Buchman insisted that the emphasis at Caux must be upon Germany's future rather than her past, her potential rather than her guilt. Whether dealing with an individual or a nation he was only interested in reviewing past mistakes as a basis for discovering a new way forward. He simply treated the Germans exactly like everyone else.

This enabled Germans to consider both past and future as they had never done before. 'For years we German people praised, supported, and defended an illusion,' wrote Dr Erwin Stein, Minister of Education for Hesse, on his return from Caux. 'As a result, endless suffering befell many of the nations of Europe and the world because of Germany. Our task, as responsible Germans, is, once and for all, to build up a democracy inspired by God. Only on this basis will it endure, and Moral Re- Armament shows us clearly how this is to be done.'9

Another of these early visitors to Caux was Baron Hans Herwarth von Bittenfeld, then Director of the Bavarian Chancellery and later the first post-war German Ambassador in London, who has written of his part in the Resistance to Hitler in his book, Against Two Evils 1931-45.10 'It is one thing to fight an ideology,' he wrote at the time. 'The real answer is a superior ideology. At Caux we found democracy at work and, in the light of what we saw, we faced ourselves and our nation. It was personal and national repentance. Many of us Germans who were anti-Nazi made the mistake in putting the whole blame on Hitler. We learned at Caux that we, too, were responsible. Our lack of a positive ideology contributed to the rise of Hitler.'11

Reinhold Maier, Minister-President of Württemberg-Baden, was also at Caux in 1947. One night he saw a play about the heroic Norwegian journalist Frederik Ramm, And Still They Fight. He slipped away from the theatre and threw himself on his bed 'completely shattered' with shame at what his country had done. 'It was a presentation without hatred or complaint and therefore could hardly have been more powerful in its effect,' he wrote.12

Not all the German guests responded like Stein, Herwarth and Maier. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung correspondent wrote that some were unconvinced by the 'terrible simplification' of the Christian ethic,13 while Terence Prittie, then the Manchester Guardian man in Germany, wrote in 1979, 'To be honest, I think some politicians climbed on the bandwagon in order to get a free trip to Switzerland and to be treated like ordinary human beings.'14 But according to Professor Carlo Schmid, a leading Socialist, 'although some were disappointed and complained of too much activity, nearly all came home feeling fulfilled and even former Nazis made real inner changes'.15

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