Latest on the Atheists in Foxholes Event - 11/11/05

[Synnical]

<Major snippage from AANEWS of 11/03/05>

For more info: http://www.atheistfoxholes.org/

Also, Military Association of Atheists and Free Thinkers http://maaf.info/

Some atheists in the military pics:


Charles W. Villa


Chris A. Williams


Deanne Auburn Dice


Joshua J. Baker, SSgt

LONG OVERDUE: ATHEIST FOXHOLES EVENT TO INCLUDE APPEARANCE, SALUTE
TO HANS KASTEN -- A GREATEST GENERATION STORY
FINALLY TOLD SIX DECADES LATER!

Thousands of veterans, including those from "the Greatest Generation"
who served in World War II, are expected in Washington, DC next week
for the November 11 "Atheists in Foxholes" Parade and Rally on the
national mall.

The event is designed to counter the ugly stereotype that "there are
no Atheists in foxholes," and salute those Atheists, Freethinkers,
Humanists and other nonbelievers who have worn the uniform, or
currently serve in the nation's military.

But if one required compelling evidence that there ARE "Atheists in
foxholes," there is the evocative and dramatic story of Hans Kasten.
Now in his 80s and living in the Philippines, Kasten is making the
long trip back to America to attend the AIF Veterans Day event, and
share his story with anyone who cares enough about the history of that
war and is willing to listen.

Already his life has been profiled in books, articles, web sites and a
stirring documentary by film maker Charles Guggenheim dealing with
American soldiers trapped in the midst of the Nazi holocaust.
Guggenheim's cinematic opus, "BERGA, Soldiers of Another War," focuses
on the plight of U.S. soldiers captured by the Germans during their
last-ditch effort to throw back the advancing allied armies, and buy
time for the development of "miracle" weapons. Those POWs, including
Kasten suffered horrific indignities, everything from beatings and
verbal taunts to starvation, imprisonment under brutal conditions, and
always the prospect of execution, especially those who were Jewish or
"looked Jewish." Many of the camps or Stalags were under the control
of the Nazi SS, Hitler's elite corps of shock troops and thugs who
were also in charge of the holocaust killing machinery targeting Jews,
gypsies, political dissidents and anyone else who stood in the way of
the Third Reich.

Kasten grew up in Wisconsin, and like many young American men enlisted
in the military as the world plunged into war. Fascism and Japanese
imperialism had consumed whole nations. Kasten ended up in England
working in a transportation unit, and when D-Day arrived, he found
himself with thousands of other American troops on Omaha Beach with
the 110th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Division. He carried the
lethal BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle), a "high priority target"
for the dug-in German defenders. American and other allied troops
fought their way off the beaches only to encounter determined and
often lethal enemy opposition. The Division saw action in the
Huertgen Forest, and later hunkered down to consolidate and rest in
Belgium.

Then came the infamous Ardennes Offensive, the "Battle of the Bulge."
In the early morning hours of December 16, 1944 300,000 German troops
along with artillery and the infamous Panzer tank units of the Waffen
SS ("Armed SS") crashed into the thin allied lines. By the time it
was over on January 25, 1945, over 81,000 American soldiers had been
1965 movie starring Henry Fonda, appropriately named "The Battle of
the Bulge," while visually compelling was riddled with inaccuracies.
The heroic deeds of the American and British defenders would be
undermined by the popular misconception that the advancing German
armies consisted of "young boys and old men." In truth, while German
units did have members of the "Volksgrenadier" (younger and older
conscripts), the allies faced superbly trained and highly motivated
German forces including the fanatical SS tank units under the command
of Sepp Dietrich. American units were outgunned and under-equipped;
worse yet, the Germans enjoyed the element of total surprise, and the
advantage of having state-of-the-art Panther tanks that could best
anything the U.S. could field.

To their credit, however, the allies fought back with equal ferocity.
The Germans often paid a high price for their territorial gains, and
in no encounter with the enemy did the American and British forces --
often "green" to combat -- yield without a concerted fight.

And there were atrocities like the horrendous Malmeddy Massacre, where
140 allied troops were captured by a German unit, and 86 executed --
one of the many violations of international law committed by the
fascists concerning the humane treatment of POWs.

