20x04 - Nazis and the Russian b*mb

[bunniefuu]

Tonight on NOVA,

the race to build an atomic b*mb
didn't end with Hiroshima.

In a desperate effort to catch up
with the United States,

Russia kidnapped German scientists,

ordering them to help build
a Soviet b*mb.

We felt that the American process,

of course,
was much better than our process.

These scientists helped move
the Soviet Union into the nuclear,

Nazis and the Russian b*mb.

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When October came,
my sister came to visit me,

and it was that very day that
the Russians came and picked me up.

It was early, around 5 a.m.

I can remember the time exactly.

There were cars driving
through the streets near us.

We were a little out of the way.

Yes, when the Russians came,
r*fle butts against the door,

my brother opened up.

They had an interpreter and she said,

everybody to Russia.

And then my brother said,

but not my mother and sister,
they're just visiting here.

And then the interpreter said,

everybody.

And within two hours,
we were all packed up

for Russia.

Not long after
the close of World w*r II,

the Soviet Union rounded up
an elite corps of German scientists

whose orders were to bring Russia
into the atomic age.

Many of these scientists' careers
had already been shaped

by the rise of Adolf Hitler.

Germany, 1933.

Under Hitler, the country was becoming
the dominant power in Central Europe.

The n*zi rearmament brought
industrial growth

and an emphasis on engineering skills.

Many Germans hope
for an end to unemployment

and a future to look forward to.

Germany was also a center of research
into the new science of atomic physics.

Professor Nikolaus Riehl
was a student at the time.

Then I went to the university
in Berlin.

I took my doctorate with
Lisa Meitner and Otto Hahn.

That was how I became
involved in radioactivity.

Professor Manfred von Ardenna also

carried out his research into
electromagnetic radiation in Berlin.

Before the Second World w*r,

I had my institute
in Listerfeld in Berlin,

now West Berlin.

And very near was
the Institute of Otto Hahn.

Otto Hahn was a Nobel Prize winner,

who with Lisa Meitner

studied the behavior
of radioactive elements.

In 1938,

Meitner had to flee Germany
as Hitler occupied Austria

and on Kristallnacht,
the night of broken glass,

declared all-out w*r on the Jews.

I remember the famous Kristallnacht.

A first floor window fell right
in front of me on my way to school.

So I turned to these people and said to
the Brownshirts who were standing there,

You can't do this.

A civilian grabbed me and said,
keep your mouth shut, shrimp.

I got to school and
half the class was missing.

I can't claim today that
I saw nothing and knew nothing.

The Kristallnacht
took place all over Germany.

You must admit it now.

As w*r in Europe became almost certain,

so too did the results of
Hahn's work on the atom.

In the last months of 1938 in Berlin,

he announced the discovery
of the splitting of the uranium atom.

Few at the time understood

how much the world would be
changed by these events.

After Hahn's discovery
of the splitting of uranium,

it was natural for me
to enter this field.

Hahn's thoughts were about
the so-called uranium machine,

which would create
a huge amount of energy and so on.

That fascinated me.

Not long after Germany
invaded Poland in 1939,

the German w*r Office set up a nuclear
physics research center in Berlin

with Professor Werner Heisenberg
and Otto Hahn leading it.

Dr. Riehl and Dr. Gunther Wirz

were given a government
contract to produce uranium.

You know that just before the w*r,

everybody realized
in the scientific world

that an atomic b*mb
should be possible, theoretically.

And there was some estimate in Germany
from the side of German scientists,

us from the government,

that they believed that it could take
a time of 20 years to achieve this,

that one has to develop
a brand new technology

which was not available
at that time.

The future development
of the German atomic b*mb

was decided
in the Harnack House in 1942.

At a secret meeting held between
Hahn and Heisenberg,

Field Marshal Erhard Milch
and Armaments Minister Albert Speer,

Heisenberg raised
the possibility of a nuclear b*mb.

How big would such a b*mb be,
asked the Field Marshal,

about the size of a pineapple,
said Heisenberg.

But he quickly added

that it would take several years
to develop such a weapon.

Marshal Milch left the meeting
very unimpressed

and shortly afterwards authorized
production of the V-1 and V-2 rockets.

