Talk:Helmut Gröttrup

Biography assessment rating comment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Edofedinburgh 13:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Substantial history of Groettrup can be found in the second volume of Chertok's book "People and Rockets", just published by NASA. Chertok was a friend to Groettrup, and later in life became friends with his daughter. The information on Astronautix should be taken with a grain of salt, as German historians like to greatly exagerate the role that German specialists played in the Soviet Union's space program.

What does the article mean when it says missions were launched from the island? Rockets were launched from the island? That seems doubtful. Groettrup's team mostly helped on the R-1 project. All the G-series missiles were just concepts on paper, some of them barely developed.

Article needs to be rewritten

This is a terrible article. It needs to be completely replaced. Groettrup chose to work for the Soviets because he wanted to be more influential and he didn't get along with von Braun's team that well (Willy Ley discusses this in his books). He worked for a time in a lab set up by Boris Chertok in Germany, and then they were transfered (not "kidnapped") to Russia. Their primary mission there was the R-1, to help the Soviets learn how to build a rocket factory, and they started by learning to duplicate the V-2. Most of the Germans were returned home in the late 1940s, and they never were allowed to know anything about later developemens like the R-2 and R-5.

There is a modern revisionist movement in German history, claiming that Groettrup was mistreated and that his small group of scientists invented all the Soviet rocket technology. That is absurd and no documentation support such an extreme viewpoint. DonPMitchell 18:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. It could be argued that Groettrup and his group was indeed mistreated, but for a different reason. They were underused and shunted to the sidelines, they understood it and were disheartened by that. All their work other than reproducing V-2 as R-1 remained on paper as were not given any real production or testing resources. Because of classified nature of the "mainstream" missile work headed by Korolyov, or any defence work for that matter, they had no access to it and could not contribute in any way. IMO this doesn't belittle their achievement in any way, and their work probably made an impact on Korolyov's own designs but it is far from fathering Soviet rocket technology. Further, the claim that they had to remain in the Soviet Union because of their knowledge is completely false. In fact, one of the sites the article references says

Somewhat surprisingly, Soviet authorities apparently made no effort to contain German rocket specialists on the Soviet side of the "iron curtain." Although Germans were "shipped" to the Soviet-controlled East Germany, many of the repatriants, including Helmut Gröttrup, made it to the West without much trouble. Some even moved to the United States and apparently continued working in aerospace. Not surprisingly, the operatives from the Air Technical Intelligence Center of the US Air Force in cooperation with British Air Ministry apparently debriefed every German returning from the USSR.

The R-1s were launched from Kapustin Yar missile range, not from the island. According to Chertok, they were performed by a group consisting of engineer-captain N. N. Smirnitsky, L.A. Voskresensky, N. A. Pilyugin and Chertok himself, supported by BON (a Russian acronym for "Special Purpose Brigade") of Soviet army soldiers and officers.

ScalarField 23:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 09:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

POV tag

This concerns POV tag cleanup. Whenever an POV tag is placed, it is necessary to also post a message in the discussion section stating clearly why it is thought the article does not comply with POV guidelines, and suggestions for how to improve it. This permits discussion and consensus among editors. This is a drive-by tag, which is discouraged in WP, and it shall be removed. Future tags should have discussion posted as to why the tag was placed, and how the topic might be improved. Better yet, edit the topic yourself with the improvements. This statement is not a judgement of content, it is only a cleanup of frivolously and/or arbitrarily placed tags. No discussion, no tag.Jjdon (talk) 23:24, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite

I rewrote most of the article to replace material that was completely incorrect. No missiles were launched from the island where the Germans were stationed in Moscow, for example. I added some references to excellent articles by Chertok and Siddiqi. DonPMitchell (talk) 21:44, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Timewatch

This article could be considerably updated by reference to an early edition of the BBC Timewatch series.

The BBC had traced, and interviewed, several of the scientists who had been recruited by the Russians just after WW2. One scientist had been awarded a special medal by the Russians in appreciation of his efforts. After his return to Germany, another had become a full professor and his comments were particularly interesting.

