GRGR(12)NOTES(10)

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

GR.V.273.3 They took Peenemunde in the spring
The Russian army advanced into the Rugen Peninsula, and the
island of Peenemunde, in mid-April 1945. 

Peenemunde:   village, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania Land
(state), northeastern Germany, at the northwestern end of
Usedom Island in the estuarine mouth of the Peene River on
the Baltic Sea coast. It was mentioned as a fishing village
in 1282. During World War II it was the site of the chief
German research and testing facility for rockets and
missiles (the so-called V-weapons), which were eventually
used against England during the Blitz. Although the site was
known to the Allies, it was not bombed until  august 1943 by
the Royal Air Force. It was captured by Soviet troops in
April 1945. Pop. (1981 est.) 600.

As World War II approached, minor and varied experimental
and research activities on rockets and guided missiles were
underway in a number of countries. But in Germany, under
great secrecy, the effort was concentrated. Successful
flights as high as one mile were made in 1931-32 with
gasoline-oxygen-powered rockets by the German Rocket
Society. Funds for such amateur activities were scarce, and
the society sought support from the German army. The work of
Wernher von Braun, a member of the society, attracted the
attention of Captain Walter R. Dornberger. Von Braun became
the technical leader of a small group developing
liquid-propellant rockets for the German army. By 1937 the
Dornberger-Braun team, expanded to hundreds of scientists,
engineers, and technicians, moved its operations from
Kummersdorf to Peenemünde, a deserted area on the Baltic
coast. Here the technology for a long-range ballistic
missile was developed and tested. 
  
As far as is known (????), Soviet rocket development during
World War II was limited. Extensive use was made of barrage,
ripple-fired rockets. Both A-frame and truck-mounted
launchers were used. The Soviets mass-produced a
130-millimetre rocket known as the Katyusha. From 16 to 48
Katyushas were fired from a boxlike launcher known as the
Stalin Organ, mounted on a gun carriage.

GR.V.273.3-5   they will be given
Nordhausen
dealings at
Yalta

In accordance with the boundary lines drawn at the Yalta
Conference of February 4-11, 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill, and
Stalin agreed that the Russian Zone of occupation would
extend through Thuringia, including the Harz mountain town
of Nordhausen, where, unbeknownst to any of the allies,
Germany was producing V-2 rockets at an underground factory.
The Americans overran Norfhausen in April; under the Yalta
accords it was ceded to Soviet control in July. 

Nordhausen: city, Thuringia Land (state), central Germany,
lying on the Zorge River, at the southern slopes of the Harz
Mountains, in the fertile lowland known as the Goldene Aue
("Golden Meadow").

It had already been decided that Germany would be divided
into occupied zones administered by U.S., British, French,
and Soviet forces. The conferees accepted the principle that
the Allies had no duty toward the Germans except to provide
minimum subsistence, declared that the German military
industry would be abolished or confiscated, and agreed that
major war criminals would be tried
before an international court, which subsequently presided
at Nürnberg. The determination of reparations was assigned
to a commission.   How to deal with the defeated or
liberated countries of eastern Europe was the main problem
discussed at the conference. The agreements reached, which
were accepted by Stalin, called for "interim governmental
authorities broadly representative of all democratic
elements in the population . . . and the earliest possible
establishment through free elections of governments
responsive to the will of the people." 

GR.V.273.5 VIAM, TsAGI, and NISO
A special council in the Council of Peoples Commissars,
headed by Melenkov, had
been formed in 1944. Representatives
of VIAM, the All-Union Institute of Aviation Materials;
TsAGI, the Central Aerodynamics and Hydrodynamics Institute
for Airplane Equipment; and engineers from various other
commissariats had been given special powers and mission.
They were charges with gathering scientific intelligence on
the V-weapons, especially the rocket. 
Malenkov: prominent Soviet statesman and Communist Party
official, a close collaborator of Joseph Stalin, and the
prime minister (March 1953-February 1955) after Stalin's
death.  Having entered the Red Army (1919) during the civil
war that followed the 1917 October Revolution, Malenkov
joined the Communist Party in 1920 and rose swiftly through
the ranks. He became closely associated with Stalin and was
deeply involved in the great party purge of the late 1930s.
Named a candidate member of the Politburo in 1941, he served
during World War II on the State Defense Committee, the
small group that directed the Soviet war effort. 

