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00:05Tonight on NOVA, the race to build an atomic bomb didn't end with Hiroshima.
00:12In a desperate effort to catch up with the United States, Russia kidnapped German scientists, ordering them to help build
00:18a Soviet bomb.
00:21We felt that the American process, of course, was much better than our process.
00:27These scientists helped move the Soviet Union into the nuclear aid, Nazis and the Russian bomb.
00:47Funding for NOVA is provided by Lockheed, America's aerospace company, supporting math, science and engineering education for national technology leadership.
00:59And Johnson and Johnson, the signature recognized around the world for commitment to quality health care products for the entire
01:08family.
01:09Major funding for NOVA is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by the financial support of viewers like
01:16you.
02:10When October came, my sister came to visit me and it was that very day that the Russians came and
02:16picked me up.
02:17It was early, around 5 a.m.
02:20I can remember the time exactly.
02:22There were cars driving through the streets near us.
02:25We were a little out of the way.
02:32Yes, when the Russians came, rifle bots against the door, my brother opened up.
02:37They had an interpreter and she said, everybody to Russia.
02:41And then my brother said, but not my mother and sister, they're just visiting here.
02:46And then the interpreter said, everybody.
02:49And within two hours, we were all packed up for Russia.
02:59Not long after the close of World War Two, the Soviet Union rounded up an elite core of German scientists
03:07whose orders were to bring Russia into the atomic age.
03:10Many of these scientists careers had already been shaped by the rise of Adolf Hitler.
03:29Germany, 1933.
03:31Under Hitler, the country was becoming the dominant power in Central Europe.
03:35The Nazi rearmament brought industrial growth and an emphasis on engineering skills.
03:42Many Germans hoped for an end to unemployment and the future to look forward to.
03:47،
04:01If there's something to save, look at this problem setting for you.
04:03Just stop Hey Jack.
04:06Nothing built around the world.
04:12Even back now, not only, China has evenüstged, not monsieur however i didn'tviewe
04:21Germany was also a center of research into the new science of atomic physics.
04:26Professor Nikolaus Riehl was a student at the time.
04:35Then I went to the university in Berlin.
04:38I took my doctorate with Lisa Meitner and Otto Hahn.
04:42That was how I became involved in radioactivity.
04:46Professor Manfred von Ardenne also carried out his research into electromagnetic radiation in Berlin.
04:53Before the Second World War, I had my institute in Lichterfelder in Berlin, now West Berlin.
05:04And very near was Dahlem, the institute of Otto Hahn.
05:12Otto Hahn was a Nobel Prize winner, who, with Lisa Meitner, studied the behavior of radioactive elements.
05:20In 1938, Meitner had to flee Germany as Hitler occupied Austria, and on Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, declared
05:29all-out war on the Jews.
05:34I remember the famous Kristallnacht.
05:40A first-floor window fell right in front of me on my way to school.
05:43So I turned to these people and said to the brown shirts who were standing there,
05:47You can't do this.
05:49A civilian grabbed me and said, Keep your mouth shut, shrimp.
05:52I got to school and half the class was missing.
05:55I can't claim today that I saw nothing and knew nothing.
05:59The Kristallnacht took place all over Germany.
06:01You must admit it now.
06:06As war in Europe became almost certain, so too did the results of Hahn's work on the atom.
06:12In the last months of 1938 in Berlin, he announced the discovery of the splitting of the uranium atom.
06:19Few at the time understood how much the world would be changed by these events.
06:33After Hahn's discovery of the splitting of uranium, it was natural for me to enter this field.
06:39One's thoughts were about the so-called uranium machine, which would create a huge amount of energy and so on.
06:46That fascinated me.
06:56Not long after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the German War Office set up a nuclear physics research center in
07:04Berlin
07:05with Professor Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn leading it.
07:12Dr. Riel and Dr. Gunther Wirz were given a government contract to produce uranium.
07:19You know that just before the war, everybody realized in the scientific world that an atomic bomb should be possible,
07:27theoretically.
07:29And there was some estimate in Germany from the side of German scientists, us from the government,
07:34that they believed that it could take a time of 20 years to achieve this,
07:39that one has to develop a brand new technology which was not available at that time.
07:45The future development of the German atomic bomb was decided in the Harnack House in 1942.
