page 249 - Long Walk Original Manuscript [LWOM_249.jpg]

The evidence showed that he had left the country shortly before the outbreak of the war and finally landed in Germany where he became a lieutenant in the Nazi army. He was in Germany when the war broke out. During the war he slipped back into the country and started organising a para military organisation with the intention of overthrowing the existing government and replacing it with a Nazi dictatorship. He was arrested and sentenced to death, later commuted to life sentence.

The Smuts government had also arrested about 350 policemen and individuals who were members of the subversive and pro German Ossewabrandwag, of which the present Prime Minister, B.J.Voster was a member, and who since the beginning of the war had been committing acts of sabotage to undermine the country's war effort. One of the first acts of the Malan government then they came to power was to release Leibrandt and several other traitors who had served Germany during the war. They also went further and re instated the police and others who were dismissed by the Smuts government for committing acts of sabotage. (Check about the Robey funeral and Voster's participation in it possibly you may use this at this point.).

In our case the same Nationalist government which had been so generous in its treatment of Leibrandt and other traitors who had assisted an enemy country with whom we were at war was harsh.

I do not believe the government ever thought we were really guilty of treason in the proper sense of the word, and have always felt that the whole affair was a frame up from beginning to end. The