Malan, Daniel François, << muh LAHN, dahn YEHL frahn SWAH >> (1874-1959), was prime minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954. Under Malan’s leadership, the ruling National Party began to set up South Africa’s official program of apartheid (racial segregation) in 1948. Malan believed Afrikaners (whites of mainly Dutch ancestry) should think of themselves as a nation and should dominate South African affairs.
Malan was born on May 22, 1874, at Riebeek-Wes, near Malmesbury in what is now Western Cape province. In 1905, he received a doctor’s degree in divinity from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. He joined the National Party in 1915 and became a member of Parliament in 1919. From 1924 to 1933, he served in the cabinet of Prime Minister James Barry Munnik Hertzog of the National Party. In 1934, the National and South African parties merged and became the United Party. Malan opposed the merger and formed his own “purified” National Party. It soon became a major opposition party in Parliament. Malan’s party won the 1948 elections, and he became prime minister. He died on Feb. 7, 1959, in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
