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During
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
developed rocket technology that was more advanced than that of the
Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
and a race commenced between the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
and the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
to capture and exploit the technology. Soviet rocket specialist were sent to Germany in 1945 to obtain
V-2 rocket The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed ...
s and worked with German specialists in Germany and later in the Soviet Union to understand and replicate the rocket technology. The involvement of German scientists and engineers was an essential catalyst to early Soviet efforts. In 1945 and 1946 the use of German expertise was invaluable in reducing the time needed to master the intricacies of the V-2 rocket, establishing production of the
R-1 rocket The R-1 rocket (NATO reporting name SS-1 Scunner, Soviet code name SA11, GRAU index 8A11) was a tactical ballistic missile, the first manufactured in the Soviet Union, and closely based on the German V-2 rocket. The R-1 missile system entered int ...
and enable a base for further developments. However, after 1947 the Soviets made very little use of German specialists and their influence on the future Soviet space program was marginal.


Background

During WWII
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
developed the world's first long range
Liquid-propellant rocket A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket utilizes a rocket engine that uses liquid rocket propellant, liquid propellants. Liquids are desirable because they have a reasonably high density and high Specific impulse, specific impulse (''I''sp). T ...
s known as the V-2, with the technical name A4. The missile was developed as a "
vengeance weapon V-weapons, known in original German as (, German: "retaliatory weapons", "reprisal weapons"), were a particular set of long-range artillery weapons designed for strategic bombing during World War II, particularly strategic bombing and/or ae ...
" and assigned to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings against German cities. The rocket also became the first artificial object to travel into space by crossing the
Kármán line The Kármán line (or von Kármán line ) is an attempt to define a boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space, and offers a specific definition set by the Fédération aéronautique internationale (FAI), an international record-keeping ...
with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944.Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, with 27 million people killed, 1,700 cities destroyed and agriculture production reduced to famine proportions. At the
Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the post ...
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
,
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
, and
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
agreed that war reparations were payable by
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
in the form of equipment, goods and German labour, with the Roosevelt and Stalin agreeing to an amount of $20 Billion, with 50% ($10 Billion) going to the Soviet Union. The Soviets, United States and to a lesser extent British and France all seized "intellectual" repatriations from Germany. The dismantling of German industry also ensured the complete disarmanent of its war potential, as agreed at the
Potsdam Conference The Potsdam Conference (german: Potsdamer Konferenz) was held at Potsdam in the Soviet occupation zone from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding the mistakes of the Paris Pe ...
.


Soviet rocket development prior to 1945

Rocketry in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
began in 1921 with extensive work at the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL), which was merged with the
Group for the Study of Reactive Motion The Moscow-based Group for the Study of Reactive Motion (also 'Group for the Investigation of Reactive Engines and Reactive Flight' and 'Jet Propulsion Study Group') (russian: Группа изучения реактивного движения, ...
(GIRD), lead by Sergey Korolev, in 1933 to form the
Reactive Scientific Research Institute Reactive Scientific Research Institute (commonly known by the joint initialism RNII; russian: Реактивный научно-исследовательский институт, Reaktivnyy nauchno-issledovatel’skiy institut) was one of the ...
(RNII). This well-funded and staffed laboratory created the Katyusha rocket launcher and built over 100 experimental rocket engines under the direction of
Valentin Glushko Valentin Petrovich Glushko (russian: Валенти́н Петро́вич Глушко́; uk, Валентин Петрович Глушко, Valentyn Petrovych Hlushko; born 2 September 1908 – 10 January 1989) was a Soviet engineer and the m ...
. Design work included
regenerative cooling Regenerative cooling is a method of cooling gases in which compressed gas is cooled by allowing it to expand and thereby take heat from the surroundings. The cooled expanded gas then passes through a heat exchanger where it cools the incoming comp ...
,
hypergolic propellant A hypergolic propellant is a rocket propellant combination used in a rocket engine, whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other. The two propellant components usually consist of a fuel and an oxidizer. Th ...
ignition, and swirling and bi-propellant mixing
fuel injector Fuel injection is the introduction of fuel in an internal combustion engine, most commonly automotive engines, by the means of an injector. This article focuses on fuel injection in reciprocating piston and Wankel rotary engines. All comp ...
s. During the 1930s Soviet rocket technology was comparable to
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
's, but
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
's
Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
severely damaged its progress, with Korolev, Glushko and many other leading engineers imprisoned in the
Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
. The Soviet Union was first informed of the
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
's rocket programme in July 1944 by
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
, who appealed directly to Stalin to inspect a missile test station in Debica, Poland which was about to be overrun by advancing Soviet forces. British and Soviet personnel inspected the site and recovered A-4 missile parts, which were sent to London via Moscow. Whilst in Moscow the parts were inspected by several members of the Soviet rocket design bureau RNII.


