Hertzog's time in office came to a bitter end on 4th September 1939 when he sanctioned a policy of neutrality in the looming second world war, and the United party forced him from office replacing him with deputy prime minister Jan Smuts, a friend and colleague of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Smuts believed in racial segregation with a paternalistic outlook; black Africans should be treated fairly but precluded from the political process less they destroy civilisation. Despite this, Smuts government's approach to racial segregation softened during the war years. The Fagan Commission, set up by Smuts, recommended in 1946 that the rules concerning black movement in urban areas should be relaxed to provide a wider choice of staff for business owners and also a wider consumer base.

However the South African National Party responded by setting up the Sauer Commission which recommended that segregation should rolled out over all aspects of life in South Africa, and it was this recommendation that formed the basis for the implementation of Apartheid ~ apartness. By this time 75,000 black African mine workers had gone on strike when it was revealed that they were being paid twelve times less than their white co-workers. The white police suppressed the strike killing or injuring more than one thousand blacks underlined a perception that the blacks required controlling and couldn't be trusted.

The South African National party went on to win the general election of 1948, narrowly beating Smuts' party in the number of seats in parliament, although it lost the popular vote. In 1950 it passed the Population Registration Act which placed all South Africans into three racial groups, white, coloured (mixed race or Asian), and native (African/black). The act also made it illegal for marriages to take place between any of the three racial groups in order to maintain racial purity. Cont/...