South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country located on the very south of Africa. Its rich resources (most notably diamonds) have led it become an ethnically diverse part of the world, which in turn has led it become a very conflicted country. In addtion to native peoples, such as the Zulu and the Xhosa, the country was a colony first of the Dutch and then the British. In the early 20th century, South Africa gained limited independence as a British dominion. It instituted a rigid legal separation of the races called apartheid in 1948, which stayed in effect until the 1990s.

South Africa in In the Presence of Mine Enemies
The Union of South Africa was the only independent country in Africa; the rest of the continent had been divided up among Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal after their victory in World War II. The "Aryan-dominated" Union of South Africa was an ally of the Greater Germanic Reich, not a conquest.

See:Inconsistencies in Turtledove's Work

South Africa in Southern Victory
South Africa had been a British Colony in the 19th century. The United Kingdom's absolute rule over the colony came after it defeated the Zulu Nation in the 1879.

By the early 20th century, South Africa was now a self-governing dominion within the British Empire. During the Great War, South Africa, like Argentina, was one of the two main suppliers of food goods to the British Isles. In 1917, the Empire of Brazil entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, threatening the supply lines between South Africa and the UK, forcing the entire empire to seek a full amistice.

In the wars aftermath, Britain was still considered the major power in South Africa.

South Africa in The Guns of the South
South Africa was the home of the time-traveling Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging organization. Their tampering with history allowed the Confederate States to win the Second American Revolution. However, their head-on confronatation with Robert E. Lee after the war foiled their ultimate aim in this intereference - i.e. to create a history in which South Africa would remain white-ruled.

South Africa in Worldwar
South Africa was a British Dominion during World War II. When the war began it aligned itself with the Allies, though elements of the white Afrikaner population favored Nazi Germany. During the Race's invasion of Tosev 3 in the 1940s, South Africa was quickly conquered by the Race along with the rest of Africa. The nation's laws of racial segregation were nullified under the Race's rule, as the aliens found discrimination by skin color to be completely irrational. As a result of this attitude, most South Africans, particularly the black population, accepted the Race's overlordship with relative docility in comparison to many of the Lizards' other colonial subjects.

Following the arrival of the Colonization Fleet in 1962, South Africa was heavily colonized by the Race, and many animals from Home were released into its rich ecosystems. By that point white-based resistance against the Race, though serious enough to merit headlines in the United States, had largely been crushed. Several of the locals engaged in ginger smuggling, as did some members of the Race's garrison.