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Chapter 24
Korolev, Glushko, and
Our First Encounters in Germany
We were always glad when new people arrived from the Soviet Union to expand
the common front of our operations.When Yuriy Aleksandrovich Pobedonostsev
called me in late September from Berlin and asked me to receive Sergey
Pavlovich Korolev and tell him about our work, I did not associate Korolev with
any previous events. I told Pobedonostsev that a lot of officers came to see me at
the institute, and if they were specialists in the business, then we didn’t begrudge
anyone, everyone found work. In the daily commotion of work I forgot about
this conversation.
Several days later, Lieutenant Colonel Georgiy Aleksandrovich Tyulin telephoned
from Berlin. He was there as the GAU representative in charge of receiving
and dispatching to various locations the military and civilian specialists sent
to Germany to study technology. His mission, under the appellation “Tyulin’s
Domain,” was located in Oberschöneweide and was well known by the military
administration. The Institute RABE’s example proved to be infectious. In
September 1945,Tyulin began to assemble a group of specialists in Berlin to study
anti-aircraft guided missile technology.These specialists would later become the
core of the Institute Berlin, which was similar to our Institute RABE. When
Tyulin reminded me about Pobedonostsev’s phone call in connection with
Lieutenant Colonel Korolev’s upcoming visit (without prefacing this notification
with any other comments), I concluded that Korolev must be one of those
honored combat commanders who was being sent on special assignment from the
Guard’s Mortar Units, the artillery, or aviation. Lately those three branches of
the armed forces had been the primary suppliers of seasoned specialists from the
troops stationed in Germany.
Many years later when Korolev’s name had gained worldwide recognition,
recalling our first meeting, I asked Pobedonostsev and Tyulin why they had not
told me who this Korolev really was who was traveling from Berlin to
Bleicherode.They had not even indicated—as they usually did with senior officers—whether
he was being dispatched on special assignment by industry or the
army.The reply I received from both of them was essentially, “Why do you ask
such a naïve question now? Back then we were forbidden to explain anything
to you.”
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