In the spring of 1949 Kost summoned a meeting of 190 leading industrialists to hear a panel of Moral Re-Armament speakers at the Kaiserhof Hotel in Essen. Böckler and a Marxist lecturer from Düsseldorf named Heinz Grohs decided to attend. When they arrived and saw so many capitalists together, Grohs decided he could not stomach the sight and went out for a drink. But he returned, and Böckler told the speakers after the meeting, 'What impresses us is that you people say the same things and put the same challenges to management as you have to us.' They were also impressed by Kost's opening words to his fellow industrialists. 'Gentlemen,' he had begun, 'it is not a question of whether we change, but how we change. It is not for us to wait for Labour to change. Change is demanded of us.'7

Böckler asked for a further talk in his home, of which a Clydeside shipyard worker, by now working full-time with Moral Re-Armament, wrote to Buchman: 'Fresh from Kost's meeting and the way the changed management with us tackled the Ruhr barons, Böckler spoke from his heart. He spoke of the sacrifices of the people leaving jobs and home. He said, "Some people hold the doctrine that you have to change the system in order to change society. That is, of course, true, but it is only half the truth. People must change drastically like those men who spoke to us at Kost's meeting. Both must be done, and you fight for both, I am convinced of that." He added, "I want to make a statement that you can use."'8

At Caux, a few months later, Böckler met Buchman, and they became friends. It was after this that he produced his carefully weighed statement: 'If men are to be free from the old and the out-moded, it can happen only as they set themselves new goals and place humanity and moral values in the forefront. I believe that Moral Re-Armament can bring about a definite improvement for mankind in many areas of life. When men change, the structure of society changes, and when the structure of society changes, men change. Both go together and both are necessary. The goal which Moral Re-Armament strives to reach is the same as that for which I am fighting as a trade unionist.'9*

(* Other German trades union leaders who went to Caux at this time included Lorenz Hagen and Gustav Schiefer, President and Vice-President of the Bavarian Trades Unions; Otto Franke, Secretary of the Trades Unions in the French Zone; Ernst Scharnowski, President of the Free Trades Union Organisation of Greater Berlin; Erich Galle. Chairman of the Metal Workers; and Hans Frenz, Chairman of the Post Office Workers.)

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