Statecraft & Independence
Peerless
F. W. de Klerk
1936 – 2021
Released Mandela, unbanned the ANC, and shared the Nobel Peace Prize
Peerless is level 1 of 4 in the South Africa Hall of Fame: changed the field itself. Tell the country's story without them and the story breaks. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
The last president of apartheid South Africa, and the man who ended it. He released Mandela in 1990, unbanned the liberation movements, and shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with the man he had freed.
Frederik Willem de Klerk became State President in 1989, having spent his career as a lawyer, parliamentarian and minister defending white privilege — nobody expected him to be the one to dismantle it.
Concluding that apartheid was leading the country to economic and political bankruptcy, he put himself at the head of a radical change of course: unbanning the African National Congress and the other liberation movements, releasing Nelson Mandela in February 1990 after twenty-seven years, and negotiating the transition to universal suffrage. He and Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime and for laying the foundations of a democratic South Africa. He served as deputy president under Mandela and died in 2021.
Concluding that apartheid was leading the country to economic and political bankruptcy, he put himself at the head of a radical change of course: unbanning the African National Congress and the other liberation movements, releasing Nelson Mandela in February 1990 after twenty-seven years, and negotiating the transition to universal suffrage. He and Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime and for laying the foundations of a democratic South Africa. He served as deputy president under Mandela and died in 2021.
- The Nobel Prize — F. W. de Klerk, facts
- The Nobel Prize — Press release, Nobel Peace Prize 1993
- Time — How Nelson Mandela came to work with F. W. de Klerk to end apartheid
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