SWAKOPMUND, South‐West Africa —'Heil Hitler!” said the black gas station attendant matter‐of‐factly to the department customer, raising his right arm to the traditional height.
He offered the outdated salute after a pleasant conversation in which he explained the fluency of his German by the fact that his father had been a Feldwebel, or sergeant, in the German Imperial Army in this former German colony. it appeared not to be a joke, but rather a greeting that he had exchanged before with German customers.
“When I first came here,” the German girl at the reception desk of the Hansa Hotel said, “I could hardly believe it. This place is more German than Germany.”
Swakopmund was a coastal resort built for the refreshment of colonial society from the heat, of South‐West Africa's interior. South Africa, which conoucred it in 1915, has built its own buildings in this town in which 7,000 whites live. A comparable number of blacks and “coloreds” are housed on the other side of the tracks. But South Africa's influence has not changed the town's Wilhelmine appearance.
Streets Have German Names
Kaiser‐Wilhelmstrasse is the name of the main street. Near the shorefront, it is traversed by a street named after the Kaiser's Chancellor. Bismarck; many of the other cross‐streets bear the names of the Kaiser's generals. But Göringstrasse is not named after the Nazi leader but his father, a colonial administrator.
The shop signs are mainly in German; many of the goods on sale are imported from Germany or made in the German tradition.
The bookstore would do proud by a German city much larger than Swakopmund, the Cafe Anton offers all the traditional kuchen and torte, with or without a gob of schlagsahne.
On the monument to the marines who fell in the Herero uprising of 1904—adjudged by historians to he a classic genocide of an indigenous people by colonial forces—the flag of the Kaiser's army is flown on festive occasions. The territory is called Stidwest by the (warier of the white population whose first tongue is German.
A strong Nazi movement existed in Seuth‐West Africa until the Germans were interned during World War II, and vestiges, strengthened by Nazis who took refuge here after the war, survive.
They dream of restoring the Siidwest that used to be while the rest of the world is considering how long it will he before this South African‐ruled territory will become a free country with 765,000 black citizens taking over the government from 100,000 whites.
But Germans are also in the forefront of the political struggle to create an independent, multiracial country of Namibia, as the territory is known by nationalists. The German — language daily Allgemeine Zeitung strongly expresses that view. And Jewish leaders in Windhoek, the capital 70 miles west of here, credit the Germans with the unusually active cultural life of the city, animated jointly. by Jews and Germans.
Germans have offered no more resistance to the integration of many public facilities than other whites in the territory. Since last year, SouthWest Africa—unlike “the Republic,” as South Africa is called here—has removed separate entrances to public buildings and lifted the color bar at hotels and restaurants.
It is the slightly more relaxed atmosphere between the races as well as the depth of the German tradition, that most strike the visitor from South Africa. Other impressions are the vastness, aridity and beauty of the land—from the mountains around Windhoek, to the cattle land to the west that changes imperceptibly to sheep and goat land as the vegetation becomes sparser still, wail it ends in the dunes of the Namib Desert here on the coast.
But there are hard limits in racial attitudes that differ little from those in the Republic” and which were expressed in many casual conversations. A hitchhiker, a 23‐year‐old Afrikaner leaching woodworking at a uranium mine near here, expounded what probably were representative racial views in 200 miles of driving.
He thought he was typical of his generation, he said, more modern than that of his parents. They would not accept multiracial government; he would. He would accept blacks living in the house next door and their children sharing classrooms with the children he and his wife are hoping for.
Draws Line at Visits to Home
He would not mind if his children played with black classmates in school but would be less happy if they did on his street. He would draw the line against bringing them into the house. He hesitated before he said he would accept orders from a black superior on the job.
But he added that whatever he said did not go for his wife, who conies from “the Republic.''5 She is unhappy in South‐West Africa, he said, because of the racial situation now and its prospects for the future. For that reason, he said, they rented a house instead of buying one when they married. If maiority rule comes, lie said, they will probably cross the border with many others.
The young man did not exchange word with the black hitchhiker whu rode along for half the way, although they work at the same mine. After the black got out, the young man was asked if had had minded the other man's presence. “No,” he said, reluctantly. Would he have minded if ths wife had also been in the car? “Probably.” he replied, nodding acknowledgment.