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eventREF E-0073185Revised

Event record

Eugene Terre Blanche, controversial leader of the AWB ( Afrikaner Resistance Movement), is born in Ventersdorp.

Eugene Terre Blanche, Source: Gallo Images/Getty

Eugene Terre Blanche, Source: Gallo Images/Getty

Date
31 Jan 1941
Updated
31 Jan 2020
Eugene Terre Blanche, Source: Gallo Images/Getty

Eugene Terre Blanche, Source: Gallo Images/Getty

Eugene Terre'Blanche was born in Ventersdorp to staunchly Afrikaner nationalist parents on January 31, 1941. After matriculating he joined the South African Police service and served for five years before he left to become a farmer. On 3 July 1973, with six others, he founded the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), an ultra right-wing organisation, in a garage in Heidelberg, in the then Transvaal (now Gauteng). 

The AWB’s intention was to establish a homeland for the Boer ‘volk’ (people). The AWB functioned as a semi-secret organisation for five years before it became public. Terre'Blanche viewed the end of Apartheid in 1990 as the beginning of communism and threatened then President F.W. de Klerk with civil war. Following the end of Apartheid, Terre'Blanche and his supporters sought amnesty at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for the storming of the World Trade Centre (where negotiations between various political parties for a new democratic constitution took place), the 'Battle of Ventersdorp', and other acts.

The TRC granted him amnesty for this. In 2008, he re-activated the AWB calling for a “free Afrikaner republic.” On 3 April 2010, he was murdered at his farm by one of his workers.

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How we know this

  1. 01SAHO, (2010), Eugène Ney Terre'Blanche, from South African History Online, [online], Available at www.sahistory.org.za [Accessed: 9 January 2014]
  2. 02Volkstaat, (2011), Eugene Ney Terre'Blanche, from Volkstaat, [online], Available at www.volkstaat.net [Accessed: 9 January 2014]
  3. 03Wallis, F. (2000). Nuusdagboek: feite en fratse oor 1000 jaar, Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau

Last updated · 31 Jan 2020

Cite this entry

South African History Online. (2012, January 31). Eugene Terre Blanche, controversial leader of the AWB ( Afrikaner Resistance Movement), is born in Ventersdorp.. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0073185

South African History Online (2012) 'Eugene Terre Blanche, controversial leader of the AWB ( Afrikaner Resistance Movement), is born in Ventersdorp.', South African History Online, 31 January. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0073185 (Accessed: 31 July 2026).

South African History Online, Eugene Terre Blanche, controversial leader of the AWB ( Afrikaner Resistance Movement), is born in Ventersdorp. [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0073185, (accessed 31 July 2026).

"Eugene Terre Blanche, controversial leader of the AWB ( Afrikaner Resistance Movement), is born in Ventersdorp.." South African History Online, 31 Jan. 2012, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0073185. Accessed 31 July 2026.

South African History Online. "Eugene Terre Blanche, controversial leader of the AWB ( Afrikaner Resistance Movement), is born in Ventersdorp.." South African History Online. January 31, 2012. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0073185.

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