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Sidney Robey Leibbrandt (born 25 January 1913, died 1 August 1966) was a South African Boer of German and Irish descent who was an Olympic boxer and later a spy for Nazi Germany.
Leibbrandt won the light heavyweight bronze medal for South Africa at the 1934 Empire Games, and also represented South Africa at the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
He returned to Berlin in 1938 to study at the Reich Academy for Gymnastics, and stayed on when war broke out, joining the German Army.
Adolf Hitler ordered Admiral Canaris to implement Operation Weissdorn, a plan for the assassination of General Smuts. Leibbrandt, was dropped on the Namakwaland coast in June 1941 by a Kriegsmarine vessel the Kyloe from were he proceeded to South-Africa. Once here he formed the Nasionaal Sosialistiese Rebelle who had contacts with another pro-German movement , the Ossewabrandwag.
Leibbrandt was captured and in 1943 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 Fuhrer and gave the Nazi salute when he first entered the court, to which several spectators responded. After being sentenced to death Liebbrandt shouted loudly and clearly "I greet death". His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by General Smuts on 11th March 1943.
In 1948, Leibbrandt was released in an amnesty of war offenders by the newly victorious Nationalist government, which had opposed South Africa's entry into the war on the side of the Allies.