Horst Kleinschmidt interviewed by Julie Frederikse October 12, 2004 Durban, South Africa.
"There was a small band of [church] people ... who all said, 'If this is what it means to struggle on, we will conspire, we will be in the underground ..." [5:05]
Horst Kleinschmidt explains the debate about pacifism and the armed struggle among progressive Christians, including the Christian Institute and its Director, Beyers Naude, in 1977 when it and many other organizations were banned. [MK is Umkonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC.]
Horst Kleinschmidt was a child of missionaries working in South Africa. He worked with the African National Congress in various capacities and also was involved with the Christian Institute. He fled the countries under threat of arrest and worked for the Defense and Aid Fund (IDAF) in London, which provided considerable financial support to activists needing legal support and to their families, for which it had to operate largely in secret. He returned to South Africa after Nelson Mandela’s release in 1990.