Kasten's outfit was overrun near the Our River. A friend, Joseph
Littell who would recount his POW experiences in the book "A Lifetime
in Every Moment," was in the 422 Regiment. This unit, too, was taken
prisoner by the Germans. On December 25, 1944, several hundred
captured American soldiers were taken to the town of Bad Orb, location
of Stalag (prisoner of war camp) IXB. Kasten, Littell and dozens of
young POWs are herded into cramped, poorly-constructed barracks.

With his fluent knowledge of German, Hans Kasten was selected as a
"chief man of confidence," the Hauptvertrauensmann, to interpret the
instructions to prisoner and do what he can on their behalf.

Kasten also became the focus of rage by his Nazi captors, in part
because of his full German name, Johann Carl Frederick. He was
considered "worse than a Jew," a "traitor to the German race."

One of his first orders from the SS overseers was to identify and sort
out Americans who were or "looked" Jewish. Kasten refused. The
German camp commander then ordered an assembly where all "Jews" were
told to step forward. None of the POWs moved. Several accounts,
including one written by Littell reveal what happened next:

"A German officer stood on a platform, with the guards all around us,
their guns at the ready," recalled Littell. "I can still hear these
words from that infuriated officer: 'Alle Juden, ein Schritt
vorfwarts!' ('All Jews, one step forward!') In view of Hans's earlier
instructions, nobody moved. Obviously, this was of his doing. So
angered was the officer that he leaped off his platform, grabbed a gun
from a guard, swung it like a baseball bat and slammed Hans across the
chest. Hans flew backward and hit the ground, gasping. For a moment
he couldn't get back his breath...That's when we found ourselves in
the boxcars to further hell..."

The "boxcars" were part of a transport trainload that took several
hundred Americans, including Kasten and Littell, from Bad Orb to
Arbeitslager (Work Camp) 650 located in the village of Berga an der
Elster. "They had brought us here to be slave laborers," noted
Littell.

This aspect of the war, until recently, has received little popular
recognition or academic scrutiny. In addition to the systematic
extermination of millions of Jews, political dissidents, mentally or
physically disabled and other populations targeted by Hitler's
racialist policies, Russian prisoners of war were frequently placed in
slave labor camps and put to work on military construction projects.
"Death through overwork" soon because a leading cause in the demise of
hundreds of thousands of prisoners. Most of the British and American
troops captured by the Germans, however, were unaware of this policy,
or the prospect that they, too, might be conscripted into the slave
labor brigades and, literally, worked to death. Jewish POWs were
among the first targets to be singled out and sent to camps like
Berga.

The conditions at Berga were far worse than even the deplorable
environment at Bad Orb. Littell and other prisoners were set to work
hauling carloads of rock from a network of tunnels. Lice, dysentery,
the cold and the harassment by their German captors made everyday
existence a struggle for the American prisoners. Food and other
relief supplies earmarked for POW camps by the International Red Cross
were usually appropriated by the Germans. What sustained them the
most was news that the Ardennes offensive had been stopped then
smashed, and allied armies were rolling deep past the fortified
Siegfried Line and into the heart of Hitler's Reich.

On March 2, 1945, Kasten was informed by the Berga supervisor, an
"Obersturmfuhrer" named Hack, that the camp had received two trained
attack dogs. "Try to get a good night's sleep tonight because
tomorrow we plan to turn you loose and see if the dogs can get you,"
Kasten was told.

The time had come to escape.

Acquiring some meager food supplies, matches, dynamite used in the
mines and a small supply of German currency Kasten, Littell and
another barracks "man of confidence" escaped from the Berga slave
labor camp. For two days they negotiated their way through the
forested terrain, and reached the village of Goschwitz. They managed
to obtain a meal but were soon discovered as escaped American POWs and
turned over to the Gestapo. Eventually, they were thrown into
solitary confinement in Stalag IX C, a "Punishment and Control"
facility and "subsidiary" of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

By April, 1945, allied armies were storming across Germany liberating
the POWs. Freedom for those still alive at Berga came in the early
afternoon of April 11 as American M-4 tanks of the Sixth Armored
Division spearhead rolled by the Stalag, followed by relief and
medical units.

But there was no sign of Hans Kasten. It would be months later when
Joseph Littell finally made contact with his wartime friend that he
learned that Kasten had been scheduled for execution -- an event
interrupted by the serendipitous American liberation. Kasten
"acquired" a Mercedes Benz car that was filled with gasoline and
rations donated by sympathetic GIs, and set out to "search for the SOB
who had beaten him so badly." He scoured the holding facilities where
German troops and SS officers were being detained, but failed to find
his tormentors. Collapsing from sheer exhaustion, Kasten was then
transported to a medical clinic near Bonn and then to Camp Lucky
Strike in France. He weighed just 96 pounds.