07:52At a secret meeting held between Hahn and Heisenberg, Field Marshal Erhard Milch,
07:57and Armaments Minister Albert Speer, Heisenberg raised the possibility of a nuclear bomb.
08:02How big would such a bomb be, asked the Field Marshal.
08:05About the size of a pineapple, said Heisenberg.
08:08But he quickly added that it would take several years to develop such a weapon.
08:13Marshall Milch left the meeting very unimpressed.
08:16And shortly afterwards, authorized production of the V-1 and V-2 rockets.
08:22Speer, however, did decide to spend some money on building a nuclear reactor.
08:29Well, but to start to do something on the second order, which was not a priority, of course,
08:37was to make pure uranium metal for so-called critical assembly.
08:44In the buildings of the Max Planck Institute, the German scientists proceeded with their work.
08:49In a custom-built cellar protected by walls 10 feet thick,
08:53they attempted to assemble a nuclear reactor using uranium blocks produced by Professor Reel.
08:58We have known that there should be this critical assembly,
09:03and that was the one, the uranium as a metal,
09:07and then you need a moderator,
09:09and the Germans had failed to find out that graphite is a useful,
09:15pure graphite is a useful moderator,
09:17and so they had to use heavy water.
09:21So the first critical assembly was on the base of heavy water and this metal.
09:27And the results were, as far as I know, were not very interesting.
09:33It was all went with low priority.
09:36And last not least,
09:46Hitler and his advisors' interest in the whole of nuclear technology and uranium reactors
09:52and also in the uranium bomb wasn't especially great.
09:58That was too abstract.
10:00For them, it was Jewish physics.
10:06The low priority, you see,
10:08one has to concentrate in wartime,
10:10one has to concentrate on the things which you can use very soon.
10:13So the V1, the V2,
10:16there were the German concentrates.
10:18Then we had developed, as you know,
10:20the jet-driven planes.
10:23So there were the centers of German efforts during the war.
10:27But not this year.
10:29It was just enough to protect us from serving in the army.
10:38As Berlin was hit by more and more air raids,
10:41the German atomic research program became non-existent.
10:44Professor Riel and Dr. Wirtz abandoned their work
10:48and fled to the outskirts of the city.
10:51In May 1945,
10:53the Soviet army launched its final attack on Berlin.
10:57German fortunes had been totally reversed,
11:00and the capital of Hitler's Third Reich
11:02became a slaughterhouse.
11:26German fortunes had been completely reversed,
11:27but it was still over the past.
11:27The T-Rex was a lobo of a strong hitter.
11:34German fortunes had been reduced,
11:35but it was just a nightmare in a living room.
11:35It was just a nightmare in the name of Professor Wafe.
11:38The German Fermat Group,
11:40the German Dakar Group,
11:40the German terrain,
11:40and the German spot won the place itself.
11:41The German American
11:44turned the to the German Empire
12:13He's out.
12:20During the last days of the war, the whole war was terrible, the last days were even
12:26more so.
12:27We all felt in a kind of end-of-the-world mood.
12:31I lost the continuity of my scientific work, and I lost my flat.
12:37In fact, I'd lost my home, Berlin.
12:39It had been a fascinating city once, but under Hitler it got worse and worse.
12:46It used to be a center of science and technology and of culture, a highly interesting city.
12:53But all this was lost.
13:03The armies of the Soviet Union invaded all of Berlin and the surrounding countryside.
13:08The Soviet Union dominated Central Europe, and Germany as a state had almost ceased to exist.
13:16By May 9th, Germany surrendered, and within days, a team of Soviet scientists were sent
13:21to locate the whereabouts of the German atomic experts.
13:24They found Professor von Ardena and his undamaged institute.
13:28When the Soviet scientists in May 1945 saw these working equipments, they saw there were elements
13:47also for important, for the resolution of important nuclear problems.
13:55Professor Riehl and Dr. Wirtz were in a village outside Berlin, but the Soviets found them too.
14:09Then the Russians came.
14:11They found me right away.
14:13It wasn't difficult for them to find me.
14:16Two colonels of the NKVD, the secret police, came round and picked me up.
14:21It wasn't an arrest, it was called detaining someone for questioning.
14:28From that moment on, I was never again without a guard.
14:32I was never independent again.
14:35I was separated from my family.
