German African colonies. Pirow denied in the South African parliament that the South African government was planning to return Southwest Africa, saying that he was only expressing the wish that Germany have a colonial empire in Africa again. According to the British embassy in Berlin which had learned of the contents of a meeting between Johan Paul van Limburg Stirum, the Dutch minister plenipotentiary to Germany, and Stefanus Gie, the South African minister plenipotentiary to Germany, Pirow's speech was not an off-hand statement, but rather the beginning of a new policy as the South African prime minister J. B. M. Hertzog felt that having Germany return as a colonial power in Africa was crucial "for the future safety of the white population". According to the source, Hertzog was planning to keep Southwest Africa and also felt that Britain should not return either Tanganyika (modern mainland Tanzania) or Cameroon to Germany. However, the source reported that for Hertzog it would be "ideal" if Germany could take over the Portuguese colonies in Africa, and that it was in this sense that Pirow's speech should be understood. Pirow toured Europe in 1938 and claimed to offer Hitler a free role in Eastern Europe in return for allowing the Jews to leave Germany. During this tour he also met Benito Mussolini, António de Oliveira Salazar and Francisco Franco and became convinced that a European war was imminent, with Nazi victory assured. Pirow's Germanophilia was such that the family spoke only German at home and his daughter Else even caused a minor controversy in Britain in June 1939 when she told the Daily Express that the Pirows felt more German than South African. Pirow supported Hertzog's calls for neutrality when war did arrive and followed his leader into the new Herenigde Nasionale Party (HNP). By September 1940 he had launched his own group New Order (Nuwe Orde) group within the HNP, backing a Nazi-style dictatorship. This group took its name from his 1940 New Order in South Africa pamphlet in which he embraced the ideology. The pamphlet ran through seven editions in its first year of existence. Daniel François Malan initially tolerated the actions of the New Order, but soon came to see it as a divisive influence on the HNP and at the Transvaal party congress of August 1941, he forced through a motion ending the group's propaganda activities, particularly their insistence on an