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Rockets and People
tional skills, I appointed him as general assistant, which put him in charge of all
problems concerning transportation, housing, food for the officer staff, and interaction
with the commandant’s office and the local German authorities. He had
quite enough to worry about, because the so-called domestic problems were
becoming more complicated with every passing day. I also had several long conversations
with Vasiliy Kharchev.We agreed that we would set up our own independent
intelligence service.The primary mission of this group would be to search for
authentic missile specialists and entice them, or even abduct them, from the
American zone.
by the end of august, our institute was already becoming, by provincial standards,
a robust, large-scale institution.We created laboratories for gyroscopic instruments,
control-surface actuators, electrical circuits, ground-based control consoles,
and radio instruments. We also set up a design bureau. There was an excellent
Photostat machine in the semi-basement, and an exemplary, while yet empty, technical
documentation archive nearby.The first report on the institute’s activity soon
appeared on our official letterhead and in the institute’s files.
An officers’ mess hall had opened up at the Villa Franka. In exchange for meals
and a small salary, a language teacher from the Baltic States was conducting daily
lessons in conversational German with our officers. While Semyon Chizhikov
proved to be the most linguistically challenged, he was somehow understood
better than the others when it came to dealing with the Germans concerning
routine business problems. He was already well-known in the area as a wholesale
buyer of provisions and schnapps and as a specialist in the repair of automobiles.
I asked Kurilo to inspect the factory in Kleinbodungen and begin restoring the
production of missiles. He arranged the transport of the the assemblies that had
been left behind by the Americans at Mittelwerk, found several skilled workmen
who knew the assembly process, and began to develop real missile production.
When we had made a list and tallied up the riches, it turned out that out of all the
tail and middle sections, tanks, instrument compartments, and nose sections we
could assemble at least fifteen, and maybe even twenty missile bodies. But the situation
was a lot worse with the innards.We still did not have a single control system
instrument that we could use. There were also no engines and no turbopump
assemblies that we could clear for installation.
back in moscow, hectic decisions were being made related to our work. The
Main Artillery Directorate had tasked the Guards Mortar Units command with
finding captured German missile technology. As mentioned previously, this
whole thing started with General Sokolov’s commission, which was the first to
arrive in Peenemünde. In August, General N. N. Kuznetsov appeared in
Nordhausen with a large retinue. In accordance with a command from Berlin,
he occupied the sole ancient palace in the town.There they founded, as we used
to joke, the missile headquarters of the Guards Mortar Units or ‘GAU Repre-
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