He was convinced that as Russian had world class scientists of its own, the German scientists "may have saved a year of research, two years at the very most". He didn't give any obvious feelings of being deliberately sidelined.

Equally interesting were the comments of Gotrupps widow. She didn't seem to have any scientific background and although travelling in a closed train managed to look through gaps in the train window blinds. The rubble and wreckage left by the WW2 fighting seemed to have almost overawed her. "When the Russians were living five,or more, to a room, we were allocated a whole apartment".

It would add a lot more information on the whole situation if the BBC would issue this episode on DVD.AT Kunene (talk) 21:18, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

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Objections to latest changes with regard to Korolev

I have laid down my objections to the changes of Aug 23, 2022, in the talk of German influence on the Soviet space program, Joint work of Korolev and Gröttrup from 1945 to 1950. There is no justification to delete the mentions of Korolev in the context of Bleicherode, Mosow NII-88 and Gorodomlya. SchmiAlf (talk) 10:18, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

I reverted the three changes and deletions. Gröttrup worked for Korolev from Sept 1945 (in Büro Gröttrup, not Institut Rabe) in Bleicherode, Institut Nordhausen (combining the two), Zentralwerke in Bleicherode, from October 1946 in Podlipki in NII-88, from 1948 in Gorodomlya (branch no. 1 of NII-88). He headed the German group in Podlipki and Gorodomlya until Sept 1950. Chertok's major contribution was hiring Gröttrup in Aug 1945 to return from the American sector to Bleicherode in the Soviet Occupation Zone and set up the Büro Gröttrup. In his Chertok provides wrong information in claiming that Korolev had never been in Gorodomlya (see https://rvsn.ruzhany.info/0_2020/gorodomlja_01.html#chapter003 for proof).--SchmiAlf (talk) 14:18, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

I see that you have reverted 3 of my previous edits, however none of the information you have provided justified reverting any of these changes.

The first edit you have reverted was my removal of “The German team was indirectly overseen by Sergei Korolev, the "chief designer" of the Soviet rocketry program.” I removed it as it was not supported by any references and your claims above are unsupported. In fact Sidiqi’s Challenge to Apollo contradicts a number of your claims, for example NII-88 Branch No 1 on Gorodomlya Island was headed up by Dr Waldemar Wolffand and Josef Blass, not Gröttrup, who was initially based in Moscow and was not transferred to NII-88’s Branch No 1 until February 1948. None of the approx 50 pages of analysis by Sidiqi during this period (pp29-80) supports the statement that Korolev supervised Gröttrup, in fact it would be closer to describe them as competitors. If you want to include that Korolev indirectly supervised the German team you need to provide a reference that supports this.

Your second edit deleted the link to Institute Rabe and added that he was supervised by Korolev. I see your latest edit has reinstated Institute Rabe, which you have now called “ Büro Gröttrup”. Again you need to provide references to these changes. In particular “Institute Rabe” has its own Wiki article and numerous sources use this name ie Sidiqi’s Challenge to Apollo, Anatoly Zak’s Russian Space Web, etc.

Your third edit changed the Lead to state that Gröttrup worked for Korolev. Again this is an unsupoorted assertion.

In a nutshell, you need to provide references to support your changes. Note that providing a reference that shows Korolev holidaying on Gorodomlya Island is irrelevant to these changes. Ilenart626 (talk) 13:16, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

With regard to your latest change citing https://ul.qucosa.de/api/qucosa%3A15594/attachment/ATT-0/, as per WP:NONENG please provide an English translation, including the relevant page(s) of this 200 page document. Ilenart626 (talk) 13:36, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I added more references, also in aligment with talk and updates in German influence on the Soviet space program. If further question arise please add them in the talk instead of reverting or massive deletions. I do not want to do the work several times but I'm willing to support with details, also partial translations ... SchmiAlf (talk) 17:06, 29 September 2022 (UTC)