Abstract:
the depiction of Germans abroad by Stefan Manz as “extremely heterogeneous groups or
individuals” is as applicable to South Africa as anywhere else. So is the apparent
contradiction of self-proclaimed ‘Germanness’ alongside significant evidence of German-
South Africans’ successful integration into local society. Keeping in mind, as Joan W. Scott
summarises it, that identities are ascribed, embraced and rejected in complex discursive
processes, and accepting the notion of culture as performance, I attempt to illustrate in
this study how actors who would have been ascribed a ‘Germanness’ in South Africa in the
first half of the twentieth century embodied different roles - at particular moments in time,
as well as over time. I find the term “occasionalism”, coined by cultural historian Peter Burke, very productive: “on different occasions (moments, locales) or in different situations
(in the presence of different people) the same person behaves in different ways.”
