Atheists In Foxholes Veterans Day Event to Salute WWII POW Hans Kasten
Captured at the Ardennes Offensive (Battle of the Bulge), Kasten and other American troops endured mistreatment and terror as they were forced into slave labor at an “annihilation through work” camp in Berga, Germany. The story of Kasten and his fellow soldiers is only now being told in film and print… Hans Kasten was an Atheist then – he remains one of many “Atheists in Foxholes” today!
The ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES Parade and Rally (Friday, November 11, 2005) in Washington, DC will include a salute to and personal appearance by Hans Kasten, a survivor of the infamous “annihilation through work” death camp in Nazi-era Germany.
Kasten, then (and now) an Atheist, was among the thousands of American soldiers captured in the final major
German salient in the West, the infamous “Battle of Bulge” or Ardennes Offensive which lasted from
Dec. 14, 1944 to Jan. 25, 1945. As documented in articles, books and a stirring PBS documentary (see:
“A Filmmaker Remembers GI’s Consumed by the Holocaust’s Terror,” Roger Cohen, New York Times, 4/17/01),
over 2,000 American POWs were transported to Stalag 9B at Bad Orb, 50 miles north of Frankfurt. There, the
SS interrogated the captured troops, separating out “Jews and other undesirables.” Eventually,
350 POWs were then transported to Berga, among them Hans Kasten. Most had been selected for being Jewish or
“looking Jewish.” Author Joseph Littell recorded his experiences at Berga in his autobiographical
work, “A Lifetime in Every Moment,” (Houghton Mifflin, Nov. 1995), and mentions how Kasten and other
comrades were assaulted by thuggish SS captors.
The Americans were forced to work by excavating giant caverns and digging mines at Berga. “In the 52 days before they were liberated, 22 died in the mines,” noted a Washington Post book review. “A further 49 fell during a 125-mile march on which these broken men were dispatched as the SS made futile efforts to distance them from their approaching liberators… The GI prisoners were traumatized to find themselves in a predicament they had supposed unthinkable for uniformed soldiers…”
Hans Kasten’s story beginning with the Ardennes Offensive, including the Berga Death March, his escape and re-capture – and the liberation of these heroic American troops in April, 1945 – is one that celebrates the capacity of human beings to endure and overcome. It is also a profound caution, one of many from the history of that era.
Hans Kasten will be a special guest and speaker at the ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES event in Washington, DC. This segment will include a brief video presentation focusing on the Berga death camp, and the experiences of these World War II vets, including Mr. Kasten – then, and now, one of many “Atheists in Foxholes.”