Die Transvaler Digital Archive
In the early twentieth century, an ascendant Afrikaner nationalist movement threatened to destabilize the delicate political power structure in a country then-known as the Union of South Africa (1910-1961).
Die Transvaler (named after Transvaal province, once part of the Boer republics) was established in 1937 as a newspaper that would promote the cause of Afrikaner nationalism within the Afrikaner-dominated National Party.
Edited by Hendrik Verwoerd—future prime minister and architect of the apartheid regime—Die Transvaler was notorious for its racism, antisemitism, and opposition to South Africa’s entry into World War II.
In 1948, the National Party won its first election in a decade—buoyed by support from the Afrikaner nationalist branch of the party—and, shortly thereafter, implemented apartheid. The apartheid regime stripped non-white South Africans of their political rights and strictly limited their housing, travel, employment, and social opportunities—using a surveillance and violence to enforce its policies.
Die Transvaler was known for supporting some of the most extreme policies under the apartheid regime—including the Bantu Homeland Citizenship Act of 1970, which established segregated “homelands” for Black South Africans and stripped them of their South African citizenship.
The pinnacle of Die Transvaler‘s influence was in the 1960s and early 1970s, under the governments of Afrikaner nationalists Hendrik Verwoerd (former editor of the paper) and B.J. Vorster. In 1983, the newspaper was relocated to Pretoria and rebranded as an afternoon paper. In 1993, Die Transvaler ceased publication—a year before the apartheid system was officially dismantled.
The Die Transvaler Digital Archive is a valuable resource for scholars of African studies, history, politics, and media. It also represents a valuable historical preservation project and may be of interest to institutions that study war, genocide, the Holocaust, and apartheid.
The Die Transvaler Digital Archive is an Open Access collection, presented as part of the Global Press Archive Area Studies Initiative 2024 Offer.
