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May 2024
Information sheet about Johannesburg from the emigration office Transa, 1974
Brief Biography
This information sheet from a so-called “emigration office” shows South Africa during apartheid in the early 1970s. It is an emerging economic power and a paradise for immigrants from Europe, recruited by international companies as skilled workers. With promises of jobs, modernity, and a variety of leisure activities, it informs about a potential emigration to Johannesburg.
The company behind the flyer, Transa, was founded in 1952 by Werner Jasper-Möller in Johannesburg. When the carpenter, born in 1920 near Detmold, returns to Germany in 1950 from Soviet captivity, he is drawn far away. Russia, the place of his captivity, is too close to the Federal Republic for him. In search of as much distance as possible from his own past, Werner Jasper-Möller embarks on a three-week sea voyage to Cape Town in 1951. It is a leap into a new life, where he starts anew in South Africa, indebted and impoverished, facing many hardships. From 1952 onwards, he helps other Germans, as well as people from Switzerland and Austria, emigrate to South Africa. The country is courting skilled workers while high unemployment prevails in Germany.
Thus, the success of the emigration office in the 1960s becomes evident: The business is doing so well that Werner Japer-Möller opens a motel for emigrants in 1965, which becomes the first accommodation in the country for many. Until 1976, his emigration office supports around 17,000 people in their first steps in their new lives. With the political developments in South Africa and the associated unrest, which also attract attention in Germany, interest in South Africa as a destination for emigration declines. Werner Jasper-Möller decides to close the Transa and his family returns to Germany in 1976. He continues to commute between Germany and South Africa for another 8 years, as the sale of the motel proves to be lengthy.
Historical Context
The South African parliamentary election on May 26, 1948 significantly shapes politics for the next four decades: It marks the beginning of institutionalized apartheid in South Africa, which categorizes the population by skin color until the 1990s. The goal is the strict separation of the white minority from the non-white majority of the country. In addition to Black individuals from various ethnic backgrounds, Indians and people from other former British colonies also live in South Africa, which was part of the Commonwealth until 1961.
Racist policies affect all areas of life. Not only are marriages between ‘Whites’ and ‘Non-Whites’ legally prohibited, and the black part of the population is forcibly relocated to designated city and rural areas, but the black majority of the country is also systematically disenfranchised and excluded from higher education. As a result, a large low-wage sector emerges, which is partly responsible for the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s. Due to the favorable economic situation, the country becomes particularly attractive to Europeans as a destination for immigration.
This changes in the 1970s: Political unrest and international sanctions against the apartheid regime destabilize the country. When Afrikaans, the language of the ruling minority, is to be introduced as the medium of instruction in black schools as well, student protests erupt in Soweto, a black suburb of Johannesburg, on June 16, 1976. The police respond to the protesters with armed violence, resulting in several hundred students being shot. One of the first and youngest victims of police gunfire is twelve-year-old Hector Pieterson. His photo, dying in the arms of an older classmate, sparks worldwide outrage and becomes a symbol of the uprising. The Soweto uprising is regarded as the beginning of the end of apartheid, which is overcome on April 27, 1994, with the first free elections.
Significance of the object
At first glance, the information sheet provides a glimpse into the aspirations of Europeans wishing to emigrate in the 1970s. The images help us understand how they envisioned South Africa and what they expected from emigrating to the other side of the world. However, a closer look at the people on the flyer reveals the story of inequality in South Africa. The living conditions promoted here for immigration are only accessible to a minority of the country. Thus, the object portrays a picture of South Africa that stands in stark contrast to the living reality of the majority of South Africans during those years.
Do You Also Have …
… a story of emigration or immigration in your family that you would like to share with the German Emigration Center together with the related objects and documents for its collection? Then please contact Dr. Tanja Fittkau by phone at +49 471 / 90 22 0 – 0
or by e-mail at: t.fittkau@dah-bremerhaven.de