14:46And then, on June 9th, we were taken to the Soviet Union by plane.
14:52We were driven to NKVD headquarters and requested to go and see Beria, the head of the secret police,
15:00in his office.
15:01That's when I met Hertz again, and Von Ardena.
15:08I met Beria and the big table, and before me were Zimovic and Kotratov, and the other
15:19leading nuclear scientists of the Soviet Union.
15:26Soviet circles were primarily interested in the atom bomb, or atomic energy.
15:32And they apparently already knew more in this field than we knew in Germany.
15:40Professor Reel's impressions were correct.
15:43The Soviet scientists that he met with Lavrenty Beria in Moscow had already started a bomb
15:49project.
15:49The Soviet Union had an active atomic research community in the 1930s, based in Leningrad.
15:57Headed by Abram Yafi, a highly regarded physicist, the institute had built a cyclotron for the
16:03study of atomic particles in 1937.
16:07Leningrad attracted many young scientists, of whom Igor Kurchatov was the most outstanding.
16:12By 1940, Kurchatov and his associates were already investigating the implications of Otto Hahn's
16:19discovery in Germany.
16:20And at a seminar that year, physicist Yorgi Fiorov presented a paper on the possibility of
16:27achieving a nuclear explosion from uranium fission.
16:34At the time, before the war, we were basically thinking of nuclear power stations.
16:38But we nevertheless felt that, beside providing electric power, this phenomenon could at some
16:43time provide unique explosive force.
16:54The Soviet Union, Mr. Kurchatov, Mr. Kurchatov, Mr. Kurchatov, Mr. Kurchatov.
17:24The German invasion in 1941 brought an end to any atomic research.
17:29The announcement of war by Molotov signaled the start of the mass evacuation of Leningrad
17:35in Moscow.
17:36Scientists were drafted to work on rebuilding the Soviet forces, and Kurchatov began work
17:41on tank armor.
17:57Yet Fiorov continued to lobby Stalin.
18:07About this time, we captured a German pilot, a fascist flyer, who said, so what?
18:13You shot me down.
18:14But you will die just the same.
18:16We'll destroy you.
18:18We hold something in reserve.
18:21Something horrible, which you know nothing about.
18:26I realized that if they had really succeeded in making a bomb, they would not hesitate a
18:32moment before using it.
18:34So I wrote to Stalin about it.
18:36I wrote a letter explaining what needed to be done, outlining, as if in a fantasy, the design
18:43of a possible atomic bomb.
18:51Soviet spies in Germany and Britain confirmed Fiorov's fears, and in 1942, the State Defense
18:57Committee, headed by Stalin, set up a team to investigate building an atomic bomb.
19:02Kurchatov was appointed as its head.
19:04Kurchatov was a very present man.
19:08I think he was the leading nuclear scientist in the Soviet Union in that time.
19:15And he was the first man also in the technical Soviets who organized the development of the
19:32atomic bomb.
19:32The Russians were, the Russian physicists are, of course, first class.
19:37No question about that.
19:39All the things they knew.
19:43But Kurchatov also was a very, very good impression.
19:48He was really a good, a great man, an important man.
19:52By the time Stalin met Truman and Churchill at Potsdam in July 1945, Kurchatov's team had
19:58been working on a bomb project for over two years.
20:01Stalin knew from his spies that his allies, the US and Britain, had been secretly developing
20:06an atomic bomb since 1940.
20:09But it wasn't until Potsdam that Truman hinted to Stalin that the United States now had a bomb,
20:14calling it a new weapon of unusual destructive force.
20:37After the United States dropped the atomic bomb,
20:40Wirtz was summoned to Moscow from Siberia, where he had been scouting a site for a uranium plant.
20:46The dropping of the bomb had changed the situation, of course, basically.
20:52So we came back and at that time they had already decided to reinstall the small plant near to Moscow
21:00in a small town called Electrostal.
21:05It was really a shock for all the Germans, because we felt that now that was not a thing just
21:12to begin with.
21:13Because it was clear that, at that time for everybody, it was clear that already the superpowers were more or
21:20less in competition,
21:21and that the Americans with the bomb had, of course, a very strong weapon in their hands,
21:27and that the Russians needed, that was priority number one for the Russians now to have the bomb.
21:35The decision to pursue the bomb was made at great cost to the Soviet people.