Speer, however, did decide to spend some
money on building a nuclear reactor.

Well, but to start to do
something of the second order,

which was not a priority, of course,

was to make a pure uranium metal
for so-called critical assembly.

In the buildings of the
Max Planck Institute,

the German scientists proceeded
with their work.

In a custom-built cellar
protected by walls ten feet thick,

they attempted to assemble
a nuclear reactor

using uranium blocks
produced by Professor Reel.

We have known that there should
be this critical assembly,

and that was the uranium as a metal,

and then you need a moderator.

And the Germans had failed
to find out that graphite is a useful-

pure graphite is a useful moderator,

and so they had to use heavy water.

So the first critical assembly was on
the base of heavy water and this metal.

And the results were, as far as I know,
were not very interesting.

It was all went with low priority.

Last but not least…

Hitler and his advisers' interest

in the whole of nuclear technology
and uranium reactors,

and also in the uranium b*mb,

wasn't especially great.

That was too abstract.

For them, it was Jewish physics.

The low priority, you see,
one has to concentrate in the water,

and we have to concentrate on things
which we can use very soon.

So the V1, the V2,

there was a German concept,
then we had developed,

as you know, the jet-driven planes.

So there were the centers of
German efforts during the w*r,

but not this year.

At second priority, it was just enough
to protect us from serving in the army.

As Berlin was hit
by more and more air raids,

the German atomic research
program became non-existent.

Professor Riehl and Dr. Wirz
abandoned their work

and fled to the outskirts of the city.

In May 1945,

the Soviet army launched
its final attack on Berlin.

German fortunes
had been totally reversed,

and the capital of Hitler's Third Reich
became a slaughterhouse.

During the last days of the w*r,
the whole w*r was terrible.

The last days were even more so.

We all felt in a kind of
end-of-the-world mood.

I lost the continuity
of my scientific work,

and I lost my flat.

In fact, I'd lost my home,
Berlin.

It had been a fascinating city once,

but under Hitler
it got worse and worse.

It used to be a center of science and
technology and of culture,

a highly interesting city.

But all this was lost.

The armies of the Soviet Union
invaded all of Berlin

and the surrounding countryside.

The Soviet Union
dominated central Europe

and Germany as a state
had almost ceased to exist.

By May 9th Germany surrendered.

And within days, a team of
Soviet scientists were sent

to locate the whereabouts
of the German atomic experts.

They found Professor Von Ardana
and his undamaged institute.

When the Soviet scientists in May 1945

saw these working equipment,

they saw that there were elements
also for important…

for the resolution of
important nuclear problems.

Professor Wiel and Dr. Wirz
were in a village outside Berlin,

but the Soviets found them too.

Then the Russians came.

They found me right away.

It wasn't
difficult for them to find me.

Two colonels of the NKVD,
the secret police,

came round and picked me up.

It wasn't an arrest.

It was called
detaining someone for questioning.

From that moment on,
I was never again without a guard.

I was never independent again.

I was separated from my family.

And then, on June 9,

we were taken
to the Soviet Union by plane.

We were driven to NKVD headquarters

and requested to go and see Beria,

the head of the secret police,
in his office.

That's when I met Hertz again
and Von Ardena.

I met Beria at a big table and

before we were Simowitch the Kotratov

and the other leading nuclear
scientists of the Soviet Union.

Soviet circles were primarily interested
in the atom b*mb, or atomic energy.

And they apparently already knew more
in this field than we knew in Germany.

Professor Reel's impressions
were correct.

The Soviet scientists that he met
with Lavrentiy Beria in Moscow

had already started a b*mb project.

The Soviet Union had an active atomic
research community in the 1930s

based in Leningrad.

Headed by Abram Jaffe,
a highly regarded physicist,

the Institute had built a cyclotron

for the study of atomic particles
in 1937.

Leningrad attracted many
young scientists

of whom Igor Kurchatov
was the most outstanding.

By 1940,

Kurchatov and his associates were already

investigating the implications of
Otto Hans' discovery in Germany.

And at a seminar that year,

physicist Jorgi Fiorov presented a paper

on the possibility of achieving a
nuclear expl*si*n from uranium fission.

