Oxford Group - Attempt To Reach Nazi Leaders

Attempt To Reach Nazi Leaders

In the 1930s the Oxford Group had a substantial following in Germany. They watched the rise of the National Socialist party with alarm, as did those elsewhere in Europe and America. Buchman kept in close touch with his German colleagues, and felt compelled to attempt to reach the Nazi leaders in Germany and win them to a new approach.

It was a time when Churchill and Karl Barth were ready to give German National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus) a chance to prove itself as a democratic political movement, despite its obvious and repeated denunciation of democracy. Hitler had, at first, presented himself as a defender of Christianity, declaring in 1928: "We shall not tolerate in our ranks anyone who hurts Christian ideas."

Buchman was convinced that without a change in the heart of the National Socialist regime a world war would become inevitable. He also believed that any person, including the German leaders, could find a living Christian faith with a commitment to Christ's moral values.

He tried to meet Hitler but was unsuccessful. He met with Himmler three times at the request of Moni von Crammon, an Oxford Group adherent, the last time in 1936. To a Danish journalist and friend he said a few hours after the final interview that the doors were now closed. "Germany has come under the domination of a terrible demonic power. A counter-action is absolutely necessary."

As study of Gestapo documents has revealed, the Nazis watched the Oxford Group with suspicion from 1934 on. A first detailed secret Gestapo report about The Oxford – or Group Movement was published in November 1936 warning that it had turned into a dangerous opponent of National Socialism'. The Nazis also classified the Stalinist version of Bolshevism and non-Nazi, right-wing groups such as Catholic Action as dangerous to Nazism.

Upon his return to New York from Berlin, Buchman gave a number of interviews. He was quoted as reportedly saying, "I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front line of defence against the anti-Christ of Communism." The Rev. Garrett Stearly, one of Buchman's colleagues from Princeton University who was present at the interview, wrote, "I was amazed when the story came out. It was so out of key with the interview." Buchman chose not to respond to the article, feeling that to do so would endanger his friends among the opposition in Germany.

During the war, the Oxford Group in Germany divided into three parts. Some submitted to Himmler's demand that they cut all links with Buchman and the Oxford Group abroad. The largest group continued the work of bringing Christian change to people under a different name, Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Seelsorge (Working team for the Care of Souls), without being involved in politics and always subject to surveillance. A third group joined the active opposition. Moni Von Crammon's son-in-law was one of those executed along with Adam von Trott zu Solz. They were executed under Hitler's orders after the July 20 plot.

After World War II, further Gestapo documents came to light; one from 1939 states: "The Group preaches revolution against the national state and has quite evidently become its Christian opponent." Another, from 1942, states: "No other Christian movement has underlined so strongly the character of Christianity as being supernational and independent of all racial barriers."

Some from the Oxford Group in Germany continued to oppose the Nazi regime during the war. In Norway, Bishop Fjellbu of Oslo, who was imprisoned for his resistance, said in 1945: "I wish to state publicly that the foundations of the united resistance of Norwegian Churchmen to Nazism were laid by the Oxford Group's work."