21:41The German invasion and the subsequent defeat of Nazi Germany left the Soviet Union with millions of dead,
21:47and massive destruction of their factories and farms.
21:51The United States' effort to build the bomb had involved $2 billion in 1945,
21:57and the resources of over 100,000 people.
22:01To the smashed economy of the Soviet Union, the race to catch up represented an almost inhuman struggle.
22:09But in the minds of the Soviet rulers, there was no question but to proceed with the development of the
22:16bomb.
22:22To begin with, there was absolutely unavoidable to have this uranium metal that was the number one on the route
22:31to plutonium.
22:38The main task in hand was the production of uranium in a form that would be suitable for use in
22:45an atomic reactor.
22:46This was one problem that we had already almost solved in Germany.
22:56Kurchatov was the scientific head of the bomb project, but in overall charge was Marshal Beria, head of the secret
23:03police and deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers.
23:06His absolute power was critical in coordinating all the necessary resources.
23:11He and his deputy, Avrami Zavanyagin, were directly responsible for the execution of the bomb project.
23:18You know that all the secret policy was under Beria.
23:22All that what is called from Solzhenitsyn, the Gulag, was under him.
23:27And all people were afraid of this organization.
23:33Zavanyagin was a very clever and a very likable man.
23:36But he was also lieutenant general of the NKVD.
23:40He was a very energetic man. He had to be.
23:43Those around him were scared of him.
23:45But even Zavanyagin was afraid of Beria.
23:50He came once to our plant and that was prepared since weeks, was prepared.
23:58And that was an impression unbelievable, we said Beria.
24:03Because that assistant minister, Zavanyagin, that was something what we in Germany called, this is a Herr, this is a
24:12gentleman.
24:12He came up, he was a man, a very capable man.
24:16But when Beria was present, he had only spoken with him like this.
24:20It was for us Germans, it was unbelievable how they were afraid of Beria.
24:26Which was a very unpleasant man, but we shake hands with Beria.
24:34Beria put great pressure on the scientists to build the Soviets a bomb.
24:38Feeding them information his spies stole from the US program.
24:43I should explain this, Zavanyagin told you that our technology was very unsatisfactory.
24:50And that changed rather soon, because the Russians could get the report from the Manhattan Project,
24:59which was either secret or confidential, I don't know it.
25:03At least I got also this report from the Manhattan Project.
25:08Investors, Americans surely had described their processes, how they made the nuclear pure uranium.
25:15And that was quite different from ours.
25:18And we felt that the American process, of course, was much better than our process.
25:24And so there was a decision to go ahead along the American line.
25:29So we went along this line, we installed a new purification plant.
25:34And later on, the method making the metal was also modified.
25:39So that after some time, we got really pure, good metal with the help of the Americans.
25:48Some of the help the Soviets received came from inside the Manhattan Project itself,
25:54from physicist Klaus Fuchs, who gave them top secret information.
26:05Fourteen months after the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, the Soviet Union made a critical advance,
26:11which the scientific and engineering skills of Nazi Germany had failed to achieve.
26:16Using the uranium, Professor Reel and Dr. Wirtz helped to produce.
26:20The first reactor in Europe became active in December 1946.
26:25But for the Soviet bomb project, there was still a long way to go.
26:47After the Soviets' occupation of Germany in 1945, they paid some of the rocket engineers, who hadn't fled to the
26:55US,
26:55to continue their work on the V-2 rocket at a plant which they had taken over in Germany.
27:01One of these scientists was Dr. Kurt Magnus.
27:05In Bleicherode, we had several people who were from a group of rocket experts, Panamunda.
27:13This group worked on the outline and specifications of the A-4 rocket.
27:18This was the former V-2 rocket.
27:24In October 1946, shortly before the first atomic reactor in the Soviet Union started working,
27:30a Soviet delegation came to see the rocket plant in Germany.
27:34The delegation, led by General Gaidukov, had plans for the German rocket experts.
27:47General Gaidukov was present and listened to all the proceedings.
27:51Then he said with a large gesture,
27:54Well, you've been very industrious, and because you've been so industrious, I'd like to invite you to a dinner tonight.
28:03A huge table had been set up in a big hall there.
28:06The whole thing was lit in a festive manner.
28:09And we were offered a meal the likes of which we, at the time, remember it was autumn 1946.
