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The Soviet Alsos or Russian Alsos is the western codename for an operation that took place during 19451946 in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, in order to exploit German atomic related facilities, intellectual materials, material resources, and scientific personnel for the benefit of the Soviet atomic bomb project. The contributions of the German scientists is borne out by the many USSR State Prizes and other awards given in the wake of the second Soviet atomic bomb test, a uranium-based atomic bomb; awards for uranium production and isotope separation were prevalent. Also significant in both the first Soviet atomic bomb testa plutonium atomic bomb which required a uranium reactor for plutonium generationand the second test, was the Soviet acquisition of a significant amount of uranium immediately before and shortly after the close of World War II. This saved the Soviets at least a year by their own admission.
On 23 March 1945, in Joseph Stalin office, Lavrentiy Beria suggested that specialized teams be sent to Germany to search for atomic technology and related personnel. The next day, he instructed Igor Kurchatov, head of Laboratory No.2,Laboratory No. 2 was later known as the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy. to submit requirements on the formation of the specialized search teams to be sent to Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. That very day, Beria also signed a directive appointing his deputy, Zavenyagin, in charge of the operation to locate and deport German atomic scientists or any others who could be of use to the Soviet atomic bomb project. Operational issues for the teams were assigned to SMERSH military counterintelligence. Two members of Laboratory No.2, Lev Artsimovich and Yulij Borisovich Khariton, were assigned to provide scientific guidance to the operation. While the entire scientific staff at Laboratory No. 2, the only atomic laboratory at that time, numbered less than 100, close to 40 of them were sent to Germany.Oleynikov, 2000, 4–5.As cited in Oleynikov, 27, Reference #38: Albrecht, Heinemann-Grüder, and Wellmann, 2001, 48.
The search teams occupied an entire building in Berlin-Friedrichshagen, which was large enough to also house German scientists recovered by the team. Unfortunately for the Soviet effort, the KWIP had mostly been moved in 1943 and 1944 to Hechingen, on the edge of the Black Forest, which eventually became part of the French occupation zone. This move and a little luck allowed the Americans to take into custody a large number of German scientists associated with nuclear research (see Alsos Mission and Operation Epsilon). The only section of the institute which remained in Berlin was the low-temperature physics section, headed by Ludwig Bewilogua, who was in charge of the exponential uranium pile.Naimark, 1995, 208–209.
Ardenne's institute was visited on 10 May by Colonel General Makhnjov, accompanied by Artsimovich, Flerov, Kikoin, and Migulin. At the end of the meeting, Makhnjov suggested that Ardenne continue his work in the Soviet Union. Ardenne agreed and put it in writing. On 19 May, Zavenyagin informed Ardenne that the Soviet government had proposed that Ardenne take over a large technical-physical research institute and continue his work. Two days later, Ardenne, his wife, his father-in-law, his secretary Elsa Suchland, and the biologist Wilhelm Menke, were flown to Moscow. Shortly thereafter, the rest of Ardenne's family and the contents of his laboratoryFor a private laboratory, von Ardenne had praiseworthy equipment, which included an electron microscope, a 60-ton cyclotron, and plasma-ionic isotope separation installation. See Oleynikov, 2000, 6–7. were transported to the Soviet Union.Oleynikov, 2000, 6–7.Ardenne, 1997, 227–229.Naimark, 1995, 210.
Von Ardenne was made head of a new institute created for him, Institute A,Institute A was later used as the basis for the Sukhumi Physical-Technical Institute. See Oleynikov, 2000, 12. in Sinop,Oleynikov, 2000, 11–12.Naimark, 1995, 213. a suburb of Sukhumi. In his first meeting with Lavrentij Beria, von Ardenne was asked to participate in building the bomb, but von Ardenne quickly realized that participation would prohibit his repatriation to Germany, so he suggested isotope enrichment as an objective, which was agreed to. Goals of Ardenne's Institute A included: (1) Electromagnetic separation of isotopes, for which von Ardenne was the leader, (2) Techniques for manufacturing porous barriers for isotope separation, for which Peter Adolf Thiessen was the leader, and (3) Molecular techniques for separation of uranium isotopes, for which Max Steenbeck was the leader; Steenbeck was a colleague of Hertz at Siemens. While Steenbeck developed the theory of the centrifugal isotope separation process, Gernot Zippe, an who participated in the German nuclear weapons program, headed the experimental effort in Steenbeck's group.Zippe, a POW from the Krasnogorsk camp, joined the group in the summer of 1946. Even after nearly two decades, the work of Steenbeck and Zippe in the development of ultracentrifuges (Zippe-type centrifuges) was recognized in the West as very advanced.Oleynikov, 2000, 10–11, 22–23, and 26.
