Ben Schoeman

Schoeman in the 1930s, posing in front of a steam train he worked on as a fireman

Schoeman was born in Johannesburg in the British Colony of the Transvaal on 19 January 1905, the son of train driver Barend Jacobus Schoeman, and Abelina Jacoba Schoeman (née Theunissen). After completing his studies at high school, he joined the railway industry, and worked as both a driver and a fireman. He progressed up the hierarchy, and after 16 years he achieved the position of station master. Prior to entering politics, Schoeman was a member of the elitist and sometimes militant Afrikaner organisation Ossewabrandwag; during which period he was arrested. He entered politics as a member of the United Party, being elected as Member of Parliament for Fordsburg in the 1938 general election, gaining a majority of 1,127 over TC Robertson of the Labour Party. Aged 33, Schoeman was the youngest member of the House of Assembly. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Schoeman supported Prime Minister J. B. M. Hertzog's stance of neutrality. When Hertzog resigned as Prime Minister and switched his allegiance to the National Party, Schoeman similarly switched parties, and in 1940 he became the head of the National Party in the Witwatersrand, and a member of the party's Executive Committee. He openly supported Germany in the war, saying in 1940: "The whole future of Afrikanerdom is dependent on a German victory. We may as well say that openly, because it is a fact."

After the assassination of Prime Minister Henrik Verwoerd in September 1966, Schoeman was widely considered to be the favourite to assume leadership of both the National Party and the country. However, the day before the election, he withdrew from the race, granting victory to the only other candidate; John Vorster. In an interview conducted shortly after his withdrawal, Schoeman, who looked as though he had been crying, revealed that he had made the decision due to "gossip, even about my wife." In their 2003 book Unfinished business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth, Terry Bell and Dumisa Buhle Ntsebeza suggest that Schoeman was blackmailed by Vorster, though offer no evidence for their theory.

Phil Weber, an editor of Die Burger, believed that Schoeman was the "most sober thinker" of D. F. Malan's cabinet regarding the government's stance on apartheid.