28:16And there was nothing to eat in Germany.
28:19It was a meal the likes of which we'd never seen before.
28:26Fruit in absolute abundance, which was unheard of at the time.
28:30And of course, vodka, vodka, vodka.
28:34Nothing else.
28:36Only when the party was over, shortly before midnight,
28:40were we, each of us, individually taken home in a car by Soviet officers.
28:46And three hours later, they got us out of our beds.
28:54Mrs. Grotrup's husband, one-time deputy to Werner von Braun, was the engineer in charge.
29:04My husband went to celebrate with a big group, and with the Russians.
29:09Celebrations were always a big thing.
29:11I went to sleep, and around 3 a.m. I was wakened by the telephone.
29:15Someone, I can't remember who, said,
29:17The Russians are at the front door. We're going to be taken away.
29:22And I thought it was a joke.
29:23Mr. Scherz gehalten.
29:46We had some
29:54real adventures during the course of that journey, some wild stories.
29:59It seemed like, well, a bit like going west, only we were going east.
30:05We went off in a terrible rush that night.
30:08It all seemed chaotic to us, but the train left with all of us aboard.
30:19If I remember rightly, there were on that train about a hundred people, including
30:24families and children.
30:41We got on the train that we weren't expected and weren't on any list, but my mother and
30:46I were immediately looked after.
30:48That's how organized it was.
30:50So organized it was.
30:52The power of an impover, let's fight and fool obfuscity.
31:07Keep going, thank you.
31:22By liking the world it's electronic music doesn't sound nice.
31:40The point was to get us all to Russia as fast as possible.
31:45They stuck to that idea, but for us it was terrible.
31:49They had to get us there.
31:50They couldn't care how.
31:52That was it.
31:54End of story.
31:59Three days into the journey, we were told we were going to Moscow.
32:04Then we drove into Moscow, and I found it incredibly shocking.
32:09I had never seen so much poverty in my life.
32:12I had come from a destroyed Germany,
32:14and for the first time I could comprehend what this war had done.
32:18The houses hadn't been destroyed, but they were small and no longer properly habitable.
32:24And the people?
32:25It was shocking.
32:27And the people who ran away, that was shocking.
32:32The people who ran away, that was shocking.
32:58they had so many of their own problems
33:01what with their famine
33:02that they didn't talk about the war at all
33:04here and there we heard
33:06the americans have the atom bomb
33:07and we have nothing
33:08so Grotrup at least build us some rockets
33:11we have nothing
33:11they can destroy us
33:13that was the main thing
33:17the german rocket engineers
33:19were probably the most experienced
33:21in the world at that time
33:22the leading soviet rocket expert
33:25was sergey karolioff
33:26who had actively pioneered the science
33:29in the 1930s
33:30and had carried out many experiments
33:32with small rockets
33:33but in 1937 karolioff was jailed
33:36by the kgb for espionage
33:38and by the time of his rehabilitation
33:41soviet rocketry was primitive
33:43compared to the v2
33:45karolioff was placed in joint charge
33:47of the rocket program
33:49with dr grotrup
33:53karolioff and my husband
33:55karolioff and my husband were originally
33:57colleagues of the same rank
33:58both were chief construction engineers
34:00so they could cooperate in running the german and russian teams
34:06just a short time ago
34:08the german scientists had been working for nazi germany
34:11now in the soviet union
34:13they had little freedom
34:15but compared to the soviet people
34:17they were treated very well
34:27after all
34:28we were in good shape
34:30we were all well taken care of
34:33we were given much better food than the others
34:36than the russian population
34:38sometimes it was quite uncomfortable
34:40all around us people had to live very modestly
34:44especially after the war
34:46and we had everything
34:48sometimes that was rather embarrassing
34:51i received about 800 rubles a month
35:02russian female colleagues in the same position
35:05earned 400 rubles
35:06so as you can imagine
35:08living alone i could manage quite well on that
35:11and my fiancee sent me flour and pudding
35:14from brunswick
35:15so we'd have pudding
35:17and we'd do some baking
35:20there were things they weren't familiar with
35:22and i must admit
35:23it was quite pleasant
35:34two people would have one room and a living room
35:37to the russians
35:38those were fantastic living conditions
35:41there were eight or nine to a room
35:43i realized that later
