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Rockets and People
torship. His wife’s illness was one of the reasons for Isayev’s hurried departure
from Germany.
here it is pertinent to mention that Isayev and Arvid Pallo, whose group we
had sent from Nordhausen to Lehesten on 15 July, successfully orchestrated engine
firing tests. Soviet engine specialists—engineers and mechanics—mastered the
technology that they had seen in Germany to such an extent that they were able
to conduct firing tests in different modes without the Germans’ assistance. I
managed to visit Lehesten in August and for the first time witness a stunning spectacle—the
open plume of an engine firing with 25 metric tons of thrust. Our
GAU chief, General Kuznetsov, who considered himself officially responsible for
the Lehesten site in addition to the Institute RABE, had not yet seen the firing
tests and demanded that director Rosenplänter and I accompany him on a trip to
Lehesten. I postponed this trip several times under various pretexts.
In late September,Aleksandr Bereznyak visited us. He had become familiar with
all of the German aircraft firms in the Soviet zone. Bereznyak’s head was full of
ideas, and he had hurried to Bleicherode to meet with Isayev. But Isayev was
already in Moscow. Bereznyak talked me into going with him to Lehesten. The
general was still making his persistent demands, so we decided to combine our trip.
On Sunday, 30 September, we left Nordhausen in two cars.
General Kuznetsov’s Opel-Kapitän was the lead car, with a military driver at the
wheel. Kuznetsov seated Rosenplänter next to the driver to serve as his guide.The
general sat in back and demanded that our interpreter be seated in his car so that
he could converse with Rosenplänter. Lyalya had to obey the general. Bereznyak,
Kharchev, and I were in the second car, our Mercedes, with Alfred at the wheel.
We set out and were soon lagging way behind the lead car.Alfred repeatedly shook
his head reproachfully and muttered something about the general’s car exceeding
permissible speeds on the narrow, winding roads. Suddenly Alfred let out a shout.
He was the first to see that the Opel-Kapitän had slammed into a tree.The injured
were taken to the hospital in Erfurt. All three men were severely injured, but the
German doctors assured us that they would live. “But Fräulein Lyalya has been
fatally injured.The base of her skull was fractured and she has multiple injuries to
her spinal cord.” I made a telephone call to Bleicherode and requested that Dr.
Musatov, the chief of the division medical-sanitary battalion, come immediately.
We had become friends with him. His front-line surgical operations were
legendary in the division.
When Musatov arrived, the chief surgeon of the hospital, Professor Schwartz,
came out to speak to us.The hospital was top-notch. Before the surrender it had
been the military hospital for SS officers.We went into the operating room with
the professor. Both of General Kuznetsov’s legs were bandaged and already in casts,
and he was still in a state of shock. Rosenplänter had multiple injuries to the head
and face. He was lying there with his head completely bandaged.The driver was
unconscious. Both his legs, an arm, and several ribs were broken.The nurses were
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