At the time, before the w*r,

we were basically thinking of
nuclear power stations.

But we nevertheless felt that,
besides providing electric power,

this phenomenon could at some time
provide unique expl*sive force.

The German invasion in 1941
brought an end to any atomic research.

The announcement of w*r by Molotov

signaled the start of the mass
evacuation of Leningrad and Moscow.

Scientists were drafted to work
on rebuilding the Soviet forces,

and Kurchatov
began work on tank armor.

Yet, Fiorov continued to lobby Stalin.

About this time, we captured a German
pilot, a fascist flier, who said, So what?

You shot me down.

But you will die just the same.

We'll destroy you.

We hold something in reserve,
something horrible,

which you know nothing about.

I realized that if they had really
succeeded in making a b*mb,

they would not hesitate a moment
before using it.

So I wrote to Stalin about it.

I wrote a letter explaining
what needed to be done,

outlining, as if in a fantasy,
the design of a possible atomic b*mb.

Soviet spies in Germany and Britain
confirmed Fiorov's fears, and in 1942,

the State Defense Committee,
headed by Stalin, set up a team

to investigate building an atomic b*mb.

Kurchatov was appointed as its head.

Kurchatov was a very pleasent man.

I think he was the leading nuclear
scientist in the Soviet Union in that time.

And he was the first man also

in the technical Soviets

who organized the development
of the atomic b*mb.

The Russians were,
the Russian physicists,

are of course first class.

No question about that.

All the things they knew.

But Kurchatov also was a very,
very good impression.

He was really a good,
great man, an important man.

By the time Stalin met Truman and
Churchill at Potsdam in July 1945,

Kurchatov's team had been working
on a b*mb project for over two years.

Stalin knew from his spies
that his allies, the US and Britain,

had been secretly developing
an atomic b*mb since 1940.

But it wasn't until Potsdam
that Truman hinted to Stalin

that the United States now had a b*mb,

calling it a new weapon
of unusual destructive force.

After the United States dropped
the atomic b*mb,

Wertz was summoned to Moscow
from Siberia,

where he had been scouting a site
for a uranium plant.

The dropping of the b*mb had changed
the situation, of course, basically.

So we came back and at that time
they had already decided

to reinstall the small plant
near to Moscow

in a small town called Electostar.

It was really a shock
for all the Germans

because we felt that now that was
not a thing just to begin with,

because it was clear that at that time
for everybody it was clear that

already the superpowers were
more or less in competition,

and that the Americans
with the b*mb had, of course,

very strong weapons in their hands,

and that the Russians knew that
that was priority number one

for the Russians now to have the b*mb.

The decision to pursue the b*mb was made

at great cost to the Soviet people.

The German invasion and the subsequent
defeat of n*zi Germany

left the Soviet Union
with millions of dead

and massive destruction
of their factories and farms.

The United States' effort
to build the b*mb had involved

two billion in 1945 dollars and
the resources of over 100,000 people.

To the smashed economy
of the Soviet Union,

the race to catch up represented
an almost inhuman struggle.

But in the minds of the Soviet rulers,

there was no question but to proceed
with the development of the b*mb.

To begin with, there was absolutely
an available to have this uranium metal

that was the number one
on the route to plutonium.

The main task in hand was
the production of uranium.

In a form that would be suitable
for use in an atomic reactor.

This was one problem that we had
already almost solved in Germany.

Kirchatov was the scientific head
of the b*mb project,

but in overall charge was Marshal Beria,

head of the secret police and deputy
chairman of the Council of Ministers.

His absolute power was critical in
coordinating all the necessary resources.

He and his deputy, Avrami Zavinjagan,

were directly responsible for the
execution of the b*mb project.

You know that all the secret
policy was under Beria,

all that what is called from
Solzhenitsyn, the Gulag,

was under him, and all people
were afraid of this organization.

Zavinjagan was a very clever
and a very likeable man,

but he was also
lieutenant general of the NKVD.

He was a very energetic man,
he had to be.

Those around him were scared of him,
but even Zavinjagan was afraid of Beria.