35:45through a friend who showed me around moscow
35:48he didn't just take me to the cushy side
35:51he also showed me the arbat
35:52the back streets
35:54i really found that more fascinating
35:56than the things i usually saw
35:58like gorky street in the bolshoi theater
36:07yet however privileged the german scientists were
36:10there was a price to pay
36:12the soviet union had no atomic weapon
36:16and no effective way of delivering one
36:18the germans were there
36:20to help remedy this
36:22and they were expected
36:24to deliver the goods
36:25our first task in the soviet union we worked on
36:36in the rocket field
36:37was the reconstruction of the a4 rocket
36:42that was a job which didn't really entail anything more
36:45than putting together all the contemporary knowledge and findings
36:49about the construction
36:50as well as the experiments concerning the a4 rocket
36:56the russians had found several fairly complete rockets at the middle works factory
37:01they brought them to the soviet union and had got them ready to launch
37:08we had to do some preparatory work for that
37:30in the summer of 1947 six or eight colleagues from our group suddenly disappeared
37:37we weren't told where they'd been taken
37:39we were very worried that they'd been abducted again
37:43but it soon transpired that they'd been taken to this rocket testing site
37:52in an area of bare desert the soviet union had set up a rocket firing range
37:56at kapustinyar near kazakhstan
38:00kazakh steppe
38:05clay huts
38:06camels
38:07people in their huts
38:09it was in such contrast to the most modern facility imaginable in the world
38:13even the americans didn't have it
38:15that contrast was almost impossible to live with
38:21korolyov had arrived at the site
38:22and the first launch of an a4 was prepared
38:25the date was set for september 29th 1947
38:34one leg shifted a few millimeters
38:36but they wanted to go ahead with the launch
38:39they had a deadline from moscow
38:40you will launch it on such a date
38:43they had to no matter what or else it was sabotage
38:48and so they used train sleepers and a winch to raise the whole thing up
38:59for the first time in my life i saw a rocket self-ignite
39:03not just that
39:05i was partly responsible for the third rocket being tested
39:09i had to make sure it worked because the first two rockets hadn't reached their destinations
39:15it was an interesting experience
39:17because i also got to know the chief soviet rocket designer korolyov
39:27i got to know him pretty well
39:29he was sometimes called the vener von braun of the russians
39:32we worked very closely with him during that time
39:35he was responsible for that rocket launch on the kazakh steppe
39:40it was vital that nothing should go wrong
39:43so he looked after us most diligently
39:56the series of rocket tests was successful
40:04after that launch they were so happy and enthusiastic
40:08they jumped up and down like little children
40:10high-ranking ministers or not they were just like little children
40:14then they grabbed their vodka bottles and got drunk
40:20but far from kazakhstan the atomic bomb program
40:23was still causing the soviets considerable anxiety
40:26it was about 1947
40:28that the assistant minister came up to our plant
40:32he took me aside and said well
40:35we have now got a piece of american uranium metal
40:40and we have analyzed it
40:42what do you think he asked me
40:44what metal is pure
40:46american hours i said without hesitating
40:49yours is pure
40:50he said yes it's true
40:52and we are very proud of it
40:54and i said it's no use to be proud of it
40:57because americans make it just as pure as necessary
41:01and you do by far more
41:04and that makes it very expensive
41:05and he said you damn germs
41:10the problem for kuchatov and his team
41:13was to make the vital leap from the lab bench
41:16to industrial production
41:17i think that the conditions were very difficult of course
41:23but the power of the government was strong enough
41:26to start very quick the conditions for bringing up big industrial buildings and so on
41:38for doing the development of the industrial isotope separation
41:44they had very good co-workers
41:49and so and good conditions
41:52according to the technical soviet methods
41:56and so the work was
42:00could be done very quick
42:02tempo was the most important question in that field in that time
42:10soviet resolved to catch up with the united states
42:13now on a cold war footing
42:15deepened when they realized that u.s. scientists were continuing to build bombs
42:26never has such high pressure work been done at such speed
42:30this is because we knew they were making bombs
