Similarly, the alteration in Kost himself had affected many, not least his employees at Moers. When he introduced the first showing of The Forgotten Factor there, Bladeck and the others were amazed to hear him say, 'We need to put people first in our business and then build the business around them. In this way we can unite as human beings so that something happens not only in the business, but in the community and in the nation ... If, in addition, we let the forgotten factor of God shine in our plant and rule there, then we shall see that not the bookkeeper's pen nor the adding machine nor reason alone governs the undertaking, but that the hearts of men must beat for each other.'27

Hans Dütting, the Director of the Gelsenkirchen Coal-Mining Company, with whom Buchman stayed for the Hans Sachs House meetings, employed 27,000 men. He had gone to Caux in 1949 with the idea of getting a holiday and doing some mountain climbing, but when he returned he completely altered his business methods; 'We began to conduct our operations in such a way that we no longer had the slightest thing to hide. We began quite spontaneously to give our workers' representatives more information. The result was an extraordinary growth in trust between work force and management. Every month I have a special meeting with all chairmen of works councils, some twenty-five in all. Absolute honesty prevails. Each side knows that no one in that gathering is telling an untruth.'28 'Perhaps I myself gave the strongest push towards a change in our mutual attitudes when I spoke openly about a wrong decision I had made, which I then put straight with the help of the works councillors,' Dütting added.29

Paul Dikus, the works council chairman for Dütting's 27,000 workers, confirmed the change as early as 1950: 'A year ago, I believe both of us would have said we were mad if I had said that Mine-Manager Dütting and I would speak together on the same platform.' Then he referred to a meeting where Dütting told the works councillors the full figures of the financial situation of the firm and took them completely into his confidence. 'That was the meeting of my life,' said Dikus. 'Dütting told us things we have always wanted to know. He laid all his cards on the table. It was something entirely new. And look at all the other things that have happened - all the houses that are being built, all the new social amenities for the workers. I tell you it is the practical application of Moral Re-Armament.'30

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