Interrogating the South African garrison state (1930s-1940s) : Oswald Pirow and Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr

Abstract

This article uses a comparative biographical study of Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr and Oswald Pirow as a foundation to interrogate South Africa of the 1930s and 1940s as a garrison state. It examines Harold Lasswell’s concept of the garrison state, a ‘developmental construct’ regarding the future path that democracies could take in their confrontation with fascism and communism in the mid-twentieth century. Hofmeyr and Pirow are representative of two opposites in the political-intellectual debates of the 1930s and 1940s within white society and both can be seen as guarantors of power. Pirow, a renowned fascist, wanted the creation of a Nazi-like state in South Africa. Hofmeyr, in contrast, espoused a liberal vision. This article is located within new scholarship on South African anti-fascism and the garrison state is cast as one counter-intuitive response to fascism.