "Christian Nationalism," which he described as the South African equivalent to National Socialism.
    • Vorster's brother, J. D. Vorster, a Dutch Reformed Church clergyman, also leaned heavily to the German side, receiving a prison sentence for conveying information about Allied shipping movements to the enemy.
    • In September 1942, Vorster was interned in a detention camp at Koffiefontein, Cape, because of his activities.

    Biography

    B. J. Vorster
    Last Updated: Thursday, October 01, 2009

    B.J. VorsterBalthazar Vorster was born in the rural area of Jamestown in the Eastern Province. He attended school there and subsequently entered Stellenbosch University as a law student. Stellenbosch University can be called the "cradle of Afrikaner nationalism." Its influence on the development of Afrikaans culture has been profound: no fewer than six out of the seven prime ministers South Africa had between 1910 and 1971 are former Stellenbosch men. Vorster soon involved himself in student politics. In time he became chairman of the debating society, deputy chairman of the student council and leader of the junior National party.

    Vorster graduated in 1938 and became registrar (judge's clerk) to the judge president of the Cape Provincial Division of the South African Supreme Court. But he did not remain in this post for long, entering practice as an attorney in Port Elizabeth and then in the Witwatersrand town of Brakpan. Vorster served briefly in the largely ceremonial position of president (1978-79) and died Sept. 10, 1983.

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