Directed by Mark J. Kaplan, Produced by Grey Matter Media

Our story connects a hidden history to present day South Africa, where secrets from the past illuminate why truth-telling today is such a necessary and precious commodity, as we continue to fight injustice and seek a better life for all.

Secrets are often associated with lies, with duplicity and shame, but here we see how secrets are sometimes necessary to protect the truth and save lives. As the film unfolds, moving between past and present, viewers see how a group of anti-Apartheid activists stood for truth, resisting lies and half-truths.

Twisting the truth was one of the hallmarks of the Apartheid regime in order to sow confusion and dissension among the activists. This too is featured in our story. In this, there are clear echoes of what we now face, in this age of misinformation, fake news and ‘alternative facts’ that swamp news and social media platforms, making it very difficult for many people to know what to believe and, consequently, how to respond appropriately and with integrity.

“Apartheid’s Ennemies” is told from the Point of View of Horst Kleinschmidt whose activism in support of Justice and Egalitarianism during, and post, Apartheid has never diminished. As we show,  people fought Apartheid overtly and covertly, where the above ground resistance became a cover for engaging in secret operations. At the heart of our story, is the close collaboration and friendship between Horst and the Reverend Beyers Naudé. This began when Horst was employed by the Christian Institute, before it was outlawed. His wife, Illona, although Jewish, was also employed by The Christian Institute, where she was privy to Beyers’s most closely guarded secrets. She took the same risks and also bore the consequences.

Deeply dismayed by the Sharpville massacre, Beyers left the Afrikaner Broederbond and questioned the moral tenets of Apartheid. He was excommunicated from The Dutch Reform Church and made himself a pariah. His overt and courageous stand won him many admirers, locally and abroad.  Try as they might, the Apartheid authorities were not able to neutralise his influence which continued to expand. Seemingly isolated by restriction orders, Beyers was sought out by activists on the run as well as by diplomats and church leaders on international fact-finding missions. Beneath this overt cloak of opposition, Beyers was himself operating with people on a strictly ‘needs to know’ basis. Lives were on the line. Several of those he was working with were assassinated: Steve Biko, Mapetla Mohapi, David Webster and Rick Turner.

So visiting clergy took letters given to them by Beyers tucked in their socks when they exited the country, or little “gifts” to be handed on. So important was the work of this grouping around Horst and Beyers, so aware was the ANC in exile of agent infiltration, that their activities and identities were a closely guarded secret. Horst reported only to Aziz Pahad, Thabo Mbeki and Oliver Thambo.

There are similarities between the path that Horst chose to walk, with that undertaken by Beyers Naudé. Both turned their backs on kith and kin and protected each other. The mutual trust they shared was key to consolidating the underground group that formed around them. Most of their network were drawn from Soweto and Mamelodi townships and many were men of the cloth. Reverend Frank Chikane, a member of the group, says that seeing white people willing to take the same risks and to give up their privileges was a revelation:  “It humanised us; it made me realise that the struggle was more than just replacing White Rule with Black Rule”. Black anger was routine. But it was not enough. “We were all angry, but too few acted from a place of serious moral conviction. If they had, we would not be having the problems of spiritual decay we are faced with today”.

Together with Beyers Naudé, Reverend Cedric Mayson was another key member of the group. As was the case with Beyers, when the Christian Institute was outlawed, Cedric was served with a banning order, but this only spurred him on. Unlike Beyers, who was very measured in his approach, Cedric had a cavalier attitude. He borrowed planes and secretly flew activists out of the country. He and his sons worked in tandem, wearing similar black leather outfits on the same model motor bikes to evade the Security Police tailing them when they distributed audio tape recordings of speeches given by Oliver Thambo.

Cedric and Beyers have passed on but we can tell their stories in their own words and through the people who were very close to them. Film footage, audio tapes and smuggled letters, never before made public, are among the resources that enrich this story.

Winnie Madikizela- Mandela and Steve Biko, as our story reveals, were among those drawn into their circle. The Apartheid State outlawed the Christian Institute at the same time as it closed down all offices belonging to the Black Consciousness Movement. They were, in fact, housed in the same building and the CI and the BCM had a close working relationship. Beyers recognised the validity of their call, “black man you are on your own” and he quietly went about securing financial support for their initiatives. This relationship had been forged by Horst who was close to Steve Biko. In the aftermath of the Soweto uprising an attempt was made to fly Biko clandestinely to Botswana to hold talks with the ANC about forming a united front against Apartheid. Biko was under house arrest so he would have to be spirited away as night fell and back in bed by the early morning to report to the police station, as per the conditions of his house arrest. Cedric Mayson, who had earlier flown Horst out the country, was ready to pilot Biko, but the plan had to be called off. There were too many guards outside the house. There had been a leak. Horst believed the leak was Apartheid “Super Spy”,Craig Williamson.

