South Africa’s Secret Chemical Weapons Project, 1933-1945

Abstract

Recent scholarship has drawn attention to the chemical and biological weapons ‘Project Coast’ in the final phase of the apartheid regime. The earlier history of the production of chemical weapons in South Africa has received relatively little attention and some aspects have never been discussed before. Pointing to the need for protecting the white minority against indigenous unrest, the South African government showed considerable interest in acquiring the skills and logistics for the production of poison gas in collaboration with Great Britain in the 1930s. It was only after the start of the Second World War, however, that the British were prepared to support a South African chemical weapons programme because it contributed to the Allied war effort. Two poison gas factories were maintained in South Africa until the production of chemical weapons was terminated towards the end of the war despite an occasionally articulated desire by the government to continue with the project. This article will explore the continuities and discontinuities of South Africa’s endeavours in producing poison gas within a wider local and international context of chemical weapons policies from the First to the Second World War.