Remembering September 6, 1966: The day Hendrik Verwoerd was stabbed to death in Parliament
On this day in 1966, Apartheid South Africa’s prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd, the chief architect of apartheid, was assassinated inside Parliament in Cape Town.
Verwoerd was stabbed to death while seated in the House of Assembly by Dimitri Tsafendas, a parliamentary messenger of Greek and Mozambican descent.
Verwoerd, 64, died almost instantly, and the attack stunned the ruling National Party, which had consolidated apartheid policies under his leadership.
Tsafendas was immediately arrested and charged with murder. His trial, held later that year, focused heavily on his mental state. Evidence revealed that Tsafendas had a history of psychiatric illness and believed his body was inhabited by a tapeworm controlling his actions.
The court ruled him unfit to stand trial, declaring him insane. Instead of a conventional prison sentence, Tsafendas was detained indefinitely ‘at the State President’s pleasure’.
Decades later, Tsafendas stated his motive to Greek Orthodox priests in 1994, saying he killed Verwoerd because he was “a dictator and a tyrant who oppressed his people.”
He spent the rest of his life in custody, much of it in harsh conditions, and died in 1999 at the age of 81.
Reflecting on the historical significance, Theo Neethling, head of the Department of Political Studies and Governance at the University of the Free State, said Verwoerd’s death did not weaken the apartheid project, even though it sent shockwaves through South Africa.
“The assassination of Verwoerd was a seismic political event, but it did not dismantle apartheid. Instead, it exposed the system’s deep fractures and inherent problems. While it shocked the country, the machinery of racial segregation carried on, shielded by a government unwilling to abandon its ideology despite mounting international outrage,” Neethling said.
He noted that the handover of power to John Vorster marked not reform but a tactical adjustment. “The transition from Verwoerd to Vorster did not signify reform, but it did mark a shift in emphasis: from apartheid as dogma to apartheid as survival strategy.”
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