Large numbers of Afrikaners were forced to leave rural areas in the early part of the twentieth century. This was partly due to the aftermath of British scorched-earth tactics during the Anglo-Boer War, but also a result of overcrowding, drought and pestilence. Many Afrikaners joined the ranks of a swelling poor white working class that felt itself caught in a vice: victimized and despised on the one hand by the English-speaking capitalists who commanded the economy, and on the other under pressure from lower-paid Africans who were competing for their jobs.

 

In 1918 (the year Nelson Mandela was born) a group of Afrikaners formed the Broederbond ("the brotherhood"), a secret society to promote the interest of Afrikaners and to forge an Afrikaner republic in South Africa. It aimed to uplift impoverished members of the volk ("people") and to develop a sense of pride in their language, religion and culture. Ultimately, the Broederbond was to dominate every aspect of the way the country was run for close on half a century.

During the 1930s, a number of young Afrikaner intellectuals travelled to Europe, where they were inspired by the jackbooted march of fascism in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Germany. This extreme manifestation of nationalism appeared to hold the key to realizing Afrikaner nationhood. It was around this time that Afrikaner intellectuals began using the term apartheid (pronounced "apart-hate", not "apart-hide").

Among the leading lights of apartheid who could be found kicking their heels in Germany in the 1930s were Nico Diederichs , who became minister of finance under the National Party government; Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd , apartheid's leading theorist and prime minister from 1958 to 1966; and Piet Meyer , controller of the state broadcasting service, who named his son Izan ("Nazi" spelled backwards - but he later claimed this was sheer coincidence). Meanwhile, in 1939, the Broederbond kicked into action with a scheme that launched 10,000 Afrikaner businesses in the space of a decade. Some of these, such as Rembrandt Tobacco, Volkskas (the country's third-largest bank), the Santam insurance company and Gencor (one of the five largest mining houses) are still among the leading players in South Africa's economy.