Laboratory, design office and testing facility in Oberspree
The Oberspree Laboratory, Design Office and Experimental Plant (LKVO) was founded on July 6, 1945 in the Berlin district of Köpenick by the representative of the 7th Moscow headquarters with the aim of collecting German armaments know-how and making it usable for the Soviet Union . It existed until May 1946 and was then continued as Oberspreewerk (OSW). In 1950 the plant was named Plant for Telecommunications and from 1960 Plant for Television Electronics . It remained in Soviet ownership until the end of April 1952, when the Soviet Union gave back its Soviet joint-stock companies (SAG) to the GDR and the company was converted into a state- owned company (VEB).
Foundation of the LKVO
Immediately after the surrender of the Wehrmacht , the USSR sent teams of experts to its zone of occupation to search factories, especially those important for armaments, for systems, machines, documents and specialists who were of interest for the technical development of the Soviet Union. In many of the old armaments factories, laboratories, design offices and experimental plants or scientific and technical offices (WTB) were set up in which German specialists (physicists, chemists, engineers, etc.) were employed and worked for the Soviet Union.
The so-called Schokin Commission headed by Alexander Iwanowitsch Schokin (1909–1988), who later became Minister of Electronics Industry in the USSR, was responsible for skimming off know-how in the field of electrical engineering . The commission was based in a villa in the Hirschgarten district in the Berlin district of Koepenick, which was part of the Soviet sector . The task of the commission was to search companies and institutes in the Soviet occupation zone - and throughout Berlin - immediately after the end of the war for products, development work, construction documents and materials that were of interest to the military-industrial complex of the Soviet Union. The electrical companies Telefunken , Lorenz , AEG , Siemens & Halske , Opta-Radio and others concentrated in Berlin were rich treasure troves . a.
The Russian commission had freedom of movement throughout Berlin until June 30, 1945, as the western allies did not take their occupation sectors until July 1, which was also used intensively. The "booty" was transported to Oberschöneweide to the former AEG tube factory Oberspree (RFO, today's Behrensbau ) in order to evaluate it there and, if necessary, use it as a basis for further developments. The production facilities, although the dismantling had already begun, provided the prerequisites for the start of laboratory and test production, which as a research and development facility for all questions relating to high-frequency technology , tube components and a wide variety of devices such as radar , radio relay , remote navigation, etc. . served.
Task and objective of LKVO was the use of German specialists for the development of electric vacuum technology , the measurement technology in the field of high frequency technology and the development of tubes for the Broadcasting that the transfer of knowledge should prepare in the Soviet Union. For this purpose, Soviet specialists and workers were to be trained in the LKVO, detailed documentation was to be drawn up in Russian on designs and manufacturing processes, products were to be developed on behalf of the Soviet Union and the documents of other technical companies were to be processed and translated.
Since the LKVO and later the OSW were Soviet stock corporations (SAG), according to the interpretation of the Soviets, the ban issued by the Allies that no arms technology was allowed to be manufactured on German soil did not apply to these companies.
Organization and management of the LKVO
Physicists, chemists and other skilled craftsmen were specifically recruited mainly from the Berlin electrical industry, especially from the tube factories. For example, Walter Bruch also worked in the LKVO in 1945/1946. The workforce grew to around 2,000 by October 1946, as the Berlin electrotechnical industry in the western sectors initially failed to get going and the LKVO offered jobs.
The LKVO was officially subordinate to the Soviet Ministry of Electronics. Karl Steimel was appointed German director of the LKVO and chief engineer and first deputy director Fritz Spiegel, both of whom had previously worked for Telefunken, who were subordinate to the Soviet plant manager Major Wildgrube. The technical manager in the field of vacuum technology (tube technology) was the Soviet lieutenant colonel Boldyr, the Soviet major Bogolubo was the representative of the authorized representative in the branch " Schönhauser Allee ", the former mayor brewery , today: Kulturbrauerei . In 1944, the Telefunken production of hot cathodes for electron tubes was housed in the basement of the brewery, protected from Allied air raids .
In July 1946 there were five major areas in the LKVO or OSW: the tubes area with the main departments for transmitter and receiver tubes and picture tubes, the components area with the main departments for quartz crystals and resistors , the devices area with the main departments for pulse technology , high frequency technology, systems and measurement technology , the general technology area with the main metallurgy department , the workshops area with the capacitors main department : The workshops area includes construction , toolmaking , test and measuring equipment, glass processing, parts production, cathode production, tube assembly, pump and test fields.
The main priority was the redevelopment of the technology of metal-ceramic high-frequency tubes from Telefunken, e.g. B. LD6… LD12., As well as that of the American Klystron 723A / B, further blocking tubes for radar technology, high-performance thyratron S15 / 150 as a replacement tube for the 1000 kW long wave transmitter “ Goliath ” of the Navy, which was brought to the Soviet Union . The range of tubes to be developed was broad. Experiments were also made with television tubes , above all the adaptation of American tubes for Soviet televisions.
The end of the LKVO
In July 1946 the LKVO was renamed Oberspreewerk and it was given the legal form of a SAG. The OSW lost its outstanding importance as a center of electrotechnical research and development with the Ossawakim campaign . On October 22nd, 1946, 230 employees from research and development were deported with their families to the Soviet Union, where they had to start a five-year employment contract in Fryazino , not far from Moscow. Only a few returned to their workplace in East Berlin afterwards, most of them preferred to go to the FRG after the five years had expired .
After the specialists “left”, a second wave of dismantling took place in the factory, which was nevertheless able to continue operations. From 1950 the screen tubes for the Russian Leningrad T-2 television set were manufactured here and delivered to the Soviet Union as reparations . In the 1960s, the factory for television electronics , as it was now called, became the sole manufacturer of television picture tubes in the GDR.
literature
- Johannes Bähr: The Oberspreewerk - a Soviet center for tubes and high frequency technology in Berlin (1954–1952). In: Unternehmensgeschichte / Journal of Business History. Vol. 39, No. 3, 1994, pp. 145-165.
- Winfried Müller: From the past of the factory for television electronics, striking events 1945-1960. ed. from the industrial salon Schöneweide, in the series: History of technology from the industrial salon, issue 6, 44 pp., o. O. (Berlin), o. D.