This contribution seeks to explore how notions of ‚culture’ and ‚language’ and their forming the common bond of a ‚Volk’ by the German philosopher Fichte were introduced into the South African political and educational discourse by a group of South African scholars who had studied in Germany in the 1920s and who became instrumental in providing a philosophical legitimization for the policy of Apartheid from 1948 onwards, proclaimed as ‚separate cultural development’. This South African brand of a neo-Fichtean nationalist tradition was, with reference to the construction and reinforcement of a highly segregated education system, expressed in figures of thinking which are strikingly reminiscent of the most recent discourse on intercultural education in Europe. A critical review of the history of Apartheid educational philosophy will, therefore, sensitize for the potential of underlying ambivalences of any pedagogy framed as “intercultural education”.   The author suggested the following area of focus: 5. Geographies of knowledge in intercultural education.