to open next chapter. - NASA's History Office

Rockets and People
women who had been liberated from various camps and were awaiting their hour
of repatriation.At that time, neither they nor we knew what awaited them.
A kind of semi-starvation existence began. During our expeditions around
Berlin, we therefore had no qualms about stopping for a visit at units where they
fed “starving” Muscovites pretty well.
In the ensuing days, we continued to investigate the Askania facility.The factory
had a broad spectrum of interesting items and competed with Siemens for our
interest. We discovered another large factory and design bureau in Mariendorf.
Here I finally found intact actuators for the V-2, as well as similar actuators for
aircraft autopilots. Sets of autopilot equipment intended for delivery were assembled
on the test stands. With astonishment, we discovered shops with submarine
periscopes, periscope range finders, bombsights, and anti-aircraft fire control
equipment (PUAZO). 1 There were special cockpits equipped for crew training
and testing where blind flight conditions were simulated.There was a rather large
shop that was involved with purely optical production. Optical glass polishing
machines stood next to the finished products—virtual mountains of lenses of various
diameters up to 50 centimeters! The test laboratories were excellently
equipped.They contained pressure chambers, thermal vacuum chambers, vibration
stands, and rainfall simulators. Every area was equipped with all-purpose and
special-purpose measurement instruments and also with our dream instrument: the
Siemens multi-mirror oscillograph!
On 8 May we inspected another Askania factory in Friedenau. Here we met
with the firm’s technical director. He drew a diagram (since there was no readymade
diagram available) of the polarized relay for the V-2 actuator and told me that
their company had the most advanced instrumentation and machinery in Europe.
He boasted in particular about their unique set of jig-boring machines and optical
benches.
During later journeys, interagency squabbles began. The first took place that
same day, 8 May, when we approached the Kreiselgeräte factory. 2 There was a sign
out front—Saburov’s unit. What unit? Was Saburov a Gosplan representative? 3 At
the entry checkpoint there were two men wielding automatic weapons.“Comrade
officers, we cannot allow you to enter.”After some wrangling, one of the men left
and brought back a lieutenant colonel—a “trade union” officer like us.We introduced
ourselves. He apologized that he could not admit aviation representatives
since the factory had been transferred to the shipbuilding industry. He went off
somewhere, then returned with permission for us to enter.
This was Zinoviy Moiseyevich Tsetsior.We soon made friends with him and
for many years he remained our compatriot in the development of gyroscopic
1. PUAZO—Pribory Upravleniya Artilleriyskim Zenitnym Ognem.
2. Kreiselgeräte is the German word for ‘gyroscope.’
3. Maksim Zakharovich Saburov (1900–77) was the Chairman of Gosplan, the State Planning Commission,
in 1949-55.
230