Bleicherode and Kleinbodungen
To repair damaged
A4's quickly, Dr. Albin Sawitzki proposed to erect a facility close to the
Mittelwerk. For this purpose, the buildings of the potash mine in Kleinbodungen
were to be re-constructed. It was also planned, but
The administration building of the
Preussag company was used to house the management and administration of the
Heimat Artillerie Park. Scientists, production and material storage facilities
were located in a 40 km circle around Bleicherode.
It was planned to increase the development and test production of the C2 "Wasserfall" and A4 rocket in Bleicherode. The potash mine in Bleicherode was to house the test and production center.
A4 production was to start 600
meters underground. All facilities located in old mine shafts had to deal with
the same problem. Most of the time only one shaft had access to the underground
production area. It was also difficult to transport finished goods out, and raw
materials in. A proposal was put forward to link up at a depth of 600 meter with
the potash mine Neu-Bleicherode 10 kilometers away. Height of the tunnels was
between 1.5 and 2.1 m, and had a width of between 4.5 and 6 m. For production
purposes the tunnels had to be enlarged. The mined salt created a problem with
corrosion, but it was less of a problem than allied air
attacks.
Material and equipment arrived
daily, but most of it was never installed. Electrical equipment needed for
testing the A4 and C2 Wasserfall arrived at the mine. But most other equipment
was damaged or fell into the hands of the
Americans.
By February 1945, the Red Army was
near the Heeresversuchsanstalt, and the last equipment was quickly relocated to
Bleicherode. Some of the machinery and equipment did not reach their final
destination, because the transport system had broken down. Equipment and
machinery was found in many locations in Germany. Soon the Americans closed in
on Bleicherode and the German leadership decided to relocate the facility to
Bavaria.
One of the first teams left Moscow on April
23, 1945 under General Nikolai Petrov, director of Scientific Institute of
Airplane Equipment (NISO). It included Boris Evseevich Chertok from the NII-1
research institute. Although the official goal of the group was the search for
avionics, radar equipment and aviation armaments, Chertok and others had been
looking forward to learning as much as possible about the German rocket program.
Around June - July 1945, General Andrei Illarionovich Sokolov, led another group
of specialists into Germany. Chertok and number of other German specialists
arrived to Nordhausen on July 14, 1946. Soon after visiting Nordhausen, Soviets
dispatched additional groups of specialists to Bleicherode. Along with 12
Germans, Chertok comprised a core of the future organization, which soon would
take responsibility for restoring the flight control system of the A-4 rocket,
clearly the most challenging element of the vehicle. Within days, the newly created institute,
dubbed Rabe (from German Raketenbau und Entwicklung - rocket building and
design), hired dozens of German engineers, living in surrounding areas. However
few of them had ever dealt with rocket technology before. To obtain experienced
German rocket engineers, Chertok conceived a clandestine campaign to lure people
from the Western zone.
Of many aviation specialists, who arrived in
Germany at the end of summer 1945, Mikhail Ryazansky, Viktor Kuznetsov, Yuri
Pobenostsev, Eugene Boguslavsky and Zinovy Tsetsior joined Institute Rabe in
Bleicherode. At the beginning of August 1945, the representative of Special
Committee within GOKO, M. S. Saburov informed Marshall Zhukov that around 1,000
German specialists worked for various Soviet research organizations and that
number was expected to climb to 3,000. Saburov recommended a creation of
specialized research organizations for respective Soviet industries. In
response, Zhukov signed an order of SVAG No. 026 "On organization of work on
using German technology by the Soviet
industry.
An absolute majority of German employees who
joined the Soviet effort to restore the A-4 had no prior involvement in the
program, however Soviets never considered work in Peenemuende a requirement.
Among such individuals were Kurt Magnus, a first-class gyroscope expert and Dr.
Hoch, an avionics specialist. In October 1945, Dr. Blazig, a key specialist from
one of the subcontractors in the A-4 program, joined Institute
Rabe.
Yet, in parallel with routine hiring, Boris Chertok led the effort to
lure top Peenemuende veterans into the Soviet zone. A rather improvised campaign
scored a major victory in mid-September 1945, when Helmut Groettrup, a chief
expert in the A-4's flight control system, returned into the Soviet zone of
occupation and joined Institute Rabe.
Apparently, Groettrup provided to the Soviets
with many details about geography of subcontractors involved into the A-4
program. He also contacted a number of qualified individuals outside of the
Soviet zone, who could assist the Soviet rocket development effort. With the
help of Groettrup the aerodynamist Hans Zeise and the construction expert Anton
Narr joined he program, followed by Friz Fibach, the expert in launch
operations.
The
following facilities were involved in the V2
program:
Plant No. 1
in Soemmerda:
Calculation
Theory Bureau, RTB, lab and, later, production plant for the A-4 body at the
site of the former Rheinmetall Borsig plant led by Mishin unea
Plant No. 2 Montania plant in
Nordhausen:
Engine assembly
and propulsion systems led by Glushko.
Plant No. 3 Zentralwerk in
Kleinbodungen:
The experimental
assembly plant for the A-4 rocket at the site of the former German repair depot
for the A-4 rockets led by Kurilo.
Plant No. 4
in Sondershausen:
Flight control
system integration
By October 1946, 733 Soviet
specialists, and between 5,000 and 7,000 Germans worked for the Institute
Nordhausen. According to the Soviet documents, as of May 1946, 330 German
specialists worked at Plant No. 3. including 30 engineers and technicians, 23
draftsmen and 277 mechanics and workers. The only Russians on staff were
director of the plant Evgeny Kurilo and chief of the combustion chamber assembly
Artamonov. At the same time 300 Germans worked at Institute
Rabe.
During 1945 and most part of 1946, Soviet
specialists with the help of German engineers reestablished a A-4 production
line in Germany, which turned out around a dozen of missiles. According to one
Russian source, 20 rockets were assembled at Plant No. 3 in Klein Bodungen and
five more rockets in the underground plant in Nordhausen. In addition, various spare parts which were
enough to assemble another dozen of A-4s were sent to the Soviet Union.
Concurrently, Russian engineers have started consideration of their own and
German ideas on improvements in the A-4. At the beginning of August 1946,
Korolev told his deputy Vasily Mishin to return from Germany to the Soviet Union
and led preparations for the A-4 production at Plant No. 88 in Podlipki, near
Moscow. On August 9, 1946, Mishin returned to the USSR.
Finally, in October 1946, the best German
engineers recruited by the Soviets were ordered on the trains and sent to the
various locations in the USSR to assist in the organization of missile
production and design. Remaining thousands of German specialists had to find new
jobs. Soviet authorities promised Helmut Gröttrup to provide one-month salaries
to the German employees as a severance pay.
By the beginning of 1947, Soviets completed the transfer of all works
on rocket technology from Germany into secret locations in the USSR. At the end
of February 1947, Sergei Korolev became one of the last Soviet specialists to
return from Germany. Less than a month later, the Institute Nordhausen
officially ceased to exist. Empty caverns of the underground rocket factories in
Nordhausen were blown up by the Soviet crews.