The KWIPC was the only institute of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft which had not been moved out of Berlin in 1943 or 1944. Thiessen and a dozen of his most important colleagues were sent to the Soviet Union. At Institute A, Thiessen became leader for developing techniques for manufacturing porous barriers for isotope separation.Oleynikov, 2000, 11.
All of the equipment from Hertz's laboratory and his personnel were taken to the Soviet Union. Hertz was made head of a new institute created for him, Institute G, in Agudseri (Agudzery), about 10 km southeast of Sukhumi and a suburb of Gul'rips (Gulrip'shi). Topics assigned to Institute G included: (1) Separation of isotopes by diffusion in a flow of inert gases, for which Gustav Hertz was the leader, (2) Development of a condensation pump, for which Justus Mühlenpfordt was the leader, (3) Design and build a mass spectrometer for determining the isotopic composition of uranium, for which Werner Schütze was the leader, (4) Development of frameless (ceramic) diffusion partitions for filters, for which Reinhold Reichmann was the leader, and (5) Development of a theory of stability and control of a diffusion cascade, for which Heinz Barwich was the leader.Oleynikov, 2000, 12–13 and 18.Kruglov, 2002, 131.
Volmer was initially assigned to Institute G. Late in January 1946, Volmer was assigned to the Nauchno-Issledovatel'skij Institut-9 (NII-9, Scientific Research Institute No. 9),Today, NII-9 is the Bochvar All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Inorganic Materials, Bochvar VNIINM. See Oleynikov, 2000, 4. in Moscow; he was given a design bureau to work on the production of heavy water. Volmer's group with Victor Bayerl (physical chemist) and Gustav Richter (physicist) was under Alexander Mikailovich Rosen, and they designed a heavy water production process and facility based on the counterflow of ammonia. The installation was constructed at Norilsk and completed in 1948, after which Volmer's organization was transferred to Zinaida Ershova's group, which worked on plutonium extraction from fission products.Oleynikov, 2000, 12–13.
Near the close of World War II, as American, British, and Soviet military forces were closing in on Berlin, Riehl and some of his staff moved to a village west of Berlin, to try and assure occupation by British or American forces. However, in mid-May 1945, with the assistance of Riehl's colleague Karl Zimmer, the Soviet nuclear physicists Georgy Flerov and Lev Artsimovich showed up one day in NKVD colonel's uniforms. The two colonels requested that Riehl join them in Berlin for a few days, where Riehl met with nuclear physicist Yulii Borisovich Khariton, also in the uniform of an NKVD colonel. Riehl was detained at the search team's facility in Berlin-Friedrichshagen for a week. This sojourn in Berlin turned into 10 years in the Soviet Union. Riehl and his staff, including their families, were flown to Moscow on 9 July 1945.Riehl and Seitz, 1996, 71–72.Oleynikov, 2000, 7.Hentschel and Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F, see the entry for Riehl.
From 1945 to 1950, Riehl was in charge of uranium production at Plant 12 in Elektrostal (Электросталь"Электросталь" is sometimes transliterated as "Elektrostal". A one-to-one transliteration scheme transliterates the Cyrillic letter "Э" as "Eh", which distinguishes it from that for the Cyrillic letter "Е" given as "E". Transliterations often also drop the soft sign "ь".).Riehl and Seitz, 1996, 89–104. After the detonation of the Soviet uranium bomb, uranium production was going smoothly and Riehl's oversight was no longer necessary at Plant No. 12. Riehl then went, in 1950, to head an institute in Sungul', where he stayed until 1952. Essentially the remaining personnel in his group were assigned elsewhere, with the exception of H. E. Ortmann, A. Baroni (PoW), and Herbert Schmitz (PoW), who went with Riehl. However, Riehl had already sent Born, Catsch, and Zimmer to the institute in December 1947. The institute in Sungul' was responsible for the handling, treatment, and use of radioactive products generated in reactors, as well as radiation biology, dosimetry, and radiochemistry. The institute was known as Laboratory B, and it was overseen by the 9th Chief Directorate of the NKVD (MVD after 1946), the same organization which oversaw the Soviet Alsos operation. The scientific staff of Laboratory B – a Sharashka – was both Soviet and German, the former being mostly political prisoners or exiles, although some of the service staff were criminals.Riehl and Seitz, 1996, 121–128, and 202.Oleynikov, 2000, 15–17. (Laboratory V, in Obninsk, headed by Heinz Pose, was also a sharashka and working on the Soviet atomic bomb project. Other notable Germans at the facility were Werner Czulius, Hans Jürgen von Oertzen, Ernst Rexer, and Carl Friedrich Weiss.Polunin, V. V. and V. A. Staroverov Personnel of Special Services in the Soviet Atomic Project 1945–1953 In (FSB, 2004) .)
