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Paul Oliver Sauer ( 1 January 1898, Wynberg, Cape Town - 11 January 1976, Stellenbosch) was a South African Cabinet Minister and lifelong member of the National Party.
Sauer was born in Wynberg near Cape Town in 1898 as the third child of Jacobus Wilhelmus Sauer and Mary Constance Cloete; he also had two sisters. Sauer's middle name came from his aunt, Olive Schreiner [ citation needed ]. When Sauer was six years old, the family moved to his father's farm, Uitkyk, in the Stellenbosch district. Initially, Sauer attended school at a neighbouring farm. At the age of eleven, he went to SACS in Cape Town where he became head boy of Rosedale house and captain of the first rugby team . At the South African College, where he enrolled for the BA course in 1916, he argued in the debating association for South Africa to become a republic. Because of this debate and the large number of Afrikaans students at the time; he was elected to the Students' Council. After two years at SA College, and without completing the BA degree, Sauer, became the first enrolled student at the newly established Faculty of Agriculture at Victoria College, Stellenbosch. He obtained a diploma in agriculture with distinction. In 1921, he went to farm for his mother on the farm Uitkyk. In 1929, his mother sold the farm and he kept Kanonkop, which was part of Uitkyk, as his inheritance and continued to farm there. [1]
Meanwhile, in 1923 he waged his first election campaign as a candidate for the National Party in the Provincial Council election in Stellenbosch . He lost the election by just more than twenty votes. The next year he was a candidate again in Stellenbosch, this time for the House of Assembly, and he gained 65 more votes than in 1923, but lost by 470, because after the terror of 1923,[ clarification needed ] the South African Party registered hundreds of Coloured people as voters. Experiences such as those of Sauer in a marginal seat like Stellenbosch, where the Coloured vote prevailed against the NP, contributed to the party's later policy of removing Coloureds from the common voters roll.
In 1929, he stood in Victoria West as candidate of the NP against the later SAP Senator AM Conroy and defeated him by 88 votes. Four years later, he was asked by the NP from Humansdorp to run for office there in place of the recently deceased minister Charlie Malan. He did so and represented Humansdorp until 1966 as member of the House of Assembly. It stretched from the Van Stadens River to Plettenberg Bay and also the Kouga River and the Langkloof. He then became a senator, a position he held until 1970. This means that his parliamentary career spanned 41 years, as long as his father's. However, he remained as vice-chairman of the Cape NP until 1972, before finally leaving active politics.
In 1947 D.F. Malan, as leader of the Herenigde Nasionale Party, established the Sauer Commission, [2] chaired by Paul Sauer, [3] to formulate apartheid policies suitable for adoption by a Nationalist government. The Sauer Commission was in part intended to forestall the Native Laws Commission (Fagan Commission) on African urbanisation, appointed by Smuts in 1946 and chaired by Judge Henry Fagan. These rival reports shaped the respective platforms of the government and the opposition in the ensuing election. They provide a useful way into understanding the political alternatives entertained by the two leading white political parties of the day. The Fagan Commission accepted African urbanisation as a fact and recommended adapting the pass laws and migrant labour system to recognise the reality of racial interdependence in the economy (in 1948 the proportion of white employees employed in industry was 34 per cent and in decline). By contrast, the Sauer Commission looked to a more comprehensive solution to the native question along the lines of 'total segregation'. For this reason, the Sauer Commission has often been viewed as a blueprint for the apartheid system. [4] [5]
The members of the Sauer commission were: Paul Sauer, G.B.A. Gerdener, E.G. Jansen, J.J. Serfontein and M.D.C. De Wet Nel.
After the National Party 's surprising victory in 1948, Dr. D.F. Malan appointed Sauer as Minister of Railways. In 1954 he became Minister of Lands, Forestry and Water Affairs. It was through his work that the Paul Sauer Dam (now known as the Kouga Dam) was built for the sake of the farmers of the Kouga. Sauer served in the Cabinet of Hans Strydom as Minister of Public Works and Minister of Lands and Irrigation. In wake of the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, Sauer along with Eben Dönges and Ben Schoeman called for a relaxation of certain Apartheid policies, which was subsequently rejected by Verwoerd.
Sauer inherited the famous Kanonkop Wine Estate from his father, and it is now owned by his grandchildren. Paul Sauer was an early spokesman and figurehead of the South African wine industry, and Kanonkop named one of their wines after him.
Through his mediation, the N2 national road from Cape Town was built. The Paul Sauer Bridge on the N2 and over the Storms River is a well-known landmark in the Tsitsikamma. He also did much to uplift the forester's standard of living and improve their working conditions. Because of his dedication and admiration for his constituents in the Humansdorp constituency, the residents of Kareedouw decided to name the local school after him and since 1963 the school is known as Paul Sauer High School.
Sauer retired from active politics in 1963 and died on 11 January 1976 of a lung disease and was buried in Stellenbosch.
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, also known as H. F. Verwoerd, was a South African politician, scholar, and newspaper editor who served as Prime Minister of South Africa and 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. He was the Union of South Africa's last prime minister, from 1958 to 1961, when he proclaimed the founding of the Republic of South Africa, remaining its prime minister until his assassination in 1966.