He came once to our plant,

and that was prepared since weeks
was prepared,

and that was an impression
unbelievable with Zavinjagan,

because that assistant minister,
Zavinjagan,

that was something what we in Germany
called as a harrow, this is a gentleman.

He came up, he was a man,
a very capable man,

but when Beria was present,
he had only spoken with him like this.

It was for us in Germany, unbelievable
how they were afraid of Beria,

which was a very unpleasant man,
but she comes with Beria.

Beria put great pressure on the scientists
to build the Soviets a b*mb,

feeding them information
his spies stole from the US program.

I should explain, that told you that
our technology was very unsatisfactory,

and that changed rather soon,

because the Russians could get
a report from the Manhattan Project,

which was either secret
or confidential, I don't know it.

At least I got also this report
from the Manhattan Project,

and the American's surely
had described their processes,

how they made the nuclear pure uranium,

and that was quite different from ours,

and we felt that the American process of
course was much better than our process.

And so there was a decision
to go ahead along the American line,

so we went along this line,
we installed a new purification plant,

and later on the method making
the metal was also modified,

so that after some time

we got really pure good metal,

we saved off the Americans.

Some of the help the Soviets received

came from inside
the Manhattan Project itself,

from physicist Klaus Fuchs,

who gave them
top secret information.


of the b*mb on Hiroshima,

the Soviet Union made
a critical advance,

which the scientific and engineering

skills of n*zi Germany
had failed to achieve.

Using the uranium, Professor Riel
and Dr. Wirz helped to produce.

The first reactor in Europe
became active in December 1946,

but for the Soviet b*mb project,
there was still a long way to go.

After the Soviet's occupation
of Germany in 1945,

they paid some of the rocket
engineers who hadn't fled to the US

to continue their work
on the V-2 rocket at a plant

which they had
taken over in Germany.

One of these scientists
was Dr. Kurt Magnus.

In Blysher Rode,

we had several people who were from
a group of rocket experts, Pena Munda.

This group worked on the outline
and specifications of the A-4 rocket.

This was the former V-2 rocket.

In October 1946,

shortly before the first atomic reactor
in the Soviet Union started working,

a Soviet delegation came to see
the rocket plant in Germany.

The delegation,
led by General Gaidukov,

had plans for the German
rocket experts.

General Gaidukov was present
and listened to all the proceedings.

Then he said with a large gesture,

Well, you've been very industrious

and because you've been so industrious,

I'd like to invite you
to a dinner tonight.

A huge table had been
set up in a big hall there.

The whole thing was lit
in a festive manner.

And we were offered a meal
the likes of which we, at the time,

remember it was autumn 1946

and there was nothing to
eat in Germany.

It was a meal the likes of which
we'd never seen before.

Fruit and absolute abundance,
which was unheard of at the time.

And of course, vodka, vodka, vodka.

Nothing else.

Only when the party was over,
shortly before midnight,

were we, each of us, individually taken
home in a car by Soviet officers.

And three hours later,
they got us out of our beds.

Mrs. Grotrup's husband,
one time deputy to Werner von Braun,

was the engineer in charge.

My husband went to celebrate
with a big group and with the Russians.

Celebrations were always a big thing.

I went to sleep and around 3 a.m.
I was awakened by the telephone.

Someone, I can't remember who, said,

the Russians are at the front door.

We're going to be taken away.

And I thought it was a joke.

We had some real adventures
during the course of that journey.

Some wild stories.

It seemed like, well,
a bit like going west.

Only we were going east.

We went off
in a terrible rush that night.

It all seemed chaotic to us.

But the train left
with all of us aboard.

If I remember rightly,
they were on that train.

About a hundred people,
including families and children.

We got on the train though we weren't
expected and weren't on any list.

But my mother and I were
immediately looked after.

That's how organized it was.

The point was to get us all
to Russia as fast as possible.

They stuck to that idea.

But for us, it was terrible.

They had to get us there.

They couldn't care how.

That was it.

End of story.

Three days into the journey,
we were told we were going to Moscow.

Then we drove into Moscow
and I found it incredibly shocking.

I had never seen
so much poverty in my life.

I'd come from a destroyed Germany.

And for the first time,

I could comprehend
what this w*r had done.

The houses hadn't been destroyed,

but they were small and
no longer properly habitable.

