Operation Osoaviakhim was a secret Soviet operation under which more than 2,500 former Nazi German specialists (Специалисты; i.e. scientists, engineers and technicians who worked in specialist areas) from companies and institutions relevant to military and economic policy in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany (SBZ) and Berlin, as well as around 4,000 more family members, totalling more than 6,000 people, were transported from former Nazi Germany as war reparations to the Soviet Union. It took place in the early morning hours of October 22, 1946 when MVD (previously NKVD) and Soviet Army units under the direction of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD), headed by Ivan Serov, rounded up German scientists and transported them by rail to the USSR.[1][2][3]
Much related equipment was also moved, the aim being to literally transplant research and production research centers such as the V-2 rocket center of Mittelwerk, from Germany to the Soviet Union, and collect as much material as possible from test centers such as the Luftwaffe's central military aviation test center at Erprobungstelle Rechlin, taken by the Red Army on 2 May 1945.
In the night of 21 October 1946, the day following the 1946 Soviet occupation zone state elections as well as the 1946 Berlin state election until 22. October 1946, soviet officers accompanied by a translator as well as an armed soldier stopped by the homes of German specialists, ordering them to pack their belongings. Trucks and trains had been prepared and were standing ready for the immediate transport of around 6,500 people against their will.
- 1,385 of these specialists had worked in the Ministry of Aviation developing planes as well as jet engines and Surface-to-air missiles,
- 515 in the Ministry of Armaments, primary concerned with development of liquid rocket engines,
- 358 in the Ministry of Telecommunications Industry (Radar and Telemetry),
- 81 in the Ministry of Chemical Industry,
- 62 in the Ministry of Shipbuilding (gyro and navigation systems),
- 27 in the Ministry of Agricultural Machinery (solid rocket engines),
- 14 in the Ministry of Cinema and Photographic Industry,
- 3 in the Ministry of Petroleum Industry and
- 107 in establishments of the Ministry of Light Industry.[1]
- ^ a b Uhl, Matthias (2001). Stalins V-2. Der Technologietransfer der deutschen Fernlenkwaffentechnik in die UdSSR und der Aufbau der sowjetischen Raketenindustrie 1945 bis 1959 (PDF) (in German). Bernard & Graefe Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7637-6214-9. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 May 2022.
- ^ "Operation "Osoaviakhim"". Russian space historian Anatoly Zak. Retrieved May 4, 2018.
- ^ Exorcising Hitler; The Occupation and Denazification of Germany, Frederick Taylor, Bloomsbury Press
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