Reitz, Deneys (1882-1994)

South African soldier, politician, and author. In 1920 he was elected to the Union parliament. He was minister of lands (1933), minister of agriculture and forestry (1935), minister of mines (1938), and after the Smuts-Hertzog break on the war issue, became deputy prime minister (1939-43) and minister for native affairs. In 1942 he was appointed South African high commissioner in London, England.

Reitz was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. He was the son of the president of the Orange Free State at the outbreak of the South African War. He afterwards went into voluntary exile, but was induced by Jan Smuts to return to South Africa, where he qualified in law. In World War I he fought with the Union forces in German East and West Africa; and volunteered for service with the British forces in 1917. He did much for Afrikaans as a literary language and wrote, among other books, Commando: a Boer Journal of the Boer War (1929), Trekking On (1933), and No Outspan 1943.