CZM Rewind: The White Wolf & White Guns for Hire

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Dec 25, 2025

Journey deep into the shadows of 1989 South Africa as a group of Afrikaner nationalists and a German mercenary commit a shocking crime. Discover the mysterious 'White Wolves', a phantom group linked to a series of bombings. Explore allegations of government complicity in terror plots, and delve into the chilling legacy of Baron Strydom's horrific acts. The rise of splinter extremist factions and their desperate bids for arms adds to the chaos, while tales of mercenary recruitment in Europe maintain a sense of urgency. Intrigue and danger abound!

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INSIGHT

Namibia Elections Threatened Apartheid Holdouts

Namibia's 1989 UN transition threatened apartheid-era power structures in South Africa.
That threat sparked violent plots and sabotage by white supremacists trying to stop independence.

INSIGHT

State Links To Ultra-Right Terror Exposed

Truth and Reconciliation records suggest some terror cells were created, funded, or protected by the South African state.
Several attackers later proved to be operatives of state-sponsored units like the Civil Cooperation Bureau.

ANECDOTE

Toilet-Delivered Gun And Deadly Escape

Leonard Wienendahl hid a pistol in a toilet tank at a courthouse and used it to escape custody.
The prisoners overpowered two Namibian officers and murdered Constable Ricardo van Wyck during their getaway.

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Parts 3 & 4 of the South Africa arc.

The White Wolf

Original Air Date: 3.2.25

In 1989, four Afrikaner nationalists and one German mercenary killed a security guard at a United Nations outpost in Namibia. After escaping from custody, they fled home to South Africa. A possibly non-existent group called The White Wolves took credit for the wave of bombings that followed.

Sources:

Du Preez, M. (2010). Pale native: Memories of a Renegade reporter. Zebra Press.

Rotberg, Robert (1988). The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Enigma of Power. Oxford University Press.

Falkof, Nicky. The End of Whiteness: Satanism and Family Murder in Late Apartheid South Africa. Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2016.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-09-09-bruce-and-leonard-a-sad-african-immigrant-tale-of-injustice/

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/19/world/outjo-journal-un-namibia-team-makes-some-unlikely-friends.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20010429091808/http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/spec/aress14-1.htm

https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZASCA/1999/72.html

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/08/11/Gunmen-attacked-a-UN-peace-keeping-force-adminstrative-headquarters-and/6550618811200/

https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-nexus-between-far-right-extremists-in-the-united-states-and-ukraine/

https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=ncitereportsresearch

https://web.archive.org/web/20181118212149/https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/the-day-wit-wolf-turned-pretoria-red-with-blood-18125595

https://www.jordanharbinger.com/bradley-steyn-undercover-with-mandelas-spies-part-one/

https://theafricancriminologyjournal.wordpress.com/2022/02/04/south-africa-the-strijdom-square-massacre/

https://www.iol.co.za/news/world/us-wit-wolf-slaughter-1873433

https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/what-became-of-the-big-wit-wolf-424408

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White Guns for Hire

Original Air Date: 3.27.25

In 1994, a second group of mercenaries arrived at the airport in Johannesburg... but no one was there to pick them up. Their host had been arrested days earlier, after the last group of mercenaries she'd hosted got into a deadly shootout with the South African police. But how did all these Germans end up in South Africa in the first place?

Sources:

Simonelli, F. J. (1999). American Führer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. University of Illinois Press.

Krott, R. (2008). Save the last bullet for yourself: A soldier of fortune in the Balkans and Somalia. Casemate.

Eisenberg, D. (1967). The Reemergence of Fascism. Barnes.

https://balkans.aljazeera.net/news/balkan/2017/11/29/slobodan-praljak-umro-u-bolnici

Bartholomäus Grill: German right-wing radicals shoot in South Africa: License plate D. In: Die Zeit . No. 13 , 25 March 1994

Antifaschistisches Autorenkollektiv: Drahtzieher im braunen Netz : Ein aktueller Überblick über den Neonazi-Untergrund in Deutschland und Österreich. Konkret Literatur Verlag, 1996,

https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/jm214q33q?locale=it

https://js.emory.edu/news/news-stories-container/Using%20South%20African%20Archives%20to%20Study%20PostWorld%20War%20Two%20Antisemitism%20and%20White%20Supremacist%20Networks.html

https://scholar.ufs.ac.za/server/api/core/bitstreams/c7f1b03d-343d-4abf-bcb3-e508f43dbc90/content

https://antifainfoblatt.de/aib99/dressed-kill

Searchlight Magazine, issues July, August, September 1996

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