42:33and each month brought more and more bombs
42:35they were accumulating
42:36we knew from air analysis how many bombs there were
42:44as it was wartime
42:45people were fighting
42:46but they enabled us to work here behind the lines
42:50we worked hard
42:52we were hungry
42:52but we weren't fighting
42:56but after the war
42:57we realized that the construction of our giant reactors
43:01institutes and testing sites
43:03had deprived a great many people of food and housing
43:06and that we owed them our utmost effort
43:12it required more than knowledge to build a bomb
43:15a complex industry had to be created
43:18to handle all the stages in the production of the material for an atomic bomb
43:23in the autumn of 1947
43:25factories to produce enriched uranium were set up in siberia
43:30and in march 1948
43:32work started on a series of industrial reactors
43:35that would produce plutonium on a large scale
43:38the first one was operating five months later
43:45let's just say that at the beginning our reactors were not powerful
43:49100,000 kilowatts and there was only one
43:51we were afraid to go larger
43:53this one could produce about 100 grams of plutonium in 24 hours
43:57that is one bomb in several months
43:59but then further reactors appeared
44:03starting from a very low level of industrial organization
44:06the Soviet Union had created
44:08one of the most advanced industrial processes in the world
44:12they had reactors like you call the whole reactors in Great Britain
44:16and that means that you have a moderator like graphite
44:20and in this reactor
44:22from the uranium is built up
44:24a small quantity of plutonium
44:28and after some time you take it out
44:31you have Heidegger reactive product now
44:34and you have to separate the radioactive elements
44:38from uranium and from plutonium
44:40and so you get plutonium
44:42and you need the two pieces
44:44if you shoot them together
44:45then the bomb explodes
44:46what we learned now
44:59on August 29th 1949
45:02a second atomic power joined the world
45:05despite enormous problems
45:07Kurchatov and his scientists had succeeded
45:19I was there
45:20I set up my detector
45:22and watched it for signs of anything that might go wrong
45:27so I was the last to descend the tower
45:30having done all my test work
45:31and then I joined Kurchatov in the bunker
45:36when the explosions occurred
45:39Kurchatov looked as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders
45:42because there was a 10% chance of failure
45:47he jumped out of the bunker and shouted
45:49it worked, it worked
45:54such strong words
45:56however, a cloud of dust was approaching the bunker
45:59and I, also in a state of excitement
46:01about 0.7 of the level of Kurchatov's
46:04I put my arm around him
46:07and let him back into the bunker
46:09that's how it was
46:11how I remember it
46:13when it's a question of prestige
46:19either for political reasons
46:21or military reasons
46:23then everyone's work is concentrated
46:25on this one problem
46:27and it's solved
46:33then somebody told us
46:35now that it's a great success
46:36and you will get awards
46:38and so for your work here
46:40and we got
46:41later
46:42well that was
46:43in the plant or in Moscow
46:45I don't remember
46:46but very soon
46:47we learned that it had worked
46:58I didn't want to receive any medals or anything
47:01but after the success
47:04after the Soviet atom bomb had been completed
47:07medals were just handed out
47:10I was even made a hero of socialist work as well
47:14that's a very high distinction
47:18it's also rather grotesque
47:23I'm a great friend of Russia
47:25I'm also against fighting the Soviet system
47:29but I was never a socialist
47:40I'm a friend of private enterprise
47:42of the capitalist approach
47:44and yet it was I
47:46who got the hero of socialist work medal
47:49the golden star
47:51perhaps one more question
47:53that you really need to ask is
47:55what would have happened
47:57how far would the Soviet Union have gone
48:00if they'd had no help from the Germans
48:02and if they'd had no espionage
48:05the certain answer is
48:07that the Russians would have finished a year
48:10maybe two years later
48:12but no more than that
48:20back in Kazakhstan
48:22it didn't take long for the Germans to realize
48:24they were building rockets
48:25for the purpose of delivering atomic bombs
48:28beyond the Soviet borders
48:36I once asked my husband
48:39don't you realize what you're doing
48:41because one day his brief was
48:43Grotrup you'll fire 3,000 kilometers
48:46and I said
48:47now take a compass and consider this
48:49you can hit the whole of Europe
48:53he was dumbfounded