Laboratory B was known under another cover nameThe Russian people used various types of cover names for facilities to obfuscate both the location and function of a facility; in fact, the same facility could have multiple and changing designations. The nuclear design bureau and assembly plant Arzamas-16, for example, had more than one designation – see Yuli Khariton and Yuri Smirnov The Khariton Version, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 20–31 (May 1993). Some facilities were known by post office box numbers, почтовом ящике (pochtovom yashike), abbreviated as п/я. See Maddrell, 2006, 182–183. Also see Demidov, A. A. On the tracks of one "Anniversary" In 11 August 2005, which relates the history changing post office box designations for Arzamas-16. as Объект 0211 (Ob'ekt 0211, Object 0211), as well as Object B.Timofeev-Resovskij, N. V. Kratkaya Avtobiograficheskaya Zapiska ( Brief Autobiographical Note) (14 October 1977) . "Я ПРОЖИЛ СЧАСТЛИВУЮ ЖИЗНЬ" К 90-летию со дня рождения Н. В. Тимофеева-Ресовского ("I Lived a Happy Life") – In Honor of the 90th Anniversary of the Birth of Timofeev-Resovskij, ИСТОРИЯ НАУКИ. БИОЛОГИЯ (History of Science – Biology), 1990, № 9, 68–104 (1990). This commemorative has many photographs of Timofeev-Resovskij.Ratner, V. A. Session in Memory of N. V. Timofeev-Resovskij in the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences In, Vestnik VOGis Article 4, No. 15 (2000).Izvarina, E. Nuclear project in the Urals: History in Photographs In Nauka Urala Numbers 12–13, June 2000 . (In 1955, Laboratory B was closed. Some of its personnel were transferred elsewhere, but most of them were assimilated into a new, second nuclear weapons institute, Scientific Research Institute-1011, NII-1011, today known as the Russian Federal Nuclear Center All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics, RFYaTs–VNIITF. NII-1011 had the designation предприятие п/я 0215, i.e., enterprise post office box 0215 and Объект 0215; the latter designation has also been used in reference to Laboratory B after its closure and assimilation into NII-1011.Sulakshin, S. S. (Scientific Editor) Social and Political Process of Economic Status of Russia In 2005. RFYaTS-VNIITF Creators – See the entry for УРАЛЕЦ Александр Константинович (URALETs Aleksandr Konctantinovich) In. RFYaTS-VNIITF Creators – See the entry for ТИМОФЕЕВ-РЕСОВСКИЙ Николай Владимирович (TIMOFEEV-RESOVSKIJ Nikolaj Vladimorovich) In.Penzina, V. V. Archive of the Russian Federal Nuclear Centre of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics, named after E. I. Zababakhin. Resource No. 1 – Laboratory "B". In ( VNIITF ). Penzina is cited as head of the VNIITF Archive in Snezhinsk.)
One of the prisoners in Laboratory B was Riehls' colleague from the KWIH, N. V. Timofeev-Resovskij, who, as a Soviet citizen, was arrested by the Soviet forces in Berlin at the conclusion of the war and eventually sentenced to 10 years in the Gulag. In 1947, Timofeev-Resovskij was rescued out of a harsh Gulag prison camp, nursed back to health, and sent to Sungul' to complete his sentence, but still make a contribution to the Soviet atomic bomb project. At Laboratory B, Timofeev-Resovskij headed a biophysics research department.
Until Riehl's return to Germany in June 1955, which Riehl had to request and negotiate, he was quarantined in Agudseri (Agudzery) starting in 1952. The home in which Riehl lived had been designed by Volmer and had been previously occupied by Hertz, when he was director of Laboratory G.Riehl and Seitz, 1996, 141–142.
Ludwig Bewilogua, head of the KWIP's low temperature physics section, had remained behind and in charge of the exponential uranium pile after the other sections were moved to Hechingen. He, his staff, and the entire facility contents were taken to the Soviet Union. Other scientists sent to the Soviet Union included Robert Döpel (atomic scientist from Leipzig), Wilhelm Eitel (chemist), Reinhold Reichmann (isotope separation, sent to work with Barwich), Gustav Richter (a colleague of Hertz at Siemens and assigned to heavy water production at NII-9), W. Schütze (isotope separation and cyclotrons) and Karl Günter Zimmer (atomic physicist and biologist from the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft Institute for Brain Research in Berlin-BuchRiehl and Seitz, 1996, 121–122. and also working with Riehl at Auergesellschaft).Naimark, 1995, 212–213.Oleynikov, 2000, 13.
