Operation Osoaviakhim was a Soviet operation which took place on 22 October 1946, with NKVD and Soviet army units recruiting thousands of military-related technical specialists from the Soviet occupation zone of post-World-War-II Germany for employment in the Soviet Union. Much related equipment was moved too, the aim being to virtually transplant research and production centres, such as the relocated V-2 rocket centre at Mittelwerk Nordhausen, from Germany to the Soviet Union, and collect as much materiel as possible from test centers like the Luftwaffe's central military aviation test center at Erprobungstelle Rechlin, taken by the Red Army on May 2, 1945. The codename "Osoaviakhim" was the acronym of a Soviet paramilitary organisation, later renamed DOSAAF.