In the eyes of history, the German Shepherd dog breed is the epitome of terror and close reminder of the brutality faced under the apartheid police.
These dogs were used as police protection and weapons against black people during apartheid.
Professor Sandra Swart, from Stellenbosch University’s history department, hosted a seminar on the brutality of these dogs on Tuesday.
She said that the ferocious dogs were never meant to be.
“For 50 years, starting in 1912, police dogs were merely ‘nose detectives’ as sniffer dogs. They were only used for scent detection and never allowed to bite or attack,” she said.
“The switch from ‘nose to teeth’ only started in 1961 and was driven by politics and a shift in who was being policed as apartheid intensified. They wanted to take this kind of policing to the cities and they wanted to take it away from just tracking down the spoor and scent of suspects by using the nose.
“They wanted a different kind of dog, a different kind of dog handler: for imposing order, both physical and psychological, on an African public that was starting to resist apartheid,” said Swart.
She said the apartheid police even went to Germany to learn how these dogs could be trained for brutality against black people trying to oppose apartheid.
“As if this was not enough, the police got donated a wolf to improve the blood of the German Shepherds,” she said.
Swart alleges that the dogs were sent on informal training called “tasting blood” which involved the police releasing them to chase and sink their teeth into the skin of a black person.
In this sense, the apartheid hounds were taught to “hate” black people.
Part of Swart’s research zooms into the leaked video of white Benoni police officials training their dogs on Mozambican black people. The incident happened in 1998 when the police, who seemingly enjoyed the training, released dogs to chase the foreigners and force them to show off their scars when the training had ended.
“This video is sensitive and brings back the memories of the past because everyone gets to understand why and how these dogs became so vicious towards a black person. And the sad truth is that they too faced trauma because as in humans, not every dog is the same.
“Even in the video, you would see a dog that was not into biting but they kept on telling it to get to the man. I would like to emphasise that also not all police officials of the time were that heartless and believe me, some protected these dogs from that wild training and would take them home for care when they are too old to serve the state.”