Work in Germany


Institut Rabe and Institut Nordhausen

In early 1945 a team of Soviet rocket specialists were sent to Germany to identify and recover German rocket technology. The first Soviet team to arrive at
Nordhausen Nordhausen may refer to: * Nordhausen (district), a district in Thuringia, Germany ** Nordhausen, Thuringia, a city in the district **Nordhausen station, the railway station in the city * Nordhouse, a commune in Alsace (German: Nordhausen) * Narost ...
, the main V-2 construction site, were disappointed, United States teams had already removed approximately 100 completed V-2 missiles and destroyed what remained. In addition, the majority of the German rocket engineers had surrendered to the United States, including a large quantity of documents relating to rocket technology. Soviet search teams did locate V-2 parts at
Nordhausen Nordhausen may refer to: * Nordhausen (district), a district in Thuringia, Germany ** Nordhausen, Thuringia, a city in the district **Nordhausen station, the railway station in the city * Nordhouse, a commune in Alsace (German: Nordhausen) * Narost ...
,
Lehesten Lehesten is a town in the Thuringian Forest, 20 km southeast of Saalfeld. World War II V-2 facility After an August 194explosion at the Redl-Zipf V-2 liquid oxygen plant at Schlier stopped production, the third V-2 liquid oxygen plant (5000 ...
(test site for rocket engines) and other locations in the
Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...
area. Therefore, a Soviet missile research group based in Bleicherode was created in July 1945 led by Boris Chertok and called Institut RABE that recruited and employed German rocket specialists to work with Soviet engineers for restoring a working V-2 rocket flight control system. The Institut RABE was also created with the purpose of retrieving German rocket specialists from the United States Occupation zone. As an early success in August 1945 Chertok recruited
Helmut Gröttrup Helmut Gröttrup (12 February 1916 – 4 July 1981) was a German engineer, rocket scientist and inventor of the smart card. During World War II, he worked in the German V-2 rocket program under Wernher von Braun. From 1946 to 1950 he headed a grou ...
(the deputy for the electrical system and missile control at Peenemünde, also assistant to Ernst Steinhoff) from American territory, along with his family, and offered him founding the ''Büro Gröttrup'' in parallel to the Institut RABE. In February 1946 the Institute RABE and Büro Gröttrup were absorbed into the larger Institut Nordhausen, which had the goal of recreating the entire German A-4 rocket. It was headed by Korolew as the Chief Engineer and Gröttrup as the German head. In May 1946, the Institute Nordhausen, Institute Berlin (reconstructing the
Wasserfall The ''Wasserfall Ferngelenkte FlaRakete'' (Waterfall Remote-Controlled A-A Rocket) was a German guided supersonic surface-to-air missile project of World War II. Development was not completed before the end of the war and it was not used operati ...
missile) and several manufacturing sites in Thuringia (until 1945 part of the
Mittelwerk Mittelwerk (; German for "Central Works") was a German World War II factory built underground in the Kohnstein to avoid Allied bombing. It used slave labor from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp to produce V-2 ballistic missiles, V-1 flyin ...
supply) were combined into the ''Zentralwerke''. By October 1946, Zentralwerke employed 733 Soviet specialists, and between 5,000 and 7,000 Germans, including Korolev as Chief Engineer, Glushko as head of Engine assembly and propulsion systems and Gröttrup as General Director.


Operation Osoaviakhim

On the 13 May 1946 USSR Council of Ministers Decree No 1017-419 'Questions on Reactive Armaments' was signed by Stalin, which established the future strategy and direction for Soviet rocketry. Among the detailed requirements was that work in Germany would end in late 1946 with Soviet and German personnel transferred to Soviet locations. Therefore, the most capable German rocket scientists and engineers were identified, and on 22 October, 152 personnel and their families (a total of 495 persons) were deported to the Soviet Union as part of Operation Osoaviakhim together with more than 2,000 other German specialists. According to another source, 2,552 German specialists together with 4,008 family members were relocated to the USSR, 302 of them having knowledge in rocketry, thereof 198 from the Zentralwerke.


