Operation Osoaviakhim was a Soviet operation which took place on 22 October 1946, with NKVD and Soviet army units recruiting more than 2,000 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 centres such as the Luftwaffe's central military aviation test centre at Erprobungstelle Rechlin, taken by the Red Army on 2 May 1945. The codename "Osoaviakhim" was the acronym of a Soviet paramilitary organisation, later renamed DOSAAF.