Hans Kasten compiled a list of those German guards and supervisors who
mercilessly beat, tortured and killed captive American POWs at Berga
and Stalag IX which he eventually turned over to military intelligence
personnel and the war crimes tribunal. He returned to the United
States, and then settled in the Philippines to get on with the rest of
a life which had already witnessed more than its fair share of
brutality and inhumane behavior. Why there? "After winters in
Wisconsin and then in the fox holes, plus no heat in the prisons, I'm
very happy in the tropics." Hans Kasten married, raised a family, and
collected art. Eventually, he made contact with Madalyn Murray
O'Hair, the Atheist who helped to end mandatory prayer and Bible verse
recitation in the public schools. She had a sense of Kasten's life,
no doubt, since she was one of the "Greatest Generation," having
served as a cryptanalyst in the European theater of operations.

With time, the story of the American POWs at Berga faded from memory.
The Nuremburg trials and other tribunals for Nazi-era war crimes
punished hundreds of the guilty, but thousands escaped justice or were
never prosecuted. World War II soon morphed into a Cold War. Now,
each day several thousand members of that "Greatest Generation" who
served in the war die. In many cases the story of what they
sacrificed and endured perishes with them.

While many documentaries, films and books have chronicled the history
of the Second World War, it is only recently that the account of the
captured American POWs like Hans Kasten has been brought to public
attention.

New York Times writer Rodger Cohen, reviewing the documentary film,
BERGA ("A Filmmaker Remembers GI's Consumed by the Holocaust's
Terror," April 17, 2001) rightfully noted, "Time may be needed for an
obsession to take hold, time for the half-thoughts, nagging regrets
and suppressed memories to coalesce into a determination to act."
That may be the motivation and mind-set behind Charles Guggenehim, who
coincidentally was with the American 106th Infantry Division ready to
depart for Europe when he was immobilized with a foot infection. As a
result, he did not see the combat, or fall into the clutches of the
Germans at the Battle of the Bulge as they swept up several hundred
American soldiers. "I could have been among the captured or the
killed," mused Guggenheim.

Instead, he put together a revealing documentary on the American POWs
who ended up in the slave labor camps, and unveiled the gossamer
fabric of time which has obscured this horrific event from public
consciousness. The film includes interviews with Joseph Littell, Hans
Kasten and other survivors.

Kasten's story is also told in several published accounts, including
"A Lifetime in Every Moment," and "Soldiers and Slaves" by Roger
Cohen. And on the day of the Atheists in Foxholes event -- next
Friday, November 11, 2005 -- another book telling part of the story of
Berga, "Forever a Soldier" by Tom Wiener, produced by the Library of
Congress -- is scheduled for released.

And there is in the internet where accounts and pictures are posted.
At
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Reinfenrath.html
can be found "An American Slave in Nazi Germany" by John Reifenrath,
who served in B Company, 423 Infantry unit, 106th Infantry Division.
He, too was captured at the Battle of the Bulge and imprisoned at
Berga. Kasten is mentioned in many of these stories. Roger Cohen's
review can be found at http://www.aiipowmia.com/inter21/in041701k.html
. There is a photo set at http://www.lonesentry.com/badorb/ , and at
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Shapiro.html
one may read the recollections of William Shapiro, a medic at Berga.

One of Many Stories...

Ellen Johnson, President of American Atheists and head of the AIF Task
Force which is organizing the "Atheists in Foxholes' event says that
Kasten's story is one of many that the country should be aware of.

"It's something like the account of what happened to Hans Kasten that
makes you realize how much of a senseless cliche the claim 'there are
no Atheists in foxholes' really is," said Johnson. "The fact is that
if you made a remark like that and said, oh, there are no Jews, or
Blacks, or Hispanics in foxholes, you would have all sort of people
stepping up and pointing out how wrong you really were!"

"We're hoping that the 'Atheists in Foxholes' event makes people more
aware of just how inaccurate and marginalizing that cliche really is,"
Johnson added. "We have plenty of accounts of Atheists who served
with distinction, who defended the Constitution, who answered the
call. But Hans Kasten's story is really exceptional, and it needs to
be told. This whole episode from World War II is finally getting the
recognition it deserves, and it just goes to show that yes, there ARE,
and have been and always will be 'Atheists in foxholes.' "

**

ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES UPDATE
November 2, 2005

PRELIMINARY SPEAKERS ROSTER FOR AIF ANNOUNCED!

