Outstanding Radio Engineer Axel Ivanovich Berg
“There are no unattractive specialties. There are only passive people who cannot be carried away by what is in front of them. ”
A.I. Berg
A.I. Berg
Axel Ivanovich was born 10 in November 1893 in Orenburg. His father, Russian General Johann Alexandrovich Berg, was a Swede by descent. All his ancestors were also Swedes, but they lived in Vyborg in Finland, and therefore they called themselves “Finnish Swedes”. Johann Alexandrovich was born in the family of an apothecary and was sent to training in the cadet corps, and after graduation in the Life Guards Grenadier Regiment, stationed in St. Petersburg. In Peterhof, he met Elizaveta Kamillovna Bertoldi, an Italian whose ancestors moved to Russia. The young people loved each other, and a wedding was soon played. In 1885, Berg was transferred to Ukraine in the city of Zhytomyr. There, the family of Johann Alexandrovich lived more than eight years, and there he had three daughters. By that time, he had become a major general, and in July 1893 received a new assignment - to the city of Orenburg as the head of the local brigade.
Shortly after arriving in the Urals, Johann Alexandrovich had a son, who at birth was given the dual name Axel-Martin in accordance with the Lutheran custom. About his childhood, Axel Ivanovich remembered: “I don’t remember that our family would make noise and scandals, that someone would drink or gossip. We reigned calm, businesslike atmosphere. No one lied. When I first learned that people were lying, I was very surprised ... Mother created a special style of relationships. She always did something, although we, of course, had a servant. Educated, sensible, she was fond of Spencer, Schopenhauer and Vladimir Solovyov, instilled in us a love for analysis and reflection, ensured that children did not hang out, but do something useful. ” In January, 1900 exchanged seventh decade, Johann Alexandrovich retired. The last tour of the entrusted district, which took place in the winter of 1899-1900, exhausted the general and put him to bed. Unable to recover from the disease, he died in early April of 1900 from a heart attack. Axel at this time was the seventh year.
After the death of her husband, Elizaveta Kamillovna remained, according to Berg’s recollections, “with a large family and a small pension.” She decided to go to Vyborg to see her husband’s sister. There the girls went to school, and Axel got into a German group. Life in Vyborg was not as easy as it seemed, and at the beginning of 1901 Elizaveta Kamillovna moved to her parents in St. Petersburg. Two years later, when the children grew up, she decided to live on her own and rented an apartment of five rooms on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street. In the two rooms lived Bergs, and the rest of Elizaveta Kamillovna handed over. The pension received was small, and the lodgers' money served as a good help to the family.
Soon Axel went to school. Everyone expected extraordinary success from him, because in general he was better prepared than the average first grader. However, at that time, the sister of Elizabeth Kamillovna’s husband died in Reval, and the widow sent one of her sons to St. Petersburg. Elizaveta Kamillovna, well understanding the state of her sister, willingly accepted her nephew. He was two years older than Axel, spoke excellent German, and was very clever. However, the "male community" hopes were not met. Friends of the boys abandoned their studies, and as a result Axel was left for the second year, and his friend was sent to be raised by another aunt. All summer, the family decided what to do with the kid next. Grandfather Bertoldi insisted on a closed educational institution, but Berg did not have enough money for him. There was only one way out - the cadet corps, in which the son of the deceased general could study at public expense.Mother's choice fell on the Alexander Cadet Corps, located on Italian street. Elizabeth Kamillovna went there and led her son at the end of 1904. Axel was admitted to the school, and his life went according to a routine — the cadets got up at seven in the morning and went to morning exercises, then went to prayer, read Our Father in a choir, and then took spoons in the dining room. Gradually, the boy got used to it, he made his first friends. In the cadet corps, by the way, discipline and cleanliness reigned, and cruelty, drill and "non-statutory relations" did not even exist. Axel's classmates were for the most part military children, people from intelligent families who had learned notions about decency and honor since childhood. The captain-captain also turned out to be a wonderful person - he warmly treated his pupils, tried to bring them together and develop everyone’s talents. By the way, in the Alexander Corps, in addition to production workshops and sports halls, there were music rooms. Axel spent a lot of time in them, cultivating himself under the supervision of a musician from the Mariinsky Theater in playing the violin.