48:55but he didn't react
48:56he was just fascinated
48:58by solving this or that problem
49:00a problem of steering
49:01whatever it was
49:02they didn't think about the consequences
49:04and didn't want to
49:07at least not at that time
49:19we of course were never told
49:22what tasks the rockets would perform
49:23but you could work out for yourself
49:26what it would be
49:26the A4 rocket was capable of carrying a payload
49:31say a 300 kilogram warhead
49:33about 300 kilometers
49:34it could carry a 3,000 kilogram warhead
49:38about 300 kilometers
49:40using that to transport an atomic warhead
49:43would have made no sense
49:48the R-14 project was a rocket
49:51which was supposed to have
49:52a 3,000 kilometer range
49:54with about a 3,000 kilogram payload
49:57of course these would have been suitable
49:59to carry an atomic bomb
50:01some of us began to grumble
50:03and we said we preferred
50:05not to work on this rocket
50:07because our homes
50:08lay 2,000 kilometers from Moscow
50:10and we didn't want to build rockets here
50:12which could be fired on our country
50:17by 1950
50:18the German rocket scientists
50:20were moved yet again
50:21this time to an island
50:22on Lake Seliger
50:23their growing reluctance
50:25in the Soviets
50:26increasing knowledge
50:27made the team expendable
50:29at the time
50:35my husband was still
50:37chief construction engineer
50:38then he was relieved
50:40of his post
50:40then we realized
50:42what was going on
50:43in the Gorodomia project
50:44we were only there
50:46to supply Korolev
50:47with what he didn't know
50:48that is
50:49he still used to come
50:50with specific questions
50:51frequently at the beginning
50:53but then at increasingly
50:54long intervals
50:55finally stopping
50:56all together
50:57we weren't asked anymore
50:59about the R-14
51:00and with that
51:01our work was finished
51:16they remained on the island
51:18for three more years
51:19fearful about what would happen to them
51:22not knowing
51:23if they would ever
51:24be allowed
51:25to return to Germany
51:26then with the death
51:28of Stalin
51:28the situation
51:30changed dramatically
51:34Stalin's death
51:35on the BBC
51:36we heard of Stalin's death
51:38on the BBC
51:38we suddenly heard
51:40Stalin is tot
51:41that is
51:42Stalin is dead
51:42we were excited
51:44at what might happen
51:45next morning
51:46the Russian people
51:46came completely happy
51:48and said
51:48Stalin kaput
51:50that was the first we heard
51:52that was the first we heard
51:58with the passing of the worst of repression
52:01Mrs. Grotrup and the other Germans on the island
52:04were moved once again
52:06but this time
52:07they were going home
52:16I was shattered
52:20there's a Heine poem
52:22and I drive over the border
52:24with tears
52:26that came to mind
52:27a lot at the time
52:28because we'd learned a lot
52:29in Russia
52:29and I left many friends there
52:31I came back quite different
52:33from when I'd gone
52:34the war had changed me
52:43I can't say we returned
52:44with our former vigor
52:46it had influenced me profoundly
52:49it was a difficult time
52:50the uncertainty bothered us most
52:53at least it did me
52:54will I ever get home
52:55will I ever see my parents again
52:57but now that we were back
52:59now that it was all over
53:00I could only feel
53:02that it had been
53:02an enriching time
53:04I wouldn't have missed it
53:31real
53:32Wiertz
53:33and Von Ardena
53:34were asked to continue their work in the Soviet Union,
53:37but they chose to return home in the mid-1950s.
53:40They came back to a Germany that would be split into East and West
53:44for the next three and a half decades,
53:46divided between two superpowers,
53:49one of which they had helped to arm.
53:52I'm sitting here now, I'm in good health,
53:56and I have this small nice house in the countryside.
54:00What was the wrong side?
54:01I have never been a soldier,
54:03which during Hitler's time was a great luck.
54:06I came back as a healthy man from the Soviet Union,
54:09and when I returned,
54:11so they had in Germany a need for a man who knew
54:13how to make nuclear uranium metal,
54:15and I was the only one who knew it at that time.
54:19So they gave me a job,
54:21and I developed this job,
54:23and I've wonderfully cooperated with the British,
54:26with the UK Atomic Energy Authority,
54:29with the Commissariat of the Atomic Energy in France,
54:32with the Americans.
54:33Well, it was a wonderful life.
54:35That's wonderful.
54:36Ha, ha, ha.
54:38All right.
54:39Ha, ha, ha.
54:41Ha, ha, ha.
54:44Ha, ha, ha, ha.
56:05The financial support of viewers like you.
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