Over 15 years, and across continents, the cut and thrust of the clandestine work undertaken was full of surprises. Committed comrades had to quickly learn spy craft; write in codes, smuggle letters,  build secret compartments and hideaways to stash millions of South African Rands in cash, smuggled into the country to fund civic organisations, the churches, trade unions, community media and legal fees for political trialists and their families. They resisted any political label. “Just refer to us as the Group” they maintained. The Group were also overtly fighting the system by organising mass protest actions that resulted in the Apartheid authorities declaring State of Emergency after State of Emergency. The Secret Police, with the help of their political masters, reacted increasingly harshly. Despite the Group’s activities evading the police, they, and those closest to them, were harassed and tortured, and often killed. Yet, as the police files reveal today, key secrets were not given away.

The closest the Security Police came to busting the Group, was when they intercepted a letter Cedric posted to his son. This was a serious lapse and it resulted in Cedric being detained and severely tortured. He made a confession, news of which sowed panic within the Group. Cedric had deliberately given away enough that the Security Police would be able to charge him but had given nothing away about the Group. Among the materials we have, are the letters he wrote to his family while in detention. And, messages smuggled out, that he had written on toilet paper. He was taken to his home while the Security Police conducted more than one raid. They found nothing incriminating. They admired a beach towel, not realising that, sown into its seams, were microfiche recordings sent in by Horst.  As it turned out, most unexpectedly, the Judge accepted the argument from the Defence, that Cedric’s submissions were made under torture and the case was dismissed. Cedric fled and his family followed him to London.

While viewers will know from the outset that this band of anti-apartheid activists outwitted the dreaded South African Security Police,the question that immediately arises is, how was this even possible?

Beyers’ advantage to the group was that his couriers were so many and so internationally prominent that the Security Police  were wrong-footed. And, as the State Security Council minutes reveal, Beyers’ standing in Europe and the USA was such that to act arbitrarily against him, would jeopardise the main foreign policy of the Apartheid regime. ‘Charge him but don’t kill him’, is the instruction. Our footage reveals how the cops on the ground itched to harm Beyers in the ways they knew best.

This Group distinguished itself from other clandestine units, not only by staying undetected longer than any other group of conspirators in the history of Apartheid, but also that the consequences were far-reaching and profound. Without them, resistance to white supremacy, inside South Africa and externally, would have been much weaker and the struggle for freedom seriously delayed.

Horst has always been driven by a quest for justice in a society shaped by hundreds of years of colonial violence, where having a white skin or a black skin, either conferred power and protection or subjugation and exploitation. To fight this system, took courage and moral conviction and it made Horst an outsider to most white South Africans, including  members of his own family.

Horst’s back story was filmed in 2014 when the 200 year-old family secret was debunked; his side of the family were not as white as they pretended to be.

Horst’s father was an avowed Nazi, working with Nazi-aligned organisations, such as the Ossewabrandwag and the Greyshirts in South Africa. His white skin was a cloak behind which lurked a dark secret, deliberately brought to light by Horst. Horst, like the rest of his extensive clan, are descendants of German missionaries and people of colour.

There is a lot of inter-generational trauma to be found here, out of which the viewer will better understand why Horst’s father supported the Nazi Party whereas Horst became a fighter for freedom. As the film unfolds, we show how connections between the past and the present are felt in deeply personal ways. For Horst, (as with the others), the springboard for action was a matter of conscience and of ethics. Horst’s life journey, pre, and post, 1994, has exposed him to great personal risk. When Horst has spoken out, his life has often been threatened.

As a young student activist, Horst is approached by The Security Police who tried to recruit him. His reaction was to go public with an article and photograph in The Rand Daily Mail newspaper. From this moment on, an embarrassed Security Police, put a target on his back, as we hear from Security Policeman Paul Erasmus. We filmed him twice, in 1995, and again in 2021, shortly before he died.

He admitted to harassing Horst’s wife, Illona and their infant daughter, to fire-bombing Beyers’ car, to putting Beyers and Frank Chikane’s name on a death list, to being part of the team that used poison in an attempt to kill Frank Chikane and, to targeting Winnie in a smear campaign.

On one occasion, Horst was in court to support Winnie. She was sentenced to jail and this meant that a court appointed guardian was needed to look after her two daughters. Winnie asks Horst to be their guardian and Nelson agrees in writing.

When Horst fled South Africa, Jimmy Kruger, the Minister of Justice, who famously declared that “Biko’s death leaves me cold”, said in Parliament that he was fully aware that the Kleinschmidt girl was only 2 years old but he would not give her a passport to visit her father. Horst and Zindzi only met again when she was nine years old. Tender emotions, through the eyes and ears of activists’ children, add to the legacies of pain, hurt and forgiveness that post-liberation societies still grapple with.

The story flows from the personal to the broader political environment. The ramifications and effects of these  personal struggles are still being felt. The pain of losing Horst as a father cut very deep and persisted into Zindzi’s adulthood. Now settled in California, a mother of two, she tells Horst, while they mull over his extensive archive, that it is the Black Lives Matter movement that enables her to look afresh at Horst’s efforts to overthrow White Supremacy.

