In Switzerland, where he spent Christmas, he met Philippe Etter, who was to be the next President and Home Minister. Etter promised to visit Caux officially the following summer. 'Europe has lost its soul,' he said, 'and it was its soul which gave it the leadership among the nations. Caux is going to be a great centre of spiritual strength.'

Christmas was spent peacefully in Berne. A sparsely decorated, candlelit tree was put up in his hotel sitting-room, and he and his friends sat quietly around it in the evenings. 'One of my earliest memories - I must have been one or two - is being carried into a room where there was a lighted tree,' Buchman said. On Christmas night Buchman's thoughts, as they listened for guidance together, were, 'You will be spoken to in no uncertain way this next year. Caux a miracle of the first order. Germany will come into her own. Go to Ganda with the lightest touch. Make our way slowly and gradually.'

For, in spite of the bitter weather, Buchman was not to reach the sunny south. He had accepted the invitation of Eugene von Teuber and his aged parents to spend the next months at their medieval castle, Castel Ganda, in Appiano near Bolzano. Gene, an ebullient character whose family had deep roots in Austria and Italy, had emigrated to America twenty-five years before and there become a full-time colleague of Buchman. His parents had just been released from a Communist prison camp in Czechoslovakia, and opened their old home for the occasion. The Tyrolean countryside, which Buchman had long known and loved, was in deep snow when he and his party arrived, and remained so for many months. His doctor and friends were anxious for his health, but in fact he kept well and stayed at Ganda, apart from two visits to Rome, until early May. The senior von Teubers described these weeks as 'coming out of hell into heaven'.18

The Tyrol was bitterly split between the Austrian and Italian elements of the population, a bitterness which had been endemic since the Treaty of Versailles had transferred the territory from Austria to Italy. Then, more recently, there had been the German war-time occupation, and a number of German soldiers were still hiding in the mountains. The Italian military authorities still retained British liaison officers on their staff. The area was a minefield of delicate feelings. In particular, the old Austrian families and the Italian officials and military were hardly on speaking terms.

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