Buchman continued to visit Germany privately during 1937 and the spring of 1938, centring in places like Freudenstadt and Garmisch- Partenkirchen. During this period he made particular use of the German edition of the world-wide pictorial magazine, Rising Tide (Steigende Flut), which had been banned by the Propaganda Ministry16 but which was smuggled in, mainly by car. He wrote to friends that a Party leader had taken fifty copies, a postman was distributing it and another friend had ordered sixty-six. Bentinck wrote protesting that his 'action with Steigende Flut has done great harm',17 but Buchman seemed unimpressed. 'Thank the Lord for R.T.,' he replied. 'What a lot of good it has released. You find its influence everywhere.'18

In 1939 the Gestapo compiled the 126-page report, Die Oxfordgruppen-bewegung, in which they stated that the Oxford Group was 'the pace-maker of Anglo-American diplomacy'. 'The Group as a whole', the document stated, 'constitutes an attack upon the nationalism of the state and demands the utmost watchfulness on the part of the state. It preaches revolution against the national state and has quite evidently become its Christian opponent.' It reproduced precisely those arguments against the Christian conceptions of sin and forgiveness which Himmler had used in his talks with Frau von Cramon. This report was circulated by the Gestapo headquarters in 1942 for official use.19 In this year also the German Army forbade all officers to have anything to do with the Oxford Group under any name.20 Those who persisted were restricted to front-line units. Many civilians who had worked with the Oxford Group were put in concentration camps.

At an inquiry into the work of the Oxford Group in Germany the Chief of Security in North Württemberg, Reinhold Bässler, said to some of its members, 'We have no fear of the churches. We take the young people from them and leave them to die out. But you are changing our best young people. You do not engage in abuse, but you are winning the idealists. That makes you the most dangerous enemies of the state.' 21

A chapter in the 1942 document on the work of the Oxford Group in Germany says that it had been at work there since 1933 but with the greatest caution: 'For tactical reasons, great meetings of the kind that have taken place in other countries have been avoided. The work has been carried forward in conscious secrecy, and public debate has been avoided as much as possible. Even the postal services have been avoided in sending out messages or invitations. Cipher letters have been used.'22

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