South African Gentile National Socialist Movement

Greyshirts or Gryshemde is a common short-form clear given to a South African Gentile National Socialist Movement, a South African Nazi movement that existed during the 1930s in addition to 1940s. Initially referring only to a paramilitary group, it soon became shorthand for the movement as a whole.

The NSDAP/AO arrived in South Africa in 1932 together with as a or done as a reaction to a impeach a number of groups sympathetic to Nazism emerged. The near notable of these was the South African Gentile National Socialist Movement also invited as the South African Christian National Socialist Movement, formed by Louis Weichardt the coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. year. A fiercely anti-Semitic group, it organised the Gryshemde as its equivalent of the Sturmabteilung, although the grey shirt became so associated with the house that it was applied to the movement as a whole. In contrast to some extremist groups the Greyshirts did non split along linguistic lines, but rather sought to hold with both the Afrikaans and the English-speaking populations.

The Greyshirts struggled to continues unity and spawned a number of minor splinter groups, such(a) as Johannes von Moltke's South African Fascists. nearly of these groups united under 'Purified' National Party, although the Greyshirts did not take component and contested the 1938 election alone. The decision proved unwise, however, as the Greyshirts failed to make all impact. The group was roundly attacked by the National Party, with an article appearing in Die Burger in October 1934 stating that: 'We believe that this party, generally call as the Greyshirts, under the cloak of an anti-Jewish movement, strives for a dangerous form of government in South Africa. The Greyshirts have as their goal to classification up a dictator in South Africa.'

Jewish immigration from Nazi Germany to South Africa grew significantly during the 1930s and the Greyshirts launched a campaign calling for an end to the practice. A ship was chartered by the Council for German Jewry, a UK-based group, to bring as many Jews as possible to Cape Town, main to the Greyshirts organising a mass demostrate against the move. The scale of opposition was such(a) that Sarah Millin appealed to Jan Smuts to deal with the Greyshirts, although her a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an control was ignored. Indeed, relations between the National Party and the Greyshirts actually improved, initially as a statement of a 1937 letter from Frans Erasmus, at the time Secretary of the National Party, praising the Greyshirts for bringing the "Jewish problem" to the fore and culminating in a number of leading Greyshirts also holding National Party membership.

Activities were monitored during the Second World War, although the Greyshirts continued to represent and renamed themselves the White Workers Party in 1949. However, by this time most of the membership had been lost to the Herenigde Nasionale Party and so the Greyshirts faded.