Work in the USSR

On arrival the 302 Germans were split into several groups. A large group of 99 specialists from the Zentralwerke was installed in Podlipki in the north east section of Moscow as part of Korolev's NII-88, 76 design engineers were transferred to Gorodomlya Island, and 23 specialists to
Khimki Khimki ( rus, Химки, p=ˈxʲimkʲɪ) is a city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, 18.25 kilometres northwest of central Moscow, and immediately beyond the Moscow city boundary. History Origins and formation Khimki was initially a railway station tha ...
as part of Glushko's OKB-456 for the development of rocket engines. The initial work included: * "consultations for issuing a set of A4 rocket documentation in Russian, * compiling diagrams of the A4 and surface-toair guided missile research laboratories, * studying issues related to boosting the A4 rocket engine, * developing the design for an engine with a thrust of 100 tons, and * preparing to assemble rockets that were made of German parts and had been outfitted with equipment at the Institute Nordhausen". The ministry for production of telecommunications assigned another group of 43 German scientists to assist NII-885 under
Nikolay Pilyugin Nikolai Alekseevich Pilyugin (russian: Никола́й Алексее́вич Пилю́гин; , Krasnoye Selo - 2 August 1982) was USSR, Soviet chief designer of rocket guidance systems. He was a designer of control systems for boosters and sp ...
for developing gyroscopic guidance control systems. While located in the Soviet Union the German specialists received fairly high wages and good conditions, which were mainly based on their qualifications. For example, Gröttrup was paid 4,500 roubles per month and his family were housed in a six-room villa and provided with a chauffeured vehicle. The minimum wage received for a German specialist was 4,000 roubles per month, plus all Germans were entitled to performance bonuses. As a comparison, Chertok, the former head of Institute Rabe and now Deputy Chief Engineer and Head of department for guidance systems, who also now supervised the German specialists working on control systems, received a salary of 3,000 rubles per month and his family lived in two rooms of a communal four-room apartment. The first Soviet tests of V-2 rockets took place in October 1947 at Kapustin Yar. 13 German engineers participated in the tests, among them Helmut Gröttrup, Johannes Hoch, Kurt Magnus, Fritz Viebach, Hans Vilter, Waldemar Wolff. The first two rockets were successfully launched and flew for approximately 200 km, however they deviated 30 km and 180 km from their intended target. The German specialist Magnus and Hoch were instrumental in resolving the issue, which was an existing problem with the V-2 rockets recovered from Germany. For resolving the issue all the German specialist were each rewarded with a large 15,000 ruble bonus. In June 1947 the German team in NII-88, led by Gröttrup, proposed the development of an improved copy of the V-2, which he called the G-1 (called the R-10 in Soviet terms). This plan, whilst supported by senior Soviet management, was opposed by Soviet engineers, particularly by Korolev, who was now Chief Designer of long-range ballistic missiles. Korolev had simultaneously and independently commenced work on an improved Soviet copy of the V-2, that was designated the R-2. Korolev also opposed utilising German specialist for personal reasons and basically ignored their suggestions and advice. Glushko, who was now Chief Designer of liquid-propellant rocket engines in OKB-456, utilised German expertise for mastering and improving the existing V-2 engine, internally called RD-100 (copy of V-2) and RD-101 (used for R-1) with a thrust of up to 267 kN. Further German ideas for increased thrust helped Glusko to develop RD-103 for the
R-5 Pobeda The R-5 Pobeda (Побе́да, "Victory") was a theatre ballistic missile developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The R-5M version was assigned the NATO reporting name SS-3 Shyster and carried the GRAU index 8K51. The R-5 was original ...
with a thrust of 432 kN (500 tons) and higher efficiency. However once this was accomplished Glushko no longer needed their expertise. Due to political and security concerns, German specialists were not allowed knowledge or access to any Soviet missile design. Therefore, once the Soviets had mastered understanding and production of the V-2 rocket in 1946–47, all German specialists were excluded from Soviet developments. Their work was conducted independently, including work on the G-1, which proceeded as a "draft plan". Until early 1948 all German specialists working in Podlipki were transferred to Gorodomlya Island. In September 1948 test flights were carried on the R-1, the Soviet copy of the V-2 rocket, built with local materials. No German personnel were present for these tests at Kapustin Yar. In December 1948 the updated plan for the G-1 rocket was reviewed, which the German team had improved the range and accuracy. However major work on the G-1 was terminated by senior Soviet management. A number of other studies were carried out by the German specialist between 1948 and 1950, including the G-1M, G-2, G-3, G-4 and G-5. In October 1949 Korolev and Dmitry Ustinov, the then Soviet Minister of Armaments, visited the branch of NII-88 in Gorodomlya to gather and understand German knowledge as much as possible to push the development of mid-range R-3 and
R-5 Pobeda The R-5 Pobeda (Побе́да, "Victory") was a theatre ballistic missile developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The R-5M version was assigned the NATO reporting name SS-3 Shyster and carried the GRAU index 8K51. The R-5 was original ...
missiles. The concept of the G-4 targeted to build a long-range ballistic missile for a range of 3,000 km and a payload of 3 tons. The newly developed design scheme showed a number of changes compared to the V-2 and thus differed fundamentally from the rockets previously manufactured in the USSR. The newly chosen shape of a circular cone was intended to ensure increased aerodynamic stability so that the stabilization surfaces at the rear could be dispensed with. The position control was carried out by a swiveling engine. At the same time, the German designers paid attention to radical simplification of the overall system and consistent weight savings in order to achieve the required reliability and range. The later studies from 1950 were limited to initial designs, including diagrams and calculations. None of these studies were officially taken up by the Soviets. From early 1951 young Soviet engineers were sent to Gorodomlya Island for training purposes. By this time most of the German specialists were spending their time playing sports, gardening or reading.


