Skip to main content
Menu
♥ Donate
eventREF E-0012509Revised

26 January 1983

Dieter and Ruth Gerhard are detained

Updated
30 Sep 2019
Dieter and Ruth Gerhard are detained

The South African government announced at a special press conference that a senior South African naval officer, Commodore Dieter Gerhardt and his second wife, Ruth, had been detained for questioning in connection with alleged espionage. Gerhardt was commanding officer at the strategically important Simonstown naval base. They were jailed in December 1983 after being convicted of spying for the Soviet Union.

How we know this

  1. 01Kalley, J.A.; Schoeman, E. & Andor, L.E. (eds) (1999). Southern African Political History: a chronology of key political events from independence to mid-1997, Westport: Greenwood.
  2. 02O'Malley, P., Pre-Transition 1983, from The O'Malley Archives, [online], Available at www.nelsonmandela.org [Accessed: 07 January 2014]

Last updated · 30 Sep 2019

Cite this entry

South African History Online. (2011, March 16). Dieter and Ruth Gerhard are detained. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012509

South African History Online (2011) 'Dieter and Ruth Gerhard are detained', South African History Online, 16 March. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012509 (Accessed: 15 November 2026).

South African History Online, Dieter and Ruth Gerhard are detained [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012509, (accessed 15 November 2026).

"Dieter and Ruth Gerhard are detained." South African History Online, 16 Mar. 2011, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012509. Accessed 15 Nov. 2026.

South African History Online. "Dieter and Ruth Gerhard are detained." South African History Online. March 16, 2011. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012509.

Also on 26 January

  1. 1887Battle of Dogali: Ethiopian army defeat the invading Italians
  2. 1896A teachers training college in South Africa opened in Wellington
  3. 1952Egypt is placed under martial law in response to widespread riots against the British
  4. 1991Rebels overrun the Somalian capital of Mogadishu
  5. 1999Chairman of the IEC resigns
  6. 2005Western Cape High Court suspends pebble bed modular reactor at Koeberg
  7. 2005Trevor Manuel predicts SA economic growth
  8. 2006A fire breaks out on Table Mountain after a British tourist allegedly tossed a lit cigarette out of a car window

Search events by date

What happened on your birthday?
View more events from this day

SAHO is free because readers fund it. Donate →