Berg spent four years in the cadet corps. Many graduates of this institution then entered universities or higher technical schools, but the young man decided for himself that he would go only to the Marine Corps. To this end, while still being an Alexander cadet, he independently studied cosmography and astronomy. In 1908, Berg passed all the necessary exams and ended up in the junior class of the Marine Corps. Education there was designed for six years, and in accordance with this, all students were divided into six companies. The youngest - the fourth, fifth and sixth - were considered "kid" or cadet. At the time of transfer to the third company, the "sea cadet" became a "midshipman", took the oath and was listed on the actual naval service. Berg made this transition in 1912. Axel Ivanovich wrote: “I was never interested in artillery, mines and torpedoes, but I was very interested in navigation, mission, astronomy and dreamed of becoming a navigator ... The best sailor scientists worked in the Marine Corps, their attitude towards the case also obliged the guys to work at full capacity. ” Midshipman Berg went to training summer swimming. He traveled to Holland, Sweden and Denmark. In Copenhagen, by the way, the king himself received the pupils of the Russian Naval Corps.
During these years, the young Axel met the Betlingkov family. The head of the family, State Counselor Rudolf Richardovich, was a famous therapist in St. Petersburg. Axel was extremely interested in him. As a surgeon, Betlingk participated in the Russo-Japanese War, was unusually well-read, had a broad outlook and maintained friendly relations with the brightest representatives of the then intelligentsia. In addition, Rudolf Richardovich had two daughters, and Berg imperceptibly attached to the youngest, whose name was Nora. She studied at art and music schools, owned several foreign languages, attended Petrishule and was engaged in painting on porcelain. Berg's attachment grew into love, and he soon declared the girl his bride. Their wedding took place in the winter of 1914. The wedding ceremony of the young took place in the Lutheran Church of Saints Peter and Paul on Nevsky Prospect. After the wedding, they went to Helsingfors (now Helsinki), where they rented a hotel room. Soon Betlingki bought newlyweds an apartment in the city. By that time, the young man had already graduated from the Marine Corps with the title of midshipman and was sent to serve as a watchman for the Tsarevich battleship for service. The winter of the 1915-1916 of the Tsesarevich was in Helsingfors, and Axel Ivanovich was at home every evening. On this battleship the sailor sailed from July 1914 to June 1916, that is, for almost two years. For excellent service, he was transferred first to the position of junior navigator, and then to the position of company commander.
In 1916, Berg was transferred to the submarine fleet, appointing E-8 as the navigator of the submarine. The war was already on, and on this submarine he fought for over a year - until December 1917. The Germans, not forgetting the past luckiness of the E-8 submarine (it had launched the cruiser Prince Adalbert), kept it under surveillance of its movement. In this connection, both the submarine commander and her new navigator had to constantly be on the alert. To hunt down the boat from the Germans came out at its exit to the Baltic Sea from the Gulf of Riga. On that ill-starred day, she moved in a fog along the winding and narrow fairway of Soalosunda and as a result rolled out aground. The commander tried to remove the boat in reverse, but the stranded turned out to be too flat, and this attempt failed. Meanwhile, the fog cleared, and the Germans presented an excellent target. However, the enemy did not want to approach the submarine - he was afraid of coastal batteries. All attempts to remove the E-8 from a chalk did not bring any results, and the crew decided to request assistance. Axel Ivanovich and two more sailors volunteered to go ashore. Launching a small boat, they set off. Wet and muddied sailors reached the shore and immediately went aside to quickly find the coastal post. Soon, the command found out what had happened, and a day later a large tug came out of the Gulf of Riga, and with it three destroyers who did not stop at the distressed submarine and, passing past it at full speed, drove the Germans in front of them into the open sea. And the tug safely removed the submarine.
