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A photo of Hendrik Verwoerd by Afrikaners in die Goudstad, deel 2 –

Top 10 Sensational Facts about Hendrik Verwoerd

Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd was born on 8 September 1901 and died on 6 September 1966. He was a South African politician, a scholar of applied psychology and sociology, and chief editor of Die Transvaler newspaper. He is commonly regarded as the architect of Apartheid.

Verwoerd played a significant role in socially engineering apartheid, the country’s system of institutionalized 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 National Party come to power in 1948, serving as their political strategist and propagandist, becoming party leader upon his premiership. In the article are the top ten sensational facts about Hendrik Verwoerd.

1. Verwoerd was an Afrikaner nationalist

A photoof Verwoerd by Snikkers / Anefo –

He was a member of the Afrikaner Broederbond, an exclusively white and Christian Calvinist secret organization dedicated to advancing the Afrikaner “volk” interests, and like many members of the organization had verbally supported Germany during World War II.

Broederbond members like Verwoerd would assume high positions in government upon the Nationalist electoral victory in 1948 and come to wield a profound influence on public and civil society throughout the apartheid era in South Africa.

2. Verwoerd greatly expanded apartheid

Verwoerd’s desire to ensure white, and especially Afrikaner dominance in South Africa, to the exclusion of the country’s nonwhite majority, was a major aspect of his support for a republic.

He branded the system of apartheid 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, avoiding cultural clashes.

3. 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, modernizing, and enlarging the white apartheid state’s security forces.

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.

4. Verwoerd was an authoritarian

Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting.

Verwoerd’s South Africa had one of the highest prison populations in the world and saw a large number of executions and floggings. This is because he was an authoritarian.

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.

5. Verwoerd was assassinated by Dimitri Tsafendas

A photo of Dimitri Tsafendas by an Unknown author –

Dimitri Tsafendas was a Greek-Mozambican lifelong political militant and the assassin of Prime Minister of South Africa Hendrik Verwoerd on 6 September 1966.

Tsafendas, while working as a parliamentary messenger, stabbed Verwoerd to death during a sitting of the House of Assembly in Cape Town; Verwoerd is commonly regarded as the architect of Apartheid.

6. Verwoerd was South Africa’s only foreign-born prime minister

A photo of Verwoerd by Snikkers / Anefo –

Hendrik Verwoerd was born in Amsterdam in the Netherlands in 1901. Verwoerd was South Africa’s only foreign-born prime minister. He was the second child of Anje Strik and Wilhelmus Johannes Verwoerd.

His father was a shopkeeper and a deeply religious man who decided to move his family to South Africa in 1903 because of his sympathy towards the Afrikaner nation in the wake of the Second Boer War.

7. He secured his high school position with Beit Scholarship

Verwoerd went to a Lutheran primary school in Wynberg, Cape Town. By the end of 1912, the Verwoerd family moved to Bulawayo, Rhodesia, where his father became an assistant evangelist in the Dutch Reformed Church.

Verwoerd attended Milton High School where he was awarded the Beit Scholarship, established by diamond magnate and financier Alfred Beit. Verwoerd received the top marks for English literature in Rhodesia.

8. Verwoerd was sharp in his higher education

Verwoerd studied at Stellenbosch University, where he was regarded as a brilliant social science academic, and it was widely claimed that he possessed a photographic memory. Verwoerd was fluent in Afrikaans, Dutch, English and German.

He obtained his B. A with distinctions in Sociology, Psychology and Philosophy, and then completed his Masters cum laude. He then went on to complete his Doctorate in Psychology in 1925 at Stellenbosch University.

Verwoerd’s over three hundred page Doctorate thesis titled “Die Afstomping van die Gemoedsaandoeninge” which in Afrikaans means “The numbing of the Emotion” was at the time regarded as a monumental academic achievement in the field of Applied Psychology in South Africa.

9. He studied under William Stern, Wolfgang Köhler, Felix Krueger, and Otto Lipmann

William Stern photo by an Unknown author –

Due to the work undertaken by Verwoerd in his doctoral thesis, he was awarded two scholarships for post-doctoral research abroad—one by the Abe Bailey Trust to study at the University of Oxford, England, and another one to continue his studies in Germany.

He opted for the latter, as Verwoerd wanted to continue his research under several renowned German psychology and philosophy professors of the time, and possibly due to his anti-British views at the time.

Verwoerd left for Germany in 1926 and proceeded to research psychology and sociology at the University of Hamburg, Berlin, and Leipzig.

In Hamburg, he studied under William Stern, in Berlin under Wolfgang Köhler and Otto Lipmann, and in Leipzig under Felix Krueger. Most of these professors were not allowed to teach anymore once the Nazis came to power in 1933.

10. He stood for the minority poor white South Africans during the Great Depression

Verwoerd returned with his wife to South Africa in 1928 and was appointed to the chair of Applied Psychology and Psycho Technique at the University of Stellenbosch where, six years later, he became a Professor of Sociology and Social Work.

During the Great Depression, Verwoerd became active in social work among poor white South Africans. He devoted much attention to welfare work and was often consulted by welfare organizations, while he served on numerous committees.