[Nummer 20]
Hitler or Any Fascist Leader Controlled by God Could Cure All Ills of World, Buchman Believes
By WILLIAM A.H. BIRNIE,
World-Telegram Staff Writer.
To Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman, vigorous, outspoken, 58-year-old leader of the revivalist Oxford Group, the Fascist dictatorships of Europe suggest infinite possibilities for remaking the world and putting it under ‘God control.’
‘I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism.’ he said today in nis book-lined office in the annex to Calvary Church, Fourth Ave. and 21st St.
‘My barber in London told me Hitler saved all Europe from Communism. That's how he felt. Of course, I don't condone everything the Nazis do. Anti-Semitism? Bad. naturally. I suppose Hitler sees a Karl Marx in every Jew.
‘But think what it would mean to the world if Hitler surrendered to the control of God. Or Mussolini. Or any dictator. Through such a man God could control a nation overnight and solve every last, bewildering problem.’
Dr. Buchman, who is directing an Oxford house party tonight at the Lenox, Mass., estate of Mrs. Harriet Pullman Schermerhorn, returned from Europe abroad the Queen Mary, after attending Oxford meetings in England and the Olympic games in Berlin.
A small, portly man, who doesn't smoke or drink and listens quietly to ‘Gods plans’ for a half hour or so every day, usually before breakfast, Dr. Buchman talked easily about world affairs while eight or nine Oxfordites-good-looking young fellows in tweeds-sat on the floor and listened.
‘The world needs the dictatorship of the living spirit of God,’ he said and smiled, adjusting his rimless glasses and smoothing the graying hair on the back of his head. ‘I like to put it this way. God is a perpetual broadcasting station and all you need to do is tune in. What we need is a supernational network of live wires across the world to every last man, in every last place, in every last situation.
‘The world won't listen to God, but God has a plan for every person, for every nation, Human ingenuity is not enough. That is why the isms are pitted against each other and blood falls.
‘Spain has taught us what godless Communism will bring. Who would have dreamed that nuns would be running naked in the streets? Human problems aren't economic. They're moral, and they can't be solved by immoral measures. They could be solved within a God-controlled democracy, or perhaps I should say a theocracy, and they could be solved through a God-controlled Fascist dictatorship.’
He looked around the room at the eight or nine young men drinking in his words, and straightened the crimson rose in his button hole.
‘Suppose we here were all God-
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