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Rockets and People
us.The meeting was set up near the border. Irmgard Gröttrup, a tall blonde in a
light-colored sport suit, appeared with her 8-year-old son. “If we run into any
trouble I’ll explain that we were out walking and got lost.” She immediately made
it clear that she would make the decision, not her husband. She supposedly hated
fascism. She had even been arrested on a number of occasions, and her husband,
Helmut, had been as well.They wanted to know what the Russians would promise
them.
She said that Helmut Gröttrup was von Braun’s deputy for missile radio-control
and for electrical systems as a whole. He was prepared to come over to us under
the condition of complete freedom. I said that I needed to receive the consent of
a general in Berlin before we could give her an answer, and we would first like to
meet with Herr Gröttrup. Frau Gröttrup said that we should hurry because they
might be sent to America in a week or two. Three days later, we pulled off the
transfer of the entire family: papa, mama, and the two Gröttrup children—without
the consent of Berlin of course.
The Gröttrups settled in a separate villa and were offered a very high salary and
food rations compared with those of the other Germans. But there was one condition:
to keep order and to take part in the creative work of restoring missile technology,
our specialist Colonel Kuteynikov, who had a good knowledge of German,
would live with them at the villa. The primary interaction with the Soviet
management should go through him.The institute’s German directorate and staff
were not happy with this arrangement.They were unhappy that the institute that
they had created was being transferred to an associate of von Braun who would
drive out everyone who disagreed with him.
Gröttrup was clearly better informed than the others about the operations at
Peenemünde. He had been close to von Braun, and he spoke very skeptically about
the German contingent at our Institute RABE, except for Kurt Magnus and Hans
Hoch.The others he simply did not know.To avoid stirring up passions, we agreed
that we would create a special “Gröttrup Bureau” at the institute. Its first task was
to compile a detailed report on the development of A-4 missiles and other projects
at Peenemünde.
In retrospect, I would say that we were right on the money with Gröttrup. It is
true, however, that Frau Gröttrup, who had grown bolder, proved to be not nearly
as modest as she had seemed during our first meeting. Soon thereafter she acquired
two cows,“for the children and to improve the nutrition of the institute’s Russian
management.” She managed to obtain orders for products in extremely short
supply, which Semyon Chizhikov grudgingly had to pay for and deliver. But an
unexpected report from Colonel Kuteynikov sent us into a state of shock.
Attached to the villa where we had settled the Gröttrup family was a stable.
The Frau was impatient to put it to use as originally intended.And so one night
two rather decent horses appeared there. Colonel Kuteynikov, a man already
advanced in years, evaluating the situation from all sides, reported that the Frau
wanted to go horseback riding, not with her husband, but escorted by himself
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