Pieter Willem Botha, was a South African politician. He served as the last prime minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and the first executive state president of South Africa from 1984 to 1989.
The National Party, also known as the Nationalist Party, was a political party in South Africa from 1914 to 1997, which was responsible for the implementation of apartheid rule. The party was an Afrikaner ethnic nationalist party, which initially promoted the interests of Afrikaners but later became a stalwart promoter and enactor of white supremacy, for which it is best known. It first became the governing party of the country in 1924. It merged with its rival, the SAP, during the Great Depression, and a splinter faction became the official opposition during World War II and returned to power. With the National Party governing South Africa from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994, the country for the bulk of this time was only a de jure or partial democracy, as from 1958 onwards non-white people were barred from voting. In 1990 it began to style itself as simply a South African civic nationalist party, and after the fall of apartheid in 1994, attempted to become a moderate conservative one. The party's reputation was damaged irreparably by perpetrating apartheid, and it rebranded itself in 1997 before eventually dissolving.
Daniël François Malan was a South African politician who served as the fourth prime minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954. The National Party implemented the system of apartheid, which enforced racial segregation laws, during his tenure as Prime Minister.
Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom, also known as Hans Strijdom and nicknamed the Lion of the North or the Lion of Waterberg, was the fifth prime minister of South Africa from 30 November 1954 to his death on 24 August 1958. He was an uncompromising Afrikaner nationalist and a member of the largest, baasskap faction of the National Party (NP), who further accentuated the NP's apartheid policies and break with the Union of South Africa in favour of a republic during his rule.
General James Barry Munnik Hertzog, better known as Barry Hertzog or J. B. M. Hertzog, was a South African politician and soldier. He was a Boer general during the Second Boer War who served as the third prime minister of the Union of South Africa from 1924 to 1939. Throughout his life he encouraged the development of Afrikaner culture, determined to prevent Afrikaners from being influenced by British culture.
General Magnus André de Merindol Malan was a South African military figure and politician during the last years of apartheid in South Africa. He served respectively as Minister of Defence in the cabinet of President P. W. Botha, Chief of the South African Defence Force (SADF), and Chief of the South African Army. Rising quickly through the lower ranks, he was appointed to strategic command positions. His tenure as chief of the defence force saw it increase in size, efficiency and capabilities. As P.W. Botha's cabinet minister, he posited a total communist onslaught, for which an encompassing national strategy was devised. This entailed placing policing, intelligence and aspects of civic affairs under control of generals. The ANC and SWAPO were branded as terrorist organizations, while splinter groups were bolstered in neighbouring and Frontline States. Cross-border raids targeted suspected bases of insurgents or activists, while at home the army entered townships from 1984 onwards to stifle unrest. Elements in the Inkhata Freedom Party were used as a proxy force, and rogue soldiers and policemen in the CCB assassinated opponents.
The Afrikaner Broederbond (AB) or simply the Broederbond was an exclusively Afrikaner Calvinist and male secret society in South Africa dedicated to the advancement of the Afrikaner people. It was founded by H. J. Klopper, H. W. van der Merwe, D. H. C. du Plessis and the Rev. Jozua Naudé in 1918 as Jong Zuid Afrika until 1920, when it was renamed the Broederbond. Its influence within South African political and social life came to a climax with the 1948-1994 rule of the white supremacist National Party and its policy of apartheid, which was largely developed and implemented by Broederbond members. Between 1948 and 1994, many prominent figures of Afrikaner political, cultural, and religious life, including every leader of the South African government, were members of the Afrikaner Broederbond.
Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap, which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically through minoritarianism by the nation's dominant minority white population. According to this system of social stratification, white citizens had the highest status, followed by Indians and Coloureds, then Black Africans. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly inequality.
The Sauer Commission, was created in 1948 largely in response to the Fagan Commission. It was appointed by the Herenigde Nasionale Party and favoured even stricter segregation laws.
Theophilus Ebenhaezer Dönges was a South African politician who was elected the state president of South Africa, but died before he could take office, aged 69.
Wynberg is a southern suburb of the City of Cape Town in Western Cape, South Africa. It is situated between Plumstead and Kenilworth, and is a main transport hub for the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town.
General elections were held in South Africa on 26 May 1948. They represented a turning point in the country's history, as despite receiving just under half of the votes cast, the United Party and its leader, incumbent Prime Minister Jan Smuts, were ousted by the Herenigde Nasionale Party (HNP) led by D. F. Malan, a Dutch Reformed cleric.
General elections were held in South Africa on 22 April 1970 to elect members of the 166-seat House of Assembly. Parliament was dissolved on 2 March and the deadline for the submission of candidates was 13 March.
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Daniël Cornelis Boonzaier, more commonly known as D.C. Boonzaier, was a South African cartoonist. He was famous for his caricatures of Cape politicians and celebrities at the turn of the century, and later for his anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist cartoons for Die Burger. He fathered the artist Gregoire Boonzaier.
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