And the people?

It was shocking.

They had so many of their own problems.

What were their famine?

That they didn't
talk about the w*r at all.

Here and there we heard the Americans
have the atom b*mb and we have nothing.

So, Grotrup at least
build us some rockets.

We have nothing.

They can destroy us.

That was the main thing.

The German rocket engineers

were probably the most experienced
in the world at that time.

The leading Soviet rocket expert
was Sergei Korolyov,

who had actively pioneered
the science in the 1930s

and had carried out many
experiments with small rockets.

But in 1937, Korolyov was jailed
by the KGB for espionage.

And by the time of his rehabilitation,

Soviet rocketry was primitive
compared to the V-2.

Korolyov was placed in joint charge of
the rocket program with Dr. Grotrup.

Korolyov and my husband were
originally colleagues of the same rank.

Both were chief construction engineers

so they could cooperate in running
the German and Russian teams.

Just a short time ago,

the German scientists had been
working for n*zi Germany.

Now in the Soviet Union,
they had little freedom.

But compared to the Soviet people,
they were treated very well.

After all, we were in good shape.

We were all well taken care of.

We were given much better food
than the others,

than the Russian population.

Sometimes it was quite uncomfortable.

All around us,
people had to live very modestly,

especially after the w*r.

And we had everything.

Sometimes that was rather embarrassing.

I received about 800 rubles a month.

Russian female colleagues in the
same position earned 400 rubles.

So as you can imagine, living alone,
I could manage quite well on that.

And my fiancé sent me
flour and pudding from Brunsvig.

So we'd have pudding and
we'd do some baking.

There were things
they weren't familiar with.

And I must admit,
it was quite pleasant.

Two people would have
one room and a living room.

To the Russians, those were
fantastic living conditions.

There were eight or nine to a room.

I realized that later through a friend
who showed me around Moscow.

He didn't just take me to the cushy side.

He also showed me
the arbat, the back street.

I really found that more fascinating
than the things I usually saw,

like Gorky Street
in the Bolshoi Theater.

Yet, however privileged
the German scientists were,

there was a price to pay.

The Soviet Union had no atomic weapon
and no effective way of delivering one.

The Germans were there
to help remedy this.

And they were expected
to deliver the goods.

Our first task in the Soviet Union
we worked on in the rocket field

was the reconstruction
of the A-4 rocket.

That was a job which didn't really entail
anything more than putting together

all the contemporary knowledge
and findings about the construction

as well as the experiments
concerning the A-4 rocket.

The Russians had found
several fairly complete rockets

at the Middle Works factory.

They brought them to the Soviet Union
and had got them ready to launch.

We had to do some
preparatory work for that.

In the summer of 1947,

six or eight colleagues from our group
suddenly disappeared.

We weren't told
where they'd been taken.

We were very worried
that they'd been abducted again.

But it soon transpired that they'd been
taken to this rocket testing site.

In an area of bare desert,

the Soviet Union had set up
a rocket firing range

at Kapustinyar, near Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan, clay huts, camels,
people in their huts.

It was in such contrast

to the most modern facility
imaginable in the world.

Even the Americans didn't have it.

That contrast was almost
impossible to live with.

Korolev had arrived at the site and
the first launch of an A-4 was prepared.

The date was set
for September 29, 1947.

One leg shifted a few millimeters,

but they wanted to go ahead
with the launch.

They had a deadline from Moscow.

You will launch it on such a date.

They had to no matter what
or else it was sabotage.

And so they used train sleepers and
a winch to raise the whole thing up.

For the first time in my life
I saw a rocket self-ignite.

Not just that.

I was partly responsible
for the third rocket being tested.

I had to make sure it worked

because the first two rockets
hadn't reached their destinations.

It was an interesting experience

because I also got to know
the chief Soviet rocket designer Korolev.

I got to know him pretty well.

He was sometimes called
the Wernher von Braun of the Russians.

We worked very closely with him
during that time.

He was responsible for that
rocket launch on the Kazakh steppe.

It was vital that
nothing should go wrong.

So he looked after us most diligently.

The series of rocket tests
was successful.

After that launch they were
so happy and enthusiastic.

