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[i]Historians, however, disagree about the impact of German rocket scientists on the Soviet program. "In reality, the Germans did not build anything for the Russians, did not 'supervise' the firings, and did not introduce innovations," wrote German-born rocket historian (and von Braun colleague) Willy Ley in 1968. Nearly three decades later, Boris Chertok echoed the opinion in his memoirs. The R-7, the Soviets' first ICBM and the vehicle that launched Sputnik, bore no German "birth marks," he wrote. However, Olaf Przybilski, an historian at the Technical University of Dresden, disagrees. His analysis, published in Germany in 1997, points out a striking resemblance between a cone-like aerodynamic shape the Gröttrup team had proposed for several rockets and the conical shape of Korolev's largest designs — the R-7 and the ill-fated N1 moon rocket. The truth lies somewhere in between. Germans did not design the Sputnik or its rocket, but the ideas developed by Gröttrup's team on Gorodomlya did influence Soviet designers and accelerate their efforts. On her last day on Gorodomlya Island, Irmgard Gröttrup wrote in her diary: "Once more we had a meal with our friends, draining glass after glass and taking stock of the past years. We came to the conclusion that they had not been wasted, as we had so often believed. The men agreed that... the long-range rocket has made the conquest of space a definite possibility in the foreseeable future."[/i]
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