To get an appreciation for the numbers eventually sent to the Soviet Union for the Soviet atomic bomb project, Oleynikov cites that by the end of the 1940s, there were nearly 300 Germans working at von Ardenne's Institute A, and they were not the entire workforce at the institute. Nor were the 300 there the total German personnel sent to work on the Soviet atomic bomb project.Oleynikov, 2000, 10–11.
Zavenyagin's search teams were aggressive in identifying technology and personnel for use in the Soviet atomic bomb project and sending materiel, equipment, and personnel to the Soviet Union. There can be no doubt that the success of the Soviet "Alsos" influenced the even grander and broader exploitative Operation Osoaviakhim. On the night of 21 October 1946, NKVD and Soviet Army units, commanded by Beria's chief deputy Colonel General Ivan Serov, began rounding up in short order thousands of German scientists and technicians of all types across the Eastern zone, along with their families, and transporting them to the Soviet Union in 92 different trains for work in the Soviet armaments industry.Naimark, 1995, 220–228, 230, and 250.
In 1951, Hertz was awarded a Stalin Prize, second class, with Barwich.Oleynikov, 2000, 21. Hertz remained in the Soviet Union until 1955, when he went to East Germany.Mehra and Rechenberg, 2001, 197. Thiessen received a Stalin Prize, first class, for the development of uranium enrichment technologies. He went to East Germany in the mid-fifties. Riehl was awarded a Stalin Prize (first class), Lenin Prize, and Hero of Socialist Labor. As part of the awards, he was also given a Dacha west of Moscow; he did not use the dacha.Oleynikov, 2000, 21–22.Riehl and Seitz, 1996, 103.Maddrell, 2006, 211. In 1955 he passed through East Germany on his way to West Germany.Riehl and Seitz, 1996, pp. 148–149.
The Soviet search teams deployed to Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia were aware of the Soviet needs for uranium. However, Major General Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project was also aware of the needs of his effort and that of the Soviet atomic bomb project for uranium. Hence, he arranged for the Alsos Mission to remove 1,200 tons of uranium ore from a salt mine near Stassfurt, an area due to fall within the Soviet occupation zone. This turned out to be the bulk of the German stock of uranium ore.Holloway, 1994, 111.
As soon as the Soviet troops occupied Vienna, a search team was sent to Austria. Vladimir Shevchenko, director of Scientific Research Institute No. 9 (NII-9), and atomic scientist Igor' Nikolaevich Golovin from Laboratory No. 2 stayed in Vienna from 13 April to 10 May 1945. In Vienna, they interviewed scientists from the Radium Institute of the Academy of Sciences and from the Second Physical Institute of the University of Vienna. Information collected provided an overview of German organizations involved in the uranium project, including companies potentially engaged in metallic uranium production. In an Auergesellschaft building there, they retrieved 340 kilograms of metallic uranium, a precursor to what would be found in Germany, as indeed Auergesellschaft was a main producer.Naimark, 1995, Ref 23 p 523.
The Auergesellschaft facility in Oranienburg had nearly 100 metric tons of fairly pure uranium oxide, which a search team found. The Americans had bombed the facility near the end of the war to deny the works to the Soviets. The Soviet Union took this uranium as reparations, which amounted to between 25% and 40% of the uranium taken from Germany and Czechoslovakia at the end of the war. Khariton said the uranium found there saved the Soviet Union a year on its atomic bomb project.Naimark, 1995, 236.Holloway, 1995, 111.Oleynikov, 2000, 9.Riehl and Seitz, 1996, 77–79.
Khariton and Kikoin, not knowing about the find in Oranienburg, started an intensive search of their own. From inspecting a plant in the Grunau district, they learned that the company Rohes had shipped several hundred tons of uranium, but they could not then determine the final destination. While in Potsdam, they determined the name of the head of the Belgian office of Rohes. The services of SMERSh military counterintelligence were used to find and arrest the man and bring him to the two physicists. Under questioning by SMERSh, the man revealed that the uranium was in Neustadt. Unfortunately, there were about 20 towns in Germany with that name, 10 of them were in the Soviet zone of occupation. In Neustadt-Glewe, they found more than 100 tons of uranium oxide. Another major find for the Soviet atomic bomb project.
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