They jumped up and down
like little children.

High ranking ministers or not,
they were just like little children.

Then they grabbed their
vodka bottles and got drunk.

But far from Kazakhstan

the atomic b*mb program was still
causing the Soviets considerable anxiety.

It was about 1947

that the assistant minister
came up to our plant.

He took me aside and said, well,

we have now got a piece of
American Uranium metal

and we have analyzed it.

What do you think?
He asked me,

what metal is purer?

American I was…
I said without hesitating

yours is purer.

He said, yes, it's true

and we are very proud of it.

And I said,
it's no use to be proud of it

before-because Americans make it
just as pure as necessary

and you do by far more
and that makes it very expensive.

And he said, you damn Germans.

The problem for Kuchatov and his team
was to make the vital leap

from the lab bench
to industrial production.

I think that the conditions
were very difficult, of course,

but the power of the government
was strong enough

to start very quick the conditions

for putting up big
industrial buildings and so on

for doing the development of the
industrial isotopes operation.

They had very good coworkers

and so and good conditions

according to the technical
Soviet methods.

And so the work was
could be done very quick.

Tempo is the most important question
that field in that time.

Soviet resolved to catch up
with the United States

now on a Cold w*r footing deepened

when they realized that US scientists
were continuing to build bombs.

Never has such high pressure work
been done at such speed.

This is because we knew
they were making bombs

and each month brought
more and more bombs.

They were accumulating.

We knew from air analysis
how many bombs there were.

As it was wartime,
people were fighting,

but they enabled us
to work here behind the lines.

We worked hard.

We were hungry,
but we weren't fighting.

But after the w*r, we realized that
the construction of our giant reactors,

institutes and testing sites

had deprived a great many
people of food and housing

and that we owed them
our utmost effort.

It required more than knowledge
to build a b*mb.

A complex industry had to be created
to handle all the stages

in the production of the material
for an atomic b*mb.

In the autumn of 1947,

factories to produce enriched uranium
were set up in Siberia.

And in March 1948,

work started on a series of
industrial reactors

that would produce plutonium
on a large scale.

The first one was operating
five months later.

Let's just say that at the beginning,
our reactors were not powerful.


and there was only one.

We were afraid to go larger.

This one could produce about


that is, one b*mb in several months.

But then further reactors appeared.

Starting from a very low level
of industrial organization,

the Soviet Union had created

one of the most advanced
industrial processes in the world.

They had reactors like you call
the whole reactors in Great Britain.

That means that you have
a moderator like graphite.

And in this reactor,

from the uranium is built up,
a small quantity of plutonium.

And after some time, you take it out,

you have highly reactive product now

and you have to separate
the radioactive elements

from uranium and from plutonium.

So you get plutonium.

And you need the two pieces,
if you sh**t them together,

then the b*mb explodes.

What we learned now.

On August 29, 1949,

a second atomic power
joined the world.

Despite enormous problems,

Kurchatov and his scientists
had succeeded.

I was there.

I set up my detector and watched it for
signs of anything that might go wrong.

So I was the last to descend the tower,
having done all my test work.

And then I joined Kurchatov
in the bunker.

When the explosions occurred,

Kurchatov looked as if a weight
had been lifted off his shoulders

because there was a 10%
chance of failure.

He jumped out of the bunker
and shouted,

it worked, it worked.

Such strong words.

However, a cloud of dust
was approaching the bunker

and I, also in a state of excitement,

about 0.7 of the level of Kurchatov's,

I put my arm around him and
let him back into the bunker.

That's how it was,
how I remember it.

When it's a question of prestige,

either for political reasons
or military reasons,

then everyone's work is concentrated
on this one problem

and it's solved.

Then somebody told us
now that it's a great success

and you will get awards
and so for your work here

and we got it later on.

Well, that was in the plant
or in Moscow, I don't remember.

But very soon we learned
that it had worked.

I didn't want to receive
any medals or anything.

But after the success,

after the Soviet atom b*mb
had been completed,

medals were just handed out.

I was even made a hero
of socialist work as well.

That's a very high distinction.

It's also rather grotesque.

I'm a great friend of Russia.

I'm also against
fighting the Soviet system.

