Broederbond

The Afrikaner Broederbond (AB) (meaning Afrikaner Brotherhood) or Broederbond was a secret, exclusively male and Afrikaner Calvinist organization in South Africa dedicated to the advancement of Afrikaner interests. It was founded by H. J. Klopper (), H. W. van der Merwe, D. H. C. du Plessis and Rev. Jozua Naudé in 1918 and was known as Jong Zuid Afrika (Young South Africa) until 1920, when it became the Broederbond. Its large influence within South African political and social life, sometimes compared to that of Masons in Freemason conspiracy theories, came to a climax with the rise of apartheid, which was largely designed and implemented by Broederbond members. Between 1948 and 1994, many prominent figures of South African political life, including all leaders of the government, were members of the Afrikaner Broederbond.

Described later as an "inner sanctum", "an immense informal network of influence", and by Jan Smuts as a "dangerous, cunning, political fascist organization", in 1920 Jong Zuid Afrika now restyled as the Afrikaner Broederbond, was a grouping of 37 white men of Afrikaner ethnicity, Afrikaans language, and the Calvinist Dutch Reformed faith, who shared cultural, semi-religious, and deeply political objectives based on traditions and experiences dating back to the arrival of Dutch white settlers, French Huguenots, and Germans at the Cape in the 17th and 18th centuries and including the dramatic events of the Great Trek in the 1830s and 1840s. Ivor Wilkins and Hans Strydom recount how, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, a leading broeder (brother or member) said:

(Wilkins & Strydom, 1980, p. 45)

The precise intentions of the founders are not clear. Was the group intended to counter the dominance of the British and the English language, or to redeem the Afrikaners after their defeat in the Second Anglo-Boer War? Perhaps it sought to protect a culture, build an economy and seize control of a government. The remarks of the organisation's chairman in 1944 offer a slightly different, and possibly more accurate interpretation in the context of the post-Boer War and post- World War I era, when Afrikaners were suffering through a maelstrom of social and political changes:

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