GR.V.273.10-11  von Braun and 500 others
at Garmisch
Weisenburger says Huzel's account is the best, and most
likely it was Pynchon's source. Through his brother, Magnus,
Wernher von Braun arranged for his own surrender and that of
his entire technical staff on Wednesday, May 2, 1945. They
gave themselves up to the Americans, who decided to detain
500 hundred of them at the Bavarian town of
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where all remained for several
months of interrogation, until the Allied governments had
decided they would not be tried for war crimes.

At the end of World War II, Braun, his younger brother
Magnus, Dornberger, and the entire German rocket development
team surrendered to U.S. troops. Within a few months Braun
and about 100 members of his group were at the U.S. Army
Ordnance Corps test site at White Sands, N.M., where they
tested, assembled, and supervised the launching of captured
V-2s for high-altitude research purposes. Developmental
studies were made of advanced ramjet and rocket missiles. At
the end of the war the United States had entered the field
of guided missiles with practically no previous experience.
The technical competence of Braun's group was outstanding.
"After all," he said,
"if we are good, it's because we've had 15 more years of
experience in making mistakes and learning from them!" 
Moving to Huntsville, Ala., in 1952, Braun became technical
director (later chief) of the U.S. Army ballistic-weapon
program. 

GR.V.273.24  Dodgem cars
What Yanks call "bumper cars."  Weisenburger says these cars
suggest that the sea side resort is Brighton.  Brighton 
district (borough), county of East Sussex, England. It is a
seaside resort on the English Channel, 51 miles (82 km)
south of London. With an area of 22 square miles (58 square
km), Brighton spreads
over the steep chalk slopes of the South Downs to the north;
to the east it is fronted by chalk cliffs; to the west it
merges with the residential borough of Hove. Major sea
defenses initiated in 1930 line the shore between Black Rock
and Saltdean. A marina for boating has been created at Black
Rock.

GR.V.273.30  Eton hats
Little flat-top hats with narrow, flat brims; worn by
students of England's Eton School. 

GR.V.273.37   Rossini's overture to La Gazza Ladra
without
snaredrum or sonority of brasses

Rossini's overture to The Thieving Magpie opens with a long
snare-drum roll and, at its end, the brasses laying down a
sonorous melody line for the violins. These motifs recur in
the overture. Without them, then, the piece would be
severely diminished. Rossini music played at the Casino
Herman Goering. Earlier Slothrop walks a street in the
Quartier de la Croix named for Rossini and these are
significant in light of the Beethoven/Rossini debate in Part
3 of GR.

GR.V.274.25 like Rita Hayworth
original name MARGARITA CARMEN CANSINO, American
motion-picture actress who rose to
glamorous stardom in the 1940s and '50s. She was called "The
Great American Love Goddess." A favorite pinup girl of
American servicemen and bankers in Shawshank penitentiary.

GR.275.13 the First of the Ape
Referring to the big scene in King Kong, when the ape picks
up Ann Denham (Fay Wray) outside the huge wall dividing
Skull Island. A masterpiece and one of the top moneymakers
of the 1930's. The Legendary Kong. King of all beasts. King
Kong. This classic film was one of the first films that
launched the creature feature into the spotlight. Fay Wray
played the beauty that enchanted the beast and allowed man
to capture the dark secret of a remote jungle island. Once
taken back to the shores of America and glamorized, Kong
escapes and wreaks havoc on New York City. The famous Empire
State Building climb leads to the tragic death of Kong and a
message about the bond shared between the beauty and the
beast.