Operation Osoaviakhim

Operation Osoaviakhim was a secret Soviet operation under which more than 2,500 former Nazi German specialists (scientists, engineers and technicians who worked in several 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.

The codename Osoaviakhim is the acronym of the then large Soviet organization OSOAVIAKhIM (Russian: Осоавиахим), which recruited civilians for the Red Army during World War II^[1] (and later renamed to DOSAAF) which was mistakenly used as "Aktion Ossawakim" for the first time on October 23, 1946, by the broadcaster Deutsche Nachrichtenagentur [de] (DENA) of the US occupying power and adapted by the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), a predecessor of the CIA, as Operation Ossavakim. Another predecessor organization of the CIA, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) used the term Operation Ossavakim for the first time on January 13, 1947.^[4] The usage of the codename was not identified in Soviet archives.^[5]: 82

The Osoaviakhim campaign served to secure the transfer of know-how and is described in Russia as "Foreign Specialists in the USSR" (Иностранные специалисты в СССР). In some cases, the families of those affected and their furniture were also relocated. In most cases the years in the Soviet Union passed without employment contracts and legitimization through personal documents.

Although much larger in scale, it had some parallels with earlier Allied operations such as Alsos Mission, Operation Paperclip and Russian Alsos, which forcibly moved military specialists between German occupation zones or abducted them to the United Kingdom, USA or the Soviet Union.