Operation Paperclips Eastern Counterpart: Operation Osoaviakhim

This video was done in collaboration with #projectmad. A group of over 20 other Youtube History Creators that have banded together to each tell a part of Cold War History. Follow the link here to watch the other amazing creators

For my part. Will be covering Operation Paperclips Eastern Counterpart: Operation Osoaviakhim

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The Soviet acquisition of German scientists started back in 1942, with specialized Gosfond units, a so called trophy brigade. They were designated towards acquisition all sorts of personal and material from Soviet Occupied territory and bring it back east to aid the war effort. Books and other literature were one of the main pieces brought back, especially those or the authors themselves which covered engineering or scientific fields. The Soviets would create more specialized units via the Ministry of internal affairs specifically for German atomic related facilities, intellectual materials, and scientific personnel in mid to late 1944. Even more specialized teams would be created the following year, and while they focused on the above, the objective was to move as much general scientific material back to the Soviet Union as possible while the war still waged.

Overseeing this team, would be Colonel General Avram Pavlovich Zavenyagin, one of the Soviets leading nuclear engineers at the time, and a close friend of Stalin's. A team of 40 would be sent in the day after that Berlin fell to the Soviets on May the 3rd, aiming to gleam what information and personal they could from three main scientific targets. Those being the University of Berlin, Berlin Institute of Technology, and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, the latter of which had largely moved to Hechingen in '43, and the only thing that was left from the institute was the low-temperature physics section, and sections of exponential uranium research.

A team of German scientists which included Nuclear Theorist Manfred von Ardenne, Experimental Physicist Gustav Ludwig Hertz, Physical Chemist, Peter Adolf Thiessen and more, had signed a pact with one another in the advent of Soviet contact. Whomever was contacted first would speak for the group as a whole, signaling that they would be willing to work with the Soviets in exchange for their institutions not being plundered, and judicial immunity from any past crimes committed. Ardenne would be the first approached of the lot on May 10th of 1945, by Colonel General Makhnjov. Over the next week, talks and terms would be discussed between the two, and on May 19th, Ardenne would officially sign on to work for the Soviets. He, along with his staff and family, would be transferred to the newly built Institute of Physics and Technology in Sukhemi, acting as the head of research. While he was originally instructed to work towards nuclear weapon development, he managed to over-see development of isotope enrichment research instead, and the rest of the original members of the pact would soon follow, arriving at Sukhemi by the end of the year.