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Rockets and People
comfortable hotels and pristine, though mostly empty, stores and cafes—and all of
this on the slopes of wooded hills on the shore of a lake. It was particularly difficult
for us to understand why, three days after German units had withdrawn and
Red Army tank units had entered the town without a fight, Germans had appeared
and were cleaning up and washing the streets! Lilacs were blooming in the gardens
of the numerous villas and the returning residents were tending their lawns and
rose bushes right where the Soviet officers were staying.
Later we would see many such “oases” throughout the entire territory of
Germany, and significantly more of these than destroyed cities. Sometimes it
seemed that all of Germany was a chain of excellent autobahns connecting wellscrubbed,
very comfortable towns and villages, or “Dörfer.” But even in the
villages, almost every house had a sewer line, hot and cold water, and electric stoves
in the kitchen.
A couple of months later, we had almost forgotten that in Moscow each of us
lived in a communal apartment with one tiny bathroom for eight to ten people, a
wood stove in the kitchen, no bathtub, and a single sink with cold water for everyone.And
here, among these “Fritzes,” only workers from the east, prisoners of war,
and convicts in correction camps understood what barracks were!
finally we began our thorough inspection of the buildings of Adlershof. The
fighting here had not been very intense—all of the buildings were intact. In the
entryway beyond the spacious bicycle stand, on large wall panels, were keys,
keys, and more keys—all numbered with German attention to detail. Everything
was intact!
220
DIARY ENTRY. 29–30 April 1945.
We are inspecting DVL. Administrative building. Archives, papers, personal
documents—in safes. How do you open a safe? The sergeant and soldier
detailed to us from the BAO already have experience. 7 The soldier holds a
large chisel against the safe doors.The sergeant, a “non-combatant” well over
forty, delivers a precise, powerful blow with a heavy sledgehammer. Usually
it opens the first time. Sometimes if the safe is especially “difficult,” it takes
three or four blows.The safes are full of reports with a red stripe,“Geheim!”
(Secret) or “Streng Geheim!” (Top Secret). We leaf through the pages—
reports, reports about all kinds of tests.
“DVL”—this is, after all, the equivalent of our TsAGI, LII, and Air Force
NII all rolled into one.There is neither the time, nor the physical capability
to read and study them.
The general has ordered us to list everything, load it into boxes, and send
it by plane to Moscow. But where are we going to get as many boxes as we
7. BAO—Batalyon Aerodromnogo Obsluzhivaniya (Aerodrome Maintenance Battalion).