The unavoidable impacts that political struggle had on family is another connection to the present. Horst, Frank Chikane, and the others, made choices that were also sacrifices. They did this because they had the belief that this would lead to a new South Africa. In some ways they triumphed, but in many respects what they fought for is still a dream delayed. Janet Love, who married Horst abroad  (not least to stop him being deported by Margaret Thatcher’s Government) and then underwent military training and was part of Operation Vula, speaks to Horst and her adult daughter, Thembi, about the struggle they waged and why. Thembi, tells her mother and Horst, that she has never, during her schooling, read anything like what they are telling her. She admires their courage and is grateful for the  many opportunities she has been given, but she is angry that so many others have been denied the same.,

Frank Chikane tells his son, Rekgotsofetse, that he is handing the baton of struggle over to his generation. Rekgotsofetse tells his father of how pain and anger still run deep in our country. He recounts how, as a leader of The Fees Must Fall Movement, he was tossed into a police van and driven a long way to an unknown police station. This made him recall his father’s experience. Under Apartheid they drove you around so no one would know where you were being kept. So he feared the worst. When he was charged with treason, charges that were later withdrawn, he asks aloud whether this has happened to any other father and son, anywhere else in the world? .

In 1991, after 15 years in exile, Horst returns to South Africa. He is not deployed and must fend for himself. In 1999, he is “brought in from the cold”, to run the Department of Fisheries. He finds corrupt networks that have deep roots in the Apartheid era and are still flourishing. Embezzlement runs wide and deep. Crooked fishing companies, poachers, local gangsters, Chinese triads, corrupt police officers  complicate the clean up efforts. Horst finds some allies but increasingly is isolated. Initially addressed as Comrade Horst, he becomes Mr Kleinschmidt, no longer an ally but someone to be feared. He uncovers a scheme involving a fishing fleet that illegally sells tons of fish to the American market.The people responsible are jailed in America. They will not go quietly, they have accumulated massive wealth, they hire a hitman, (ex SP cop turned ANC Luthuli House security man) to kill Horst. The hitman warns Horst. Some years later, he is killed in a hijacking. Foiled, they try to bankrupt Horst through court challenges that persist long after Horst resigns from Fisheries. Horst has a lawyer who represents him pro-bono, so they hound the lawyer and attempt repeatedly to have him disbarred. Today the lawyer is about to retire and talks in front of our camera. Here then is an example of how truth-telling is so vital, so powerful and, potentially, so deadly.

Horst regularly visits Masiphumelele, the closest township to where he lives. He says his motivation is that he cannot stand idle when such poverty and deprivation exists in his neighbourhood. He continues to work for change. He visits Graaff-Reinet, where the municipality is named after Beyers Naudé. This is also the town where Beyers grew up, where he was schooled. Beyers’ father founded the school and his portrait greets you as you walk in. Horst walks among the ruins of the municipal swimming pool, and goes to the local golf club. These are among the assets the municipality are putting on auction. Corruption and incapacity have wreaked havoc and blighted the lives of the people of this town. And, besmirched Beyers’ legacy.

All this, is significant and poignant. It speaks to the need for white people to acknowledge past privilege and demonstrate willingness to confront deeply ingrained fears and prejudices. What motivated Horst Kleinschmidt, Beyers Naudé, Cedric Mayson and Frank Chikane, to name just a few from their circle? What was their vision then for a new South Africa? What is it now? What has been their experience of South Africa post 1994? And, how has the long shadow of the past stretched into our present and how will it affect our future? These are some of the questions driving our story. 

Key Characters

• Horst Kleinschmidt
• Ilona Tip (former wife of Horst Kleinschmidt)
• Frank Chikane
• Janet Love
• Penelope Mayson
• Jabu Ngwenya
• Thabo Mbeki
• Paul Erasmus

Archive

The Horst Kleinschmidt Personal/Struggle Archive covers a period of 25 years and is stored in scores of box files, currently being digitised.

The Penelope & David Mayson Personal Archive is an extensive treasure trove detailing every encounter with the Security Police, including both times that Cedric was detained. Penelope kept a journal from the moment the Security Police entered her life, which among other things, records repeated death threats. It is held by David Mayson, in Cape Town.

Director Mark Kaplan, himself a former political detainee, has in the past filmed anti-Apartheid political activists and members of the Security Police. This will be invaluable footage for the project.

German Film Producer and radio journalist, Angela Mai, has provided us with footage and full rights to two lengthy interviews (including B Roll Footage) with Beyers Naudé where he talks about his acceptance of armed resistance, although he himself would not carry a gun.

Film footage of the Kleinschmidt clan gathering – never made into a film – has been given to us by Berlin filmmaker, Uter Ruchel.

Similarly, there is important film footage from 1986, that we have full rights to, of Beyers when he had assumed the leadership of the South African Council of Churches. He talks about his overt opposition to Apartheid and the toll it has taken on his family.

There is a wealth of film footage at the South African Television Broadcaster and at The National Archives of apartheid propaganda as the State sought to sell their message both locally and internationally.

The International Defence and Aid Fund, (IDAF),  created an immense archive which Horst has brought back to South Africa, including the letters sent to and from mothers/wives of political detainees.