[3] Carsten was born on 25 June 1911 in Berlin to a family with strong identification with the German culture.
[4] The Carsten family owned a clothing house called Die Goldene 110.
He became involved in an underground organization called Neu Beginnen,[7] which infiltrated the SPD and KPD.
Immediately after Adolf Hitler's seizure of power in January 1933, Nazi Germany adopted and radicalized discriminatory policies against Jews.
This was undertaken for the International Institute for Social History, where he maintained close contact with the sociologist Norbert Elias.
[10] Later, Carsten was part of the group of German immigrants who were recruited by the British government to assist in its preparations for the occupation of Germany.