In the winter period of 1916-1917, E-8 did not take part in combat operations, and Berg himself in November 1916 was sent to study in the navigator officer class, which was placed in Melsava in Helsingfors. In February, 1917 Axel Ivanovich graduated, received the rank of lieutenant and continued to serve on the submarine E-8. During the October Revolution, he was at sea and heard about it only after returning to Revel. The Germans, by the way, continued to track down his submarine. After another long stay under water, the right electric motor caught fire on it. The boat could not rise to the surface, and sailors one after another began to be poisoned by gases released during combustion. The crew miraculously managed to bring the E-8 to Helsingfors. Unconscious Berg, among others, was urgently taken to hospital. He no longer returned to the submarine - she repaired, sailed with a new navigator.
And soon there was a separation from Russia of Finland. The sailors, who served with Axel Ivanovich, managed to cram a still weak after the sailor’s poisoning into the last train leaving for Petrograd, and then squeeze his spouse. Already in the city, Berg met his comrade, second-rank captain Vladimir Belley, who was appointed commander of the destroyer under construction, named after his famous great-grandfather “Captain Belli”. Great-grandson of Peter the hero picked up a team and invited Axel Ivanovich to take the place of the navigator officer with the duties of the first assistant. Berg agreed. On this destroyer, he made only one single march - he happened during a foreign intervention, when it was necessary to take away unfinished ships away from the Putilov shipyard, which fell into the shelling zone. Ships that could not move independently were diverted with tugboats. "Captain Belly" Berg took him to the Nikolaevsky bridge, where the enemy artillery could not reach him. When the danger passed, the destroyer was towed back, and Axel Ivanovich was sent to the headquarters of the fleet command and approved to the place of operational assistant flag-captain.
At that difficult time, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet represented one of the most combat-ready units of the armed forces of the Soviet Republic. In February, the 1918 Germans launched a powerful offensive on all fronts, rushing, among other things, to Revel and Helsingfors, in order to capture the warships that had wintered there. Tsentrobalt called on sailors to save warships, and Berg, who had experience of war on the Baltic Sea, working as an assistant flag-captain in the operational unit, successfully completed all the tasks associated with the valiant transition of warships (later known as “Ice Campaign”). With his direct participation in February, the last submarines came out of Revel, the icebreaker Yermak making their way in the ice. And from the military harbor of Helsingfors, the closing ships left in the first half of April.
In May, 1919 Berg was delivered by the navigator of the Panther submarine, and his first combat campaign began in late June. On the Panther, Axel Ivanovich sailed until August 1919, and then received an order to go to the submarine "Lynx". The difference was that he was now appointed commander of the submarine. "Lynx" was in a terrible state, and the primary task of Berg was the organization of the reconstruction work on the submarine, as well as work to train the team. After long round-the-clock work at the dock, the Lynx was restored. There we started training trips, during which the team gained experience. He also studied, by the way, Axel Ivanovich himself - he was enrolled in the submarine class of the combined classes of fleet commanders. In addition, he entered the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute.
Very soon, behind the Berg in the Baltic Fleet, the reputation of an officer who was capable of solving the complex tasks of reconstructing and launching submarines strengthened. In 1921, he was “transferred” to the recovery of the Wolf submarine. This submarine was in extremely poor condition due to damage sustained by the 1919 campaign. Several months passed, and another restored submarine appeared in the asset of Axel Ivanovich. After its commissioning, a new appointment immediately followed - to urgently repair the Snake submarine. During repair work on it, Berg was seriously injured - he was torn off the phalanx of one finger. At this time, the "Snake" was swimming, and the sailor got into the dressing only a few hours later. As a result, he began blood poisoning, and he spent a long time in the hospital.
