Comments by "Emir" (@irongron) on "Susan Grunewald - Treatment and Repatriation of German POWs by the USSR at the End of World War Two" video.

  1. Great discussion with Professor Grunewald, she briefly touched on the aircraft industry, as part of her general outline. I can do a value add comment for her here, as my personal studies going back to the late 80's was Soviet Aerospace. Susan mentioned the freedom some "camps" had (like the Germans building the 2nd tallest university in Moscow) plus also how late some were held (as late as 1955). These 2 points are very closely related to the prison "workplaces" (they were more like workplaces than camps) for aerospace workers, called "Sharashkas" - from the wikipedia article "Sharashka" - Sharashkas (singular: Russian: шара́шка, [ʂɐˈraʂkə]; sometimes sharaga, sharazhka) were secret research and development laboratories operating from 1930 to the 1950s within the Soviet Gulag labor camp system. So, the famous Ukrainian rocket scientist Sergey Korolyov, worked at one of these "Sharashkas". He was saved rom the normal GULAG' camp system by Andrey Tupolev, (the designer of the Tu-95 Bear , Tu-22 Blinder, Tu-26 now 22M Backfire etc). Also rocket engine designer Glushko was saved by Tupolev et. al.. These "Sharashkas" was how the USSR beat American into space in 1957 with Sputnik and 1961 with Vostok (Yuri Gagarin)". Anyway the main point is the many German rocket scientists and V2 technicians who were held in these "Sharashkas" were not let go until mostly 1955 as far as I can determine. The best, well researched source for this (there's many others) is a book by author James Harford called - Korolev: How one man masterminded the Soviet drive to beat America to the moon
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