But I was never a socialist.

I'm a friend of private enterprise,
of the capitalist approach.

And yet it was I who got
the hero of socialist work medal,

the golden star.

Perhaps one more question
that you really need to ask is,

what would have happened?

How far would
the Soviet Union have gone

if they'd had no help
from the Germans?

And if they'd had no espionage?

The certain answer is

that the Russians would have finished
a year, maybe two years later,

but no more than that.

Back in Kazakhstan,

it didn't take long for the Germans
to realize they were building rockets

for the purpose of
delivering atomic bombs

beyond the Soviet borders.

I once asked my husband,
don't you realize what you're doing?

Because one day his brief was
Grotrup, you'll fire 3000 kilometers.

And I said, now take a compass
and consider this.

You can hit the whole of Europe.

He was dumbfounded,
but he didn't react.

He was just fascinated
by solving this or that problem,

a problem of steering,
whatever it was.

They didn't think
about the consequences

and didn't want to.

At least not at that time.

We of course were never told
what task the rockets would perform,

but you could work out
for yourself what it would be.

The A4 rocket was capable of carrying
a payload, say a 300 kilogram warhead,

about 300 kilometers.

It could carry a 3000 kilogram
warhead about 300 kilometers.

Using that to transport an atomic warhead
would have made no sense.

The A14 project was a rocket which was
supposed to have a 3000 kilometer range

with about a 3000 kilogram payload.

Of course, these would have been
suitable to carry an atomic b*mb.

Some of us began to grumble.

And we said we preferred
not to work on this rocket

because our homes
lay 2000 kilometers from Moscow

and we didn't want
to build rockets here,

which could be fired on our country.

By 1950, the German rocket scientists
were moved yet again,

this time to an island on Lake Seliger.

Their growing reluctance

and the Soviet's increasing knowledge
made the team expendable.

At the time, my husband was still
chief construction engineer.

Then he was relieved of his post.

Then we realized what was going on
in the Gorodomnaya project.

We were only there to supply Korolyev
with what he didn't know.

That is, he still used to come
with specific questions

frequently at the beginning.

But then at increasingly
long intervals,

finally stopping altogether.

We weren't asked anymore
about the A14.

And with that,
our work was finished.

They remained on the island
for three more years,

fearful about what would
happen to them,

not knowing if they would ever
be allowed to return to Germany.

Then with the death of Stalin,

the situation changed dramatically.

We heard of Stalin's death on the BBC.

We suddenly heard,
Stalin ist tot,

that is, Stalin is dead.

We were excited at what might happen.

Next morning, the Russian people
came completely happy and said,

Stalin Kaput!

That was the first we heard.

With the passing
of the worst of repression,

Mrs. Grotrup and the other
Germans on the island

were moved once again.

But this time,
they were going home.

I was shattered.

There's a Hainé poem,

and I drive over the border
with tears.

That came to mind a lot at the time,

because we'd learned a lot in Russia
and I left many friends there.

I came back quite different
from when I'd gone.

The w*r had changed me.

I can't say we returned
with our former vigor.

It had influenced me profoundly.

It was a difficult time.

The uncertainty bothered us most,
at least it did me.

Will I ever get home?

Will I ever see my parents again?

But now that we were back,
now that it was all over,

I could only feel that
it had been an enriching time.

I wouldn't have missed it.

Riehl, Wirz and von Ardenne

were asked to continue their work
in the Soviet Union.

but they chose to return home

in the the mid-1950s.

They came back to a Germany
that would be split into East and West

for the next three and a half decades,

divided between two superpowers,

one of which
they had helped to arm.

I'm sitting here now.

I'm in good health,

and I have this small, nice house
on the countryside.

What was the wrong side?

I have never been a soldier,
which during Hitler time was great luck.

I came back as a healthy man
from the Soviet Union.

When I returned,

so they had in Germany
a need for a man

who knew how to make
nuclear pure uranium metal

and I was the only one
who knew it at that time.

So they gave me a job,
and I developed this job.

I've been a wonderful
cooperator with the British,

with the UK Atomic Energy Authority,

with the Commission on
Energy Atomic, of France,

with the Americans.

It was a wonderful life.

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