Return to Germany

By August 1950 the Soviet government had decided to send the Germans working for NII-88 home, which occurred in three waves in December 1951, June 1952 and the last group of eight, including Gröttrup, left in November 1953. By the end of 1950 a small number of Germans (among them Johannes Hoch) were transferred to Moscow and worked on activities for surface-to-air missiles.


Historical analysis

Historians have disagreed on the extent that Nazi Germany played with developing the Soviet rocket program. Chertok, who participated in the events and documented the details in his mammoth 4 volum
Rockets and People
said that the Germans had little influence and the
R-7 rocket The R-7 family of rockets (russian: Р-7) is a series of rockets, derived from the Soviet R-7 Semyorka, the world's first ICBM. More R-7 rockets have been launched than any other family of large rockets. When Soviet nuclear warheads became li ...
that propelled the
Sputnik 1 Sputnik 1 (; see § Etymology) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for t ...
to orbit was "free of the "birthmarks" of German rocket technology". This view is supported by German born historian of rocketry Willey Ley, who wrote "“In reality, the Germans did not build anything for the Russians, did not “supervise” the firings, and did not “introduce innovations”. Other historians, particularly German based, have claimed that German specialists had an extensive influence on Soviet rocketry. In particular Dr. Olaf Przybilski has pointed out similarities between later Soviet rockets and the studies carried out by German specialists, however these claims lack convincing evidence. Asif Siddiqi, who's epic boo
Challenge to Apollo : the Soviet Union and the space race, 1945-1974
was rated by
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
as one of the best works on space exploration, takes a more balanced approach by acknowledging Nazi Germany rocket technology and involvement of German scientists and engineers was an essential catalyst to early Soviet efforts. In 1945 and 1946 the use of German expertise was invaluable in reducing the time needed to master the intricacies of the V-2, establishing production of the R-1 rocket and enabling a base for further developments. However, due to a combination of reasons, including secrecy requirements due to the military nature of the work, political considerations and personal reasons from some key players, from 1947 the Soviets made very little use of German specialists. They were effectively frozen out from ongoing research and their influence on the future Soviet space program was marginal. Siddiqi also noted a CIA report, which summed up the total German contribution as follows: :"The German scientists made a very valuable contribution to the Soviet missile program however, it cannot be said that without the Germans the Soviet Union would have had no significant missile program....There is no doubt that it took the German war time success with guided missiles to cause Stalin and his colleagues to devote large scale support to the Soviet effort in this field. Once this support was forth coming the use of German scientists permitted the Soviets to achieve results in a much shorter time than it would have taken them along but there is no reason to believe that the Soviets could not have eventually done the job by themselves".


References


Sources cited

* * * * *{{Cite book , last=Uhl , first=Matthias , title=Stalins V-2. Der Technologietransfer der deutschen Fernlenkwaffentechnik in die UdSSR und der Aufbau der sowjetischenn Raketenindustrie 1945 bis 1959 , publisher=Helios , date=2001 , isbn=978-3-86933-176-8 , edition=Licensed by Bernard und Graefe , location=Bonn , language=de , trans-title=Stalins V-2. The technology transfer of German guided long-range missiles to the USSR and the setup of the Soviet rocket industry from 1945 to 1959 Germany–Soviet Union relations Science and technology in the Soviet Union Space program of the Soviet Union