Robey Leibbrandt Sidney Robey Leibbrandt ( 25 January 1913 in Potchefstroom , Transvaal ; 1 August 1966 in Ladybrand , Free State province , South Africa ) , who was led by the German military intelligence ( Abwehr ) under the pseudonym " " Robert Leibbrand " , " was a South African Boer of German and Irish descent . Leibbrandt was an Olympic boxer and later a German secret agent and freedom fighter against the British influence and political power within South Africa . Life . Family . Leibbrandt was the third of six children , his father was Sergeant Major Meyder ( Meider ) Johannes Leibbrandt and his mother Susan Marguarite ( née Joyce ) . Sergeant Major Leibbrandt fought with his friend Jan Smuts in the Second Boer War . Later he wanted to become an officer in the South African Army , but when World War I broke out , he was ordered to invade German South - West Africa , an order , which he morally could not follow , because " Germans should not war against Germans " . He was allowed to stay with the army as a Drill Sergeant for recruits , but he received no further promotions . Later he became a policeman and politician in Pretoria , where he was known as " " Oom John " " ( Afrikaans for " uncle Johannes " ) . From 1924 to 1930 , Robey Leibbrandt attended Grey college in Bloemfontein . At 13 he began to develop a keen interest in boxing . Operation Weissdorn . Following the 1936 Berlin Olympics , Leibbrandt returned to Berlin in 1938 to study at the Reich Academy for Gymnastics , and stayed on when war broke out . He joined the German Army , where he became the first South African to be trained as a Fallschirmjäger and glider pilot . Later other South Africans also joined the Wehrmacht . Leibbrand was trained with comrades of the Brandenburgers at a " sabotage training course " of Abwehr II ( Abwehrschool " Quenzgut " ) near Brandenburg an der Havel , west of Berlin . In 1940 Leibbrandt had a son by a German woman ( Bernd ) . Admiral Wilhelm Canaris ordered Operation Weissdorn , a plan for a " coup d ' état " to overthrow the government of General Jan Smuts , who had led South Africa into the Second World War on the side of the Allies . Leibbrandt left Germany on 5 April 1941 . In June 1941 , under the code name " Walter Kempf " , Leibbrandt was dropped on the Namaqualand coast north of Cape Town by a confiscated French sailboat ( the " Kyloe " ) under the command of " Ghostsailor " ( ) and Abwehr asset Lieutenant " S " Christian Nissen aka " Hein Mück " . The " Operation Weissdorn " was one of the most successful clouded in secrecy enterprises ( ) of the " Geistersegler " . Leibbrandt formed the Nasionaal Sosialistiese Rebelle drumming up support through fiery speeches and political campaigning , while secretly training members in bomb making . He also made contact with another pro - German movement , the Ossewabrandwag , but the leader , Johannes Van Rensburg , was unsympathetic . Capture and imprisonment . Leibbrandt ' s 60 resistance fighters kept the British rulers of South Africa on high alert . They fought and committed sabotage successfully . After a confrontation and fierce fire fight with soldiers in the fall of 1942 , Leibbrandt went on the run and evaded the police for some time , until he was eventually betrayed , captured and arrested in Pretoria at the end of December 1942 . The arresting officer was Claude Sterley , a fellow Springbok Boxer who was , at the time , a Sergeant in the South African Police . Leibbrandt was armed at the time but did not resist his capture by his old friend . On 11 March 1943 Leibbrandt was sentenced to death for high treason . Although Leibbrandt refused to give evidence at any stage in the trial , he claimed that he had acted " for Volk and Führer " and gave the German Salute ( Hitler Salute ) when he first entered the court , to which several spectators responded and calling " Sieg Heil " . After being sentenced to death , Leibbrandt shouted loudly and clearly " I greet death " . His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by General Jan Smuts , who had great sympathies for the Leibbrandt family , in the same year . In 1948 , Leibbrandt was released in an amnesty of war offenders by the newly victorious National Party government under Daniel François Malan , which had opposed South Africa ' s entry into World War II on the side of the Allies and wanted to remain neutral . Leibbrandt left the prison and was greeted by crowds as a " folk hero " , a legend was born . Later life and death . Leibbrandt remained politically active in his later life , founding the organisation " Anti - Kommunistiese Beskermingsfront " ( Anti - Communist Protection Front ) in 1962 , and producing a series of pamphlets titled " Ontwaak Suid - Afrika " ( Wake up South Africa ) . He was also a passionate sportsman and hunter . Leibbrandt was married to Margaretha " " Etha " " Cornelia Botha , they had four sons : " Hermann " , " Remer " , " Izan " , and " Meyder Johannes " and one daughter , " Rayna " . Robey Leibbrandt , " Der treue Gefolgsmann " ( " the loyal follower " ) died on 1 August 1966 after a heart attack . The request by family , and friends from around the world to let him be buried with full military honors was denied by the South African government .