In the first months after VE day, by prior agreements, Germany was divided into US, British, French and Soviet sectors. Initially there was lots of chaos as with all of Europe with displaced persons scattered everywhere and traveling everywhere to get somewhere better. All the four powers were searching for and finding war criminals and critical persons such as the rocket scientists. Most of the scientists ended up in USA control but a significant number also ended up with the Soviets. One head start the USA had is that most of the V1 rocket manufacturing was in the allied sectors so we ended up with quite a few V1’s that were shipped to White Sands, New Mexico. Both White Sands Missile Range and the Huntsville, AL facilities had these German's as core resources.
The original V1 rockets brought to White Sands were the technological founding for both for ballistic missiles and the Mercury manned space program. Heck, it's not too much of a stretch to regard the Mercury rocket itself to be a bigger version of the V1 with 1960’s state of the art technology.
Some trivia told me by a Zeiss employee in the 1980’s. In the chaos after VE Day, General Patton sent a truck convoy into the Soviet zone and they loaded up equipment at the Zeiss factory and all the workers and their families that they could lay their hands on. The whole load then high tailed it back to the USA sector. This is why Zeiss revived in West Germany instead of East Germany. Patton really liked Zeiss binoculars.
One more trivia.... Not only did the WWII rocket scientists work on USA and Soviet missile development, they had a role with the French and I suspect the British programs as well.
“Some trivia told me by a Zeiss employee in the 1980’s. In the chaos after VE Day, General Patton sent a truck convoy into the Soviet zone and they loaded up equipment at the Zeiss factory and all the workers and their families that they could lay their hands on. The whole load then high tailed it back to the USA sector. This is why Zeiss revived in West Germany instead of East Germany. Patton really liked Zeiss binoculars.”
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Wow man, thanks for that info. That’s a good one. Patton really was a visionary LOL