On the first anniversary of Buchman's arrival in Denmark he spoke at a weekend rally which brought some 20,000 to Ollerup in the Fyn country-side. 'The Oxford Group goes on its victorious way,' commented Extrabladet in an editorial. 'We cannot but be grateful for the contribution they have made to the moral betterment of many people's lives. If there is one thing we need it is to become better people, more honest, more upright than we are and with purer thought-life and warmer hearts than we have.'52

The effect of this new life was to prepare many Scandinavians, in Denmark as in Norway, for the perils of occupation. In Denmark Clemmensen was assassinated by Danish Nazis - individuals, incidentally, who had opposed Buchman during his visit - while others like Colonel H.A.V. Hansen performed acts of outstanding courage in the Resistance and lived to tell the tale.53 Bishop Fuglsang-Damgaard was sent to a concentration camp. Before imprisonment he smuggled a message to Buchman that through the Oxford Group he had found a spirit which the Nazis could not break and that he went without fear.54

In Norway Fangen was the first of Buchman's colleagues to be arrested,55 the Oxford Group being banned at the same time. In the years before the war Fangen and Ramm had travelled up and down Scandinavia from the Lofoten Islands to Helsinki weaving a network of people who were morally and spiritually secure. When Norway was occupied Ramm kept links with them by letter and by articles in his newspaper which, under the innocent title of 'What to do in the Blackout', drew historical parallels full of hidden meaning to Norwegian patriots.

When the Nazis discovered what Ramm meant, they arrested him. A month later he was released with a warning, because his influence 'threatened to demoralise the whole prison'. He returned to the fight, was rearrested and deported to Hamburg where, even in solitary confinement, the radiance of his faith permeated the prison. To the only friend he saw in his two years' confinement, he said, 'Tell Eva [his wife] that my letters express the full truth of my experience. Even though I am alone, I do not feel lonely. Everything we have learnt in the Oxford Group is true. I say "rather in prison with God, than outside without Him".'

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