With just over a week before the historic ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES Parade
and Rally in Washington, DC (November 10, 2005 -- see below), the AIF
Task Force has announced the preliminary line-up of speakers.
Included on behalf of organizations are (alphabetically)...

KEN BRONSTEIN (New York City Atheists) ELLEN JOHNSON (American
Atheists) LARRY JONES (Institute for Humanist Studies) EDWIN KAGIN
(Camp Quest) WOODY KAPLAN BOBBIE KIRKHART (Atheist Alliance) MEL
LIPMAN (American Humanist Association) HERB SILVERMAN (Secular
Coalition for America JASON TORPY (Military Association of Atheists &
Freethinkers)

Other speakers include (alphabetically)...

GARY BETCHAM
KEN BONNELL
KATHRYN BROOKS
LARRY CARTER
JIM CORRENTI
CHRIS DAVIS
DOUGLAS DIGGENS
DONNY JANES
HANS KASTEN
BART MELTZER
GEORGE OSSENKO
WILLIAM H. RUSSELL
WILLIAN T. SHEEHAN
WARREN ALLEN SMITH
ARIEL J. THOMANN
SPIKE TYSON
CHUCK VILLA
BILL WALKER
RICHARD L. WINGROVE

The historic Atheists in Foxholes Parade & Rally will take place on
Friday, November 11, 2005 -- this coming Veterans Day.
-- The parade is open to all retired and active-duty members of the
Armed Forces (for more information visit
http://www.atheistfoxholes.org).

Form up beginning at 10:30 AM directly east of 14th Street on the
Mall. Signs will signify areas where vets of different eras can
assemble. You are welcome to bring your own appropriately-themed
signs, banners and flags. Be sure to wear appropriate attire for this
event! We ask that all participants in the Parade be there no later
than 10:45. The Parade will begin promptly at 11:00 AM and proceed
down the Mall to the 4th St. Rally location. Marshals will be
available to direct the Parade, answer questions and provide for
special needs.

The Parade itself is restricted to vets and active-duty military!
This is their day, their event! Others are encouraged to line the
Parade route which runs down the Mall between Madison Drive and
Jefferson Drive.

The Parade will take approximately 20-25 minutes to reach the Rally
stage location. Events there will begin promptly at 11:30 AM. All
may assemble in front of the stage. Portable toilets and a First Aid
station will be set up. Some may wish to bring folding chairs or a
blanket.

********

A note on signs, posters, banners and more...

The Atheists in Foxholes event is about the veterans and active duty
military personnel who have served our country and defended the ideas
enunciated in our secular Constitution.

We welcome signs, banners and flags for this event. National Park
Service rules prohibit any signs mounted on wooden posts. Also,
please note -- this is not about our respective
Atheist/Freethought/Humanist or other organizations! (This is NOT the
Godless Americans March on Washington, remember that?) This event is
NOT a promotion for any group. So, please keep that in mind in
respect to the theme of any signs or banners. We encourage you,
instead, to use signs and other devices to salute our "Atheists in
Foxholes."

Also, this is not a referendum on a particular war or the idea of war.
It is not about promoting awareness of other issues having to do with
nonbelief or the First Amendment. It's about the vets.
There will be other forums and venues where you can "blow off steam"
about your favorite issues, or promote your particular favorite group
-- but this is not an appropriate situation. Please be aware of this.
The Atheists in Foxholes event is about our vets and active duty
military personnel. If you have doubts about an appropriate sign or
message, we suggest that you bring an American flag instead. Thanks!

<snip>


*********

* If you're an "Atheist in Foxholes" veteran or active duty military,
we want to hear from you. Tell us your story! Contact
[e-mail] ... and send us your photo so we can use it on our
web site and during the AIF event!

WHAT: Atheists in Foxholes Parade and Rally

WHEN: Friday, November 11, 2005, beginning at 11:00 "AM

WHERE: The Mall, Washington, DC

MORE INFO: http://www.atheistfoxholes.org

[Synnical]

1. Could you all at least kick this in GD? Thanks, much appreciated

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5261319&mesg_id=5261319

[progressoid]

2. Okey Dokey.

[onager]

3. Will do!

Thanks again for all your work on this.

:patriot:

[Synnical]

4. Thank you! n/t