Unidentified MVD officer (Germany, 1951)

Using what was likely a pseudonym, an individual calling himself as Nikolay Grishin wrote a monograph for Columbia University’s Research Program on the USSR in 1952. The monograph begins by describing Grishin: “The author of this memorandum was a high-ranking official in the Soviet operated uranium mines in Saxony until his escape to the West late in 1951.”[i] No further description is publicly available, and no one with the name Nikolay Grishin is listed among the employees of the Wismut AG,[ii] although a CIA report from August 1950 identified a Grishin as the chief accountant at Wismut.[iii] As Wismut was managed by the MGB, Grishin was likely an MGB officer.

Grishin wrote about the history and logistics of Soviet uranium mining in eastern Germany. The first general director of Wismut, МVD Major General Mikhail Mitrofanovich Maltsev, had led corrective labor camps during the war, and he transferred his experience to Germany in 1947, where he managed Wismut with labor practices similar to an МVD camp. An MVD border guard regiment was the camp’s security force.

From Grishin’s descriptions, it appears that he may have worked at Wismut from 1947, possibly supervising mine workers. His monograph provides details of miners’ appalling working conditions and living arrangements, low salaries, and harsh supervision at Wismut. He claimed that over 1,000 workers deserted Wismut from October 1947 to April 1948.

Accidents were common at Wismut mines, and Grishin notes an accident that occurred in April 1947 when a mining car cable broke dropping the car 120 meters into a mine. All eight miners on board died. A railway accident in early 1949 killed 100 skilled miners and injured 150 others. He also provided details about the worst accident in Wismut history, which occurred when a stock of explosives at a mine in Johanngeorgenstadt exploded above a mineshaft, causing a landslide that killed 70 employees and injured 100 others. The dead included 20 Soviet workers. The blast damaged buildings in nearby towns, breaking windows and blowing off roofs. The Wismut management tried to cover up the accident and prevent public scrutiny by cordoning off the effected area. Wismut’s political officer convened a meeting of local German officials to and instructed them to suppress rumors about the event.[iv]

This may be a reference to an accident that occurred at the Johanngeorgenstadt mine in November 1949, which was reported in German and American press. The lack of reliable facts about the accident led to wild press speculation that thousands of miners had died. One U.S. press article indicated that the source of information about the blast was a Soviet fire chief who had fled to the British zone of Germany instead of taking a fireguard job at the Johanngeorgenstadt mine.[v] Zeman and Karlsch, who write extensively about Wismut, claim that an accident at that time claimed only one life, although it is unclear if they are referring to the same accident as Grishin.[vi]

Grishin references a visit in 1948 to Wismut by a Colonel General Anisimov who communicated Moscow’s displeasure with Wismut’s production. Anisimov connected uranium mining with the Soviet competition with the United States and Great Britain: “The more ore we turn over to the Soviet Union, the stronger our ‘defensive capacities’ will become and the easier it will be for our diplomats to deal with the Anglo-American imperialists.”[vii] The appeal resulted in a reorganization of the company’s work and an intensification of appeals by the German Socialist Unity Party and trade unions for miners to work harder. Grishin wrote that uranium was labeled as the “weapon of peace.”[viii]

Grishin likely knew Georgiy Vasilyevich Salimanov (see separate entry in this database), as Salimanov was Maltsev’s deputy, but he never mentioned him. Grishin wrote his monograph originally in Russian, but apparently also knew German based on his use of German words. Nothing further is known of his identity or whereabouts after he wrote his monograph. However, his writings have been widely cited as a source of information about the early activities at Wismut.

[i] Nikolay Grishin, Soviet Operation of Uranium Mines in Eastern Germany, Mimeographed Series Number 11 (New York: Research Program on the USSR, 1952). This monograph was later reprinted as “The Saxony Uranium Mining Operation (“VISMUT”), in Robert Slusser, Vasili Yershov, et al, Soviet Economic Policy in Postwar Germany: A Collection of Papers by Former Soviet Officials (New York: Research Program on the USSR, 1953), pp. 127-155.
[ii] See Georgiy G. Andreyev, “Списки Советских Специалистов, Работавших в САО «ВИСМУТ» 1945-1953, Часть III” (“Lists of Soviet Specialists Working at SAO “VISMUT” 1945-1953, Part III”), in Уран и люди. история СГАО «ВИСМУТ» в двух томах (Uranium and People: History of SGAO “VISMUT” in Two Volumes) (Spets-Adress Publishers, 2012).
[iii] CIA Information Report, “Personalities of the Wismit AG,” dated 8 August 1949, CIA FOIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00457R003100490007-1.pdf.
[iv] Grishin, Soviet Operation of Uranium Mines in Eastern Germany, pp .9-10.
[v] “Uranium Mine Fire Toll Put at 3700,” Seattle Daily Chronicle, 5 December 1949.
[vi] Zbyněk Zeman and Rainer Karlsch "Part 4: Wismut AG: a State Within a State," in Uranium Matters: Central European Uranium in International Politics, 1900-1960 (New York: Central European University Press, 2008), p. 246.
[vii] Grishin, Soviet Operation of Uranium Mines in Eastern Germany, p. 11.
[viii] Grishin, Soviet Operation of Uranium Mines in Eastern Germany, p. 14.