Harry Schwarz

Harry Heinz Schwarz ( born May 13, 1924 in Cologne, † February 5, 2010 in Johannesburg, born as Heinz Schwarz ) was a South African anti-apartheid politician.

Life and work

Black was born a German and received the name Heinz. He and his family were Jews. They suffered after 1933 under the persecution of the Jews by the Germans, so that his father in 1933 fled abroad. 1934 Heinz Schwarz came with his mother about Switzerland and Italy to South Africa, where his father lived now. Black graduated from the school and studied together with the future President Nelson Mandela Jura.

As Heinz Schwarz was drafted into the war against Germany, commanded his instructor was renamed "Harry," so that he would not be recognized as German.

Harry Schwarz was in 1964 in the Rivonia Trial of Mandela's defenders. Ten years later he became a member of parliament of the United Party. In the same year he signed together with Mangosuthu Buthelezi Mahlabatini the Declaration of Faith, in a non-violent end of apartheid was demanded. In 1977 he left the United Party and became leader of only a few months existing Reform Party, which merged into the Progressive Federal Party. Even there, he held several high offices. In 1991 he was South African ambassador to the United States.