At the end of the 1922, the medical board decided to deduct Berg from the active fleet. This decision was influenced by sepsis and poisoning on E-8, and general overstrain in recent years. Finally, Axel Ivanovich did not want to break with the sea and decided to engage in science, specifically radio engineering. Soon he appeared at the electrical engineering department of the Naval Academy, but there the former sailor learned that his incomplete higher education was not enough - a diploma from the Higher Naval Engineering School is necessary. After a year of persistent classes (at 1923), Axel Ivanovich passed all the missing exams and graduated from the electrical engineering department of an engineering school with a degree in naval electrical engineering. From now on, the road to the academy was open. Berg combined classes at the Academy with the teaching of radio engineering at telegraph courses and at schools of various levels, since he was in great need of money, which no one had canceled under Soviet rule. At this time, the first textbooks written by Berg, "Hollow Devices", "Cathode Lamps" and "General Theory of Radio Engineering" were published. And since the money was still not enough, Axel Ivanovich was still working on the nearby factory as a fitter.
In 1925, Berg graduated from the Naval Academy and received a referral to the capital of the country to the staff of the People's Commissariat for Maritime and Military Affairs. It was an honorary appointment, involving the management of radio communications in all fleets. And, nevertheless, the former sailor was unhappy - he sought to lively research work. The head of the academy, Peter Lukomsky, intervened in the case, he managed to leave Berg in Leningrad, and Axel Ivanovich was sent to the Higher Naval School as an ordinary teacher of radio engineering. At the same time, he was given a supplementary charge - he was appointed chairman of the radio navigation and radio communications section of the Marine Scientific and Technical Committee.
1928 year was marked by changes in the personal life of Berg - he broke up with Nora Rudolfovna and married Marianna Penzina. This, by the way, was preceded by a very unusual long-term prehistory. A sailor met her in Tuapse in the fall of 1923. A twenty-three-year-old girl lived alone in the house left by her deceased father, and worked as a typist in the port. A year later, Berg came to Marianna Ivanovna in Tuapse with his wife. The women met and then wrote letters to each other for several years. In 1927, Marianna Penzina sold her house and moved to Leningrad to Bergam, who had no children. Axel Ivanovich explained briefly the delicate situation with the divorce: “At the family council it was decided that we should part with Nora.”
In September, 1928 Berg was sent to Germany to select and purchase sonar instruments. Within two months, he visited the Electroacoustic plant located in Kiel and the Atlas-Werke plant in Bremen, where he selected samples of sonar surveillance and communication devices for submarines. In April next year, Berg was sent on a business trip to the United States, and in September, 1930 and in February, 1932 - to Italy. There he was received, by the way, by Mussolini himself. Subsequently, Berg wrote: "Then he was not yet a fascist, pretended, talked about democracy." When several years later the clouds thicken over Berg and the investigation begins in his case, this frequent and long stay on business trips abroad will turn out to be for NKVD workers to be suspicious of a radio engineer of “sabotage” and espionage.
In 1927, at the suggestion of Axel Ivanovich, the Marine Science Test Site was created at the communications section. There, Berg spent "working out tactical and technical tasks of the industry" to develop new equipment. At 1932, this test site - again at the initiative of Axel Ivanovich - was transformed into the Marine Research Institute of Communications. He was placed in Leningrad in the wing of the Main Admiralty. Berg was appointed head of the new establishment, and under his leadership, work was completed on the development and implementation in the fleet of the latest radio equipment called “Blockade-1”. At the same time (in July, 1935), Axel Ivanovich became the flagship engineer of the second rank, and in 1936, the attestation commission awarded him the degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences.
