Louis Weichardt

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Louis Theodor Weichardt (May 21, 1894-October 26, 1985) was a South African political leader who founded the Greyshirts, a National Socialist organization.

Born in Paarl of German extraction. In Cape Town, on October 26, 1933, he founded the South African Christian National Socialist Movement with a paramilitary section (modeled on Nazi Germany's brown-shirted Sturmabteilung) called the Gryshemde or Grayshirts.

Interned during World War II, he afterwards worked with Oswald Pirow's New Order.

Disbanding his party in 1948, Weichardt gave his allegiance to Daniel François Malan's National Party. He became senator from Natal Province from 1956-1970.

[edit] References

• Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890 edited by Philip Rees (1991, ISBN 0-13-089301-3)
• Fascism: Comparison and Definition by Stanley G. Payne (University of Wisconsin-Madison Press, 1980, ISBN 0-299-08060-9)
• The South African Opposition 1939-1945 by Michael Roberts & A.E.G. Trollip (Cape Town, 1947)

[edit] External links

• "Vote for Louis Weichardt" on the Simon Wiesenthal Center website
• Louis Weichardt; Greyshirt leader, 1937 newspaper photo on the Simon Wiesenthal Center website