Russian Alsos The Soviet Alsos was an operation which took place in early 1945 in Germany , Austria , and Czechoslovakia , and whose objectives were the exploitation of German atomic related facilities , intellectual materials , materiel resources , and scientific personnel for the benefit of the Soviet atomic bomb project . Soviet scientists , aided greatly by Soviet espionage within the Manhattan Project , would have been able to eventually build their first atomic bomb without exploitation of German technology and scientists . However , the contributions of the German scientists is borne out by the many USSR State Prize s 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 test – a plutonium - based atomic bomb which required a uranium reactor for plutonium generation – and 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 them a year by their own admission . Background . Near the close and after the end of World War II in Europe , the Soviet Union and the Western powers had programs to foster technology transfer and exploit German technical specialists . For example , the U . S . had Operation Paperclip and the Soviet Union had trophy brigades ( Трофейные бригады ) advancing with their military forces . In the area of atomic technology , the U . S . had Operation Alsos and the Soviet Union had their version . While operational aspects of the Soviet operation were modeled after the trophy brigades , a more refined approach was warranted for the exploitation of German atomic related facilities , intellectual materials , and scientific personnel . This was rectified with a decree in late 1944 and the formation of specialized exploitation teams in early 1945 . However , the Soviet “ Alsos ” had broader objectives , which included wholesale relocation of scientific facilities to the Soviet Union . Specialized Teams . On 18 September 1944 , a decree established a specialized task force within the 9th Chief Directorate ( Главное Управление , Glavnoe Upravlenie ) of the NKVD to support the work of German scientists invited to the Soviet Union . The head of the Directorate was Colonel General Avram Pavlovich Zavenyagin . On 23 March 1945 , in Stalin ’ s office , Lavrentij Beria suggested that specialized teams be sent to Germany to search for atomic technology and related personnel . The next day , he instructed Igor ’ Vasil ’ evich Kurchatov , head of Laboratory No . 2 , 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 Andreevich 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 . Main Search Team - Germany . The Battle of Berlin proved one of the last major engagements of World War II in Europe . With a great majority of German scientific facilities in Berlin and its suburbs , this area became a major target of the atomic - search teams . Haste was necessary , as the American military forces were rapidly approaching Berlin . Soviet troops broke the Berlin defense - ring on 25 April 1945 , and the Soviet Union announced the fall of Berlin on 2 May . The main search team , headed by Colonel General Zavenyagin , arrived in Berlin on 3 May ; it included Colonel General V . A . Makhnjov , and nuclear physicists Yulij Borisovich Khariton , Isaak Konstantinovich Kikoin , and Lev Andreevich Artsimovich . Georgij Nikolaevich Flerov had arrived earlier , although Kikoin did not recall a vanguard group . Targets on the top of their list included the " Kaiser - Wilhelm Institut für Physik " ( KWIP , Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics ) , the University of Berlin , and the " Technische Hochschule Berlin " . 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 Operation Alsos 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 . German Scientists . von Ardenne , Hertz , Thiessen , and Volmer . Manfred von Ardenne , director of his private laboratory " Forschungslaboratorium für Elektronenphysik " in Berlin - Lichterfelde , Gustav Hertz , Nobel Laureate and director of the Siemens Research Laboratory II in Berlin - Siemensstadt , Peter Adolf Thiessen , ordinarius professor at the Friedrich - Wilhelms University ( today the Humboldt University of Berlin ) and director of the " Kaiser - Wilhelm Institut für physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie " ( KWIPC Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry ) in Berlin - Dahlem , and Max Volmer , ordinarius professor and director of the Physical Chemistry Institute at the " Technische Hochschule Berlin " in Berlin - Charlottenburg , had made a pact . The pact was a pledge that whoever first made contact with the Russian people would speak for the rest . The objectives of their pact were threefold : ( 1 ) Prevent plunder of their institutes , ( 2 ) Continue their work with minimal interruption , and ( 3 ) Protect themselves from prosecution for any political acts of the past . Before the end of World War II , Thiessen , a member of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei , had Communist contacts . On 27 April 1945 , Thiessen arrived at von Ardenne ’ s institute in an armored vehicle with a major of the Soviet Army , who was also a leading Soviet chemist , and they issued von Ardenne a protective letter ( " Schutzbrief " ) . 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 laboratory were transported to the Soviet Union . Von Ardenne was made head of a new institute created for him , Institute A , in Sinop , 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 Austrian , headed the experimental effort in Steenbeck ’ s group . Even after nearly two decades , the work of Steenbeck and Zippe in the development of ultracentrifuges ( Zippe - type centrifuge s ) was recognized in the West as very advanced . 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 . 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 . 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 ) , in Moscow ; he was given a design bureau to work on the production of heavy water . Volmer ’ s organization 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 Yershova ’ s group , which worked on plutonium extraction from fission products . Nikolaus Riehl . From 1939 to 1945 , Nikolaus Riehl was the director of the scientific headquarters of the " Auergesellschaft " in Rheinsberg ( Brandenburg ) . In 1939 , he realized that the large stocks of “ waste ” uranium from the corporation ’ s extraction of radium , had potential for nuclear energy . He worked with the " Heereswaffenamt " ( HWA , Army Ordnance Office ) which eventually provided an order for the production of uranium oxide , which took place in the Auergesellschaft plant in Oranienburg , north of Berlin . 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 Günter 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 . From 1945 to 1950 , Riehl was in charge of uranium production at Plant 12 in Ehlektrostal ' ( Электросталь ) . 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 . ( 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 . ) Laboratory B was known under another cover name as " Объект 0211 " ( Ob ’ ekt 0211 , Object 0211 ) , as well as Object B . ( 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 . ) 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 . Other Personnel . Few of the scientists sent to the Soviet Union by Zavenyagin in the first six weeks complained . Take the case of Heinz Barwich . In addition to his leftist political views , he stated that he was motivated to go to work in the Soviet Union as he was 33 years old , married , had three small children with a fourth on the way , and unemployed . 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 - Buch and also working with Riehl at " Auergesellschaft " ) . 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 . 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 . State Prizes . In 1947 , Ardenne was awarded a Stalin Prize for his development of a table - top electron microscope . In 1953 , before his return to Germany , he was awarded a Stalin Prize , first class , for contributions to the atomic bomb project ; the money from this prize , 100 , 000 Rubles , was used to buy the land for his private institute in East Germany . According to an agreement that Ardenne made with authorities in the Soviet Union soon after his arrival , the equipment which he brought to the Soviet Union from his laboratory in Berlin - Lichterfelde was not to be considered as reparations to the Soviet Union . Ardenne took the equipment with him in December 1954 when he went to East Germany . In 1951 , Hertz was awarded a Stalin Prize , second class , with Barwich . Hertz remained in the Soviet Union until 1955 , when he went to East Germany . 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 . In 1955 he passed through East Germany on his way to West Germany . Uranium . In the early stages , the Soviet atomic bomb project was in critical need of uranium . In May 1945 , the sole atomic laboratory , Laboratory No . 2 , only had seven tons of uranium oxide available . The critical nature of their stock can be realized when compared to the amounts needed for their first uranium reactor F - 1 and their first plutonium production reactor “ A ” in the Urals . The first load of F - 1 required 46 tons . The first load of reactor “ A ” required 150 tons . 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 stash turned out to be the bulk of the German stock of uranium ore . 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 . 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 . 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 .