Garrett Stearly, who was present when Buchman spoke to the journalist, was amazed at the story which was "so out of key with the interview... He said that Germany needed a new Christian spirit, yet one had to face the fact that Hitler had been a bulwark against Communism there - and you could at least thank heaven for that. It was a throw-away line. No eulogy of Hitler at all." Buchman himself refused to be drawn into further public comment, which he believed could only lead to more public controversy and endanger his friends in the Oxford Group inside Germany who were already, as stated above, facing difficulties.