At 1937, Berg was awarded the Order of the Red Star and filled with the most rosy plans. He began work on a new radio system for the Navy Blockade-2 fleet. And in December, Axel Ivanovich was suddenly arrested. Detained him at night 25 December 1937 in a Leningrad apartment. The basis was the suspicion of the radio engineer’s participation in the “anti-Soviet military conspiracy” (the “Tukhachevsky case”). Axel Ivanovich himself never spoke about the reasons for the arrest and only said: “My ancestors came from the Varangians to the Greeks, and I went from the nobles to the cons.” First, the former sailor was held in the general prison of the city of Kronstadt, then (in November 1938) was transferred to the Butyrskaya prison of the NKVD in Moscow, and in December 1938 was “returned to Kronstadt” for the end of the investigation. For several years, which Berg spent in prisons, he had the opportunity to talk with quite interesting people, for example, with Marshal Rokossovsky, designer Tupolev, academician Lukirsky ... Finally, in the spring of 1940, the final decision was made: "The case on the charges of crimes Berg Axel Ivanovich ... for lack of evidence collected ... stop. The accused should be released immediately from custody. ” 1940 was freed from the sailor’s custody at the end of May, thus Axel Ivanovich spent two years and five months in prison.Marina Akselevna - Berg's daughter from her second marriage - recalled her meeting with her released father: “I opened the door - in front of me stood a poorly dressed, thin man, from whom I was attracted by something familiar, familiar and at the same time alien.” All titles and degrees were returned to Axel Ivanovich, and also appointed a teacher at the Naval Academy. At first he headed the ship navigation department there, and then the general tactics department. A year later (in May, 1941), he was given another military rank - Rear Admiral Engineer, and in August, in connection with the outbreak of war, he and his academy were evacuated to Astrakhan. Berg spent the winter of 1942-1943 in the city of Samarkand, where the Naval Academy was relocated from Astrakhan to the war zone.
In the early years of the war, many promising-minded military began to think about a new area of radio electronics, which was called radar. To one of such people - Admiral Lev Galler - and at the end of 1942 Axel Ivanovich presented his project on the development of radar work in the USSR. The answer came in March 1943, Lev Mikhailovich sent a telegram to Berg with an order to immediately leave for Moscow. Upon arrival in the capital, the radio engineer started energetic activity - he prepared several posters explaining the principles of radar operation, and with them went to the offices of senior officials, explaining, convincing and reporting. On July 4, 1943, a meeting of the State Defense Committee was held, at which a decree "On Radar" was adopted and a decision was made to create a Radar Council. The Council included the whole color of the radar thought of those years - the People’s Commissar of the Aviation Industry Shakhurin and the People’s Commissar of the Electric Industry Kabanov, Marshal aviation Golovanov, as well as many major scientists. Soviet radio physicist Yuri Kobzarev wrote about the creation of the Council: “A room was quickly found in Komsomolsky Lane. Accounting, the business sector appeared, the structure of the Council was determined. Future department heads, at Berg's suggestion, prepared the tasks and goals of their units. In total, three departments were founded - my “scientific”, “military department” of Uger and “industrial department” of Shokin. ” Berg himself, the seventh paragraph of the resolution was approved by the deputy commissar of the electric industry for radar. And in September of that year, he was appointed deputy chairman of the Radar Council of the GKO USSR. So Axel Ivanovich entrenched in the corridors of the Kremlin power.
In 1944, Berg was given the rank of vice-admiral engineer. In 1945, the GKO was abolished due to the end of the war. The Council on Radar at the State Defense Committee was transformed into the Council on Radar at the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and then into the Committee on Radar at the Council of Ministers of the USSR. In 1948, Axel Ivanovich was removed from his duties as deputy chairman and transferred to the position of a “permanent member” of the Radar Committee, which was, of course, a downgrade. However, the Radar Committee did not last long, having fulfilled all the functions assigned to it, it was abolished in August 1949. Berg was dismissed from his post, and the functions of directing the further development of radar were transferred to defense ministries (in particular, to the USSR Ministry of Defense).
It should be noted that as early as August 1943, Berg, among other things, was entrusted with the duties of the head of the “radar institute” designated in the decree “On radar”. However, the institution existed only on paper - it had neither state nor its own premises. In September, the institution being organized was given the name “All-Union Scientific Research Institute No. 108” (today - Berg Center for Scientific and Technical Information). Thanks to Axel Ivanovich, who was actively involved in the selection of specialists, by the end of 1944, the composition of the institute’s engineering and scientific personnel exceeded 250 people. By this time, eleven laboratories were established at the Research Institute №108. Berg worked as a director of the institute until 1957 (with a break from the end of 1943 to 1947). Under his leadership, in the "one hundred and eighth" work began in the field of anti-radiation and electronic warfare. Subsequently, this not only brought fame to the institute, but also had significant technical and political results - in particular, the suppression of American AWACS radar reconnaissance systems was ensured, and Smalt interference stations had an impact on the results of the six-day war in the Middle East. Berg himself - as a specialist - was well versed in various areas of radio electronics (radio communications, radar, radio direction finding, radio electronic warfare), and only television devices did not pass directly through his hands, here he acted only as an organizer of work in the one hundred eighth laboratories of television systems.
In 1953, Berg was appointed the Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR for radio equipment. This was the highest point in his career - being the second person in the "power" ministry, he could influence the solution of various issues of the country's defense industry. Possessing the appropriate powers and knowing full well that his “one hundred and eighth” institute was overwhelmed with defensive work and was unable to productively deal with pressing issues of radio electronics, Berg decided to organize the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics at the USSR Academy of Sciences in the capital. In September 1953 issued a corresponding decree of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences, and Axel Ivanovich was appointed the “director-organizer” of the new institution. Painstaking work began - a compilation of scientists, correspondence with the Ministry of Culture on the allocation of premises to the new institute, the creation of the first orders.
In August, 1955 Berg was promoted to the rank of admiral engineer. Unfortunately, the huge burden on the posts of the Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, which Axel Ivanovich combined with participation in the Radio Council of the Academy of Sciences and the leadership of the Central Research Institute-108, undermined his iron health. In July, 1956, when Berg was returning from Leningrad, a sharp pain pierced his chest in a train car. The doctor was not on the train, the doctor arrived at Klin station and was driving Axel Ivanovich unconscious all the way to Moscow. Thanks to the actions of the doctor, Berg with bilateral heart attack was brought to the hospital alive. He spent three long months in bed, and the staff of the “one hundred and eighth” did not forget the chief — they urgently made a special bed for him, brought it in and mounted it in the ward. After being discharged from the hospital for another year and a half, Berg traveled to sanatoriums. In one of them, he met nurse Raisa Glazkova. She was thirty-six years younger than Axel Ivanovich, but this difference was not strongly felt due to Berg's “motor” character. Soon the radio engineer decided to marry for the third time. Large, sedate and skillful Raisa Pavlovna was very different from other companions of his life - the painful Nora Rudolfovna and the miniature Marianna Ivanovna. It should be noted that Marianna Ivanovna did not agree to a divorce for a long time, and only in 1961 after the birth of Margarita - the daughter of Berg from Raisa Pavlovna - she went backwards. Axel Ivanovich became the “young father” at the age of sixty-eight.
In May, due to a personal request, 1957 Berg was dismissed from his post as Deputy Minister of Defense and concentrated his forces on work in the scientific research institutions of the Academy of Sciences. In January, the 1959 Presidium of the Academy of Sciences commissioned him to form a commission to prepare a report entitled “Key Issues of Cybernetics”. In April this year, following the discussion of the report, the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences adopted a resolution to establish the Scientific Council on Cybernetics. Even before its birth, the institution received the rights of an independent scientific organization with its own states. The main structural subdivision of the Council was its sections, to which more than eight hundred researchers (including eleven academicians) were recruited on a voluntary basis, which corresponded to the size of a large research institute. Gradually, through the efforts of Berg and a number of his like-minded people, cybernetic ideas became widespread among Russian scientists. Every year symposiums, conferences and seminars on cybernetics, including at the international level, were held. Publishing has revived — Cybernetics has regularly published in the service of communism and Cybernetics Problems, ten to twelve Cybernetics Issues have been published annually, informational magazines have been published monthly on this issue. In the sixties, cybernetics institutes sprang up in all the Union republics, laboratories and departments in universities, branch laboratories of the “Cybernetics in Agriculture”, “Cybernetics and Mechanical Engineering”, “Cybernetics of Chemical Technological Processes” types in industrial institutes. Also, new areas of cybernetic science appeared - artificial intelligence, robotics, bionics, situational control, the theory of large systems, noise-resistant coding. Priorities in mathematics have also changed, since with the presence of a computer, it became possible to process large amounts of information.
In 1963, Berg was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and in 1970 he received an invitation from Dr. J. Rose, the former director general of the World Organization for General