known, that during the Great Patriotic War, the Nazi armies were never able to get to the Middle Volga region, although according to plan «Barbarossa» by the end of summer 1941 years the Wehrmacht was supposed to enter the line Arkhangelsk-Kuibyshev-Astrakhan. Nevertheless, the military and post-war generations of Soviet people were still able to see the Germans even in those cities, which were located hundreds of kilometers from the front line. But these were not at all those self-confident occupiers with «schmeissers» in the hands, who walked across the Soviet border at dawn 22 June.
We know, that the victory over Hitlerite Germany went to our people at an incredibly high price. AT 1945 a significant part of the European part of the USSR lay in ruins. It was necessary to restore the destroyed economy, and in the shortest possible time. But the country at that time was experiencing an acute shortage of workers and smart heads., because millions of our fellow citizens perished on the war fronts and in the rear, including a huge number of highly qualified specialists.
After the Potsdam Conference, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a closed resolution. according to him, When restoring the industry of the USSR, its destroyed cities and villages, it was supposed to use the labor of German prisoners of war to the maximum extent. Then it was decided to take all qualified German engineers and workers from the Soviet occupation zone of Germany to the enterprises of the USSR..
According to official Soviet history, in March 1946 year, the first session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the second convocation adopted the fourth five-year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy of the country. In the first post-war five-year plan, it was necessary to completely restore the regions of the country that suffered from the occupation and hostilities, and in industry and agriculture to reach the pre-war level, and then surpass it.
About three billion rubles were allocated from the national budget for the development of the economy of the Kuibyshev region in prices of that time. In the vicinity of post-war Kuibyshev, several camps were organized for former soldiers of the defeated Nazi armies. The Germans who survived in the Stalingrad cauldron were then widely used at various Kuibyshev construction sites. At that time, workers were also needed for the development of industry. After all, according to official council plans, in the last war years and immediately after the war, it was planned to build several new factories in Kuibyshev, including oil refining, chisel, ship repair and metalwork plant. It also turned out to be urgently necessary to reconstruct the 4th GPP, KATEK (later the plant named after A.M. Tarasova), factory «Auto tractor part» (subsequently valve factory), Srednevolzhsky machine-tool plant and some others. It was here that German prisoners of war were sent to work.. But as it turned out later, not only are they.
Before the war, both the USSR and Germany were actively developing fundamentally new aircraft engines. — gas turbine. However, German specialists were then noticeably ahead of their Soviet colleagues.. The lag has increased since, how in 1937 year, all leading Soviet scientists, dealing with jet propulsion, fell under the Yezhovsko-Berievsky skating rink of repression. Meanwhile, in Germany at factories «BMW» and «Juncker» the first samples of gas turbine engines were already being prepared for serial production.
spring 1945 years factories and design offices «Yunkyersa» and «BMW» ended up in the Soviet occupation zone. And in the fall 1946 a significant part of qualified personnel «Yunkyersa», «BMW» and some other aircraft factories in Germany in the strictest secrecy on specially equipped echelons was taken to the territory of the USSR, rather — to Kuibyshev, to the village Administrative. In the shortest possible time were delivered here 405 German engineers and technicians, 258 highly skilled workers, 37 employees, as well as a small group of service personnel. Family members of these specialists arrived with them.. Eventually, at the end of October 1946 the number of Germans in the village of Administrative, than Russians.
Most of the Germans taken to Kuibyshev worked at the experimental plant No. 2 (later — engine plant). At the same time, OKB-1 85 percent was staffed with specialists «Yunkyersa», in OKB-2 to 80 percent of staff were former staff «BMW», a 62 Percentage of OKB-3 personnel were specialists of the plant «Askania».
First time by a secret factory, where did the Germans work, led exclusively by the military. In particular, from 1946 by 1949 Colonel Olekhnovich headed it for a year. However, in May 1949 years to replace the military, an unknown engineer came here to anyone at that time, almost immediately appointed as a responsible company manager. For many decades, this person was classified in about the same, like Igor Kurchatov, Sergey Korolev, Mikhail Yangel, Dmitry Kozlov. That unknown engineer was Nikolai Dmitrievich Kuznetsov, later academician and twice Hero of Socialist Labor.
Kuznetsov immediately sent all the creative forces of the design bureaus subordinate to him to develop a new turboprop engine, which was based on the German model «YUMO-022». This engine was designed back in Dessau and developed power up to 4000 Horse power. It was modernized, increased the power even more and put it into series. In subsequent years, not only turboprop left the Kuznetsov Design Bureau, but also turbojet bypass engines for bomber aircraft. German experts were directly involved in the creation of almost each of them.. Their work at the engine plant in the village of Upravlenchesky continued until the mid-50s..
Valery Vasilenko