Soviet Union
Soviet communism
1891–1956
○ Died of illness
Mathematician who mastered the Arctic through science and built Glavsevmorput
Every evening on the ice floe he lectured on philosophy, mathematics, and geography. Coughing blood from tuberculosis, he refused to leave until every one of his 104 castaways was safe. In two months, not one person broke discipline.
Mathematician, Arctic explorer, and state administrator. Born in Mogilev to a German-Latvian family, he founded the Moscow algebraic school through his work in group theory. In 1932 his icebreaker Sibiryakov achieved the first single-season transit of the Northern Sea Route; in 1934, after the Chelyuskin sank, he led 104 survivors through two months on a drifting ice floe. As head of Glavsevmorput he directed Soviet Arctic development, and in his later years proposed the influential cosmogonic hypothesis that the Solar System's planets formed through cold accretion of a dust cloud.
Career timeline
1913Graduated Kiev University, began group theory research under D.A. Grave
1916Published Abstract Theory of Groups; privat-docent at Kiev University
1918–1920Official at Narkomprod; joined RSDLP (Internationalists), merged into RKP(b)
1921–1924Head of State Publishing House, led education and publishing reforms
1924–1942Founding chief editor, Great Soviet Encyclopedia
1929–1949Founded and chaired Dept. of Higher Algebra, Moscow University; led Soviet algebraic school
1930–1932Director, All-Union Arctic Institute
1932Led Sibiryakov: first single-season transit of the Northern Sea Route
1932–1938Head of Glavsevmorput (Main Administration of the Northern Sea Route)
1934Chelyuskin sank; led 104 survivors for two months on drifting ice, all rescued
1937Organized drifting station North Pole-1; Hero of the Soviet Union
1939–1942Vice-President, USSR Academy of Sciences
1942–1956Director, Institute of Theoretical Geophysics; developed cold-accretion cosmogonic hypothesis
East German chemist who survived a Nazi death sentence and later, expelled from the SED, became a dissident under house arrest
Born in Munich, he studied chemistry in Munich and Berlin and took a doctorate in physical chemistry at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. A founder of the resistance group European Union, he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and sentenced to death, but his execution was repeatedly postponed on the grounds that his research was needed, and he survived. After the war he headed Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes until the Americans dismissed him; in 1950 he became professor of physical chemistry at the Humboldt University, a member of the Volkskammer and of the German Peace Committee. On 16 June 1953 he faced the crowd outside the House of Ministries with Fritz Selbmann. His 1963–64 lectures, published as “Dialectics without Dogma”, cost him his party membership and his chair. After protesting Wolf Biermann’s expatriation in 1976 he was put under house arrest. He died in Grünheide in 1982.
Career timeline
1932Joined the KPD
1943Arrested by the Gestapo and sentenced to death
1950Professor of physical chemistry at the Humboldt University
Soviet Union
Soviet communism
1915–2001
○ Natural causes
From labor camp to Vostok: pioneer of spaceflight control and guidance
In my life I had only two bosses — Korolev and Keldysh. Both were people of high integrity. That's what matters.
A physicist and rocket engineer who laid the foundations of Soviet spaceflight guidance. At Korolev's OKB-1, Rauschenbach designed the orientation and control systems that made the Luna 3 far-side lunar photography (1959) and Gagarin's Vostok 1 flight (1961) technically possible. Born to Volga German heritage, he was interned in a labor camp in 1942 solely on ethnic grounds yet continued his calculations from captivity; Keldysh secured his return, and he became a core designer of the space program. In his later years he turned to the mathematical study of perspective in painting and Orthodox theology, producing original interdisciplinary work.
Career timeline
1932–1937Studied at Leningrad Institute of Civil Air Fleet; glider stability research
1937–1941Engineer at RNII under Korolev; winged missile flight control automation
1942–1946Interned in Tagillag camp; performed calculations for Bolkhovitinov's bureau
1946–1948Exile in Nizhny Tagil; worked for Keldysh's calculation bureau
1948–1954Researcher at NII-1 under Keldysh; vibration combustion theory
1955–1959OKB-1 under Korolev; pioneering spacecraft orientation systems
1960–1973Department Chief at OKB-1; guidance systems for Luna, Vostok, Mars, Venera, Soyuz
1959–1978Professor and Chair of Theoretical Mechanics, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
1978–2001Chair, Academy of Sciences Commission on Space Pioneers' Legacy; art theory and theology
Soviet Union
Soviet communism
1916–1981
○ Natural causes
From Peenemünde to Gorodomlya, the German rocket engineer who designed the conceptual ancestor of the R-7
'If we abandon the old conservative form of the V-2, it may be quite possible to reach nearly two thousand miles. The conical shape is, fundamentally, the only possible solution.' to his wife Irmgard, 1949
A German applied physicist and rocket guidance specialist. At Peenemünde under Wernher von Braun, he developed the V-2's guidance and control systems; in 1944 the Gestapo arrested him for expressing defeatist views about the war. Forcibly relocated to the USSR in 1946, he led over 170 German specialists on Gorodomlya Island, where his team designed the G-4 (conical single-stage) and G-5 (packet of clustered G-4s). These concepts directly shaped Korolev's R-7 ICBM; in 1949 a Soviet commission rated G-4 superior to the rival R-3. After returning to West Germany in 1953, he left rocketry, invented the smart card, and coined the German term 'Informatik.'
Career timeline
1939–1945V-2 guidance and control department, Peenemünde Army Research Center
1945–1946Head of Büro Gröttrup, Bleicherode (Soviet occupation zone)
1946German head of Institut Nordhausen, then General Manager of Zentralwerke
1946–1950Head of Branch 1, NII-88, Gorodomlya Island
1954–1958Engineer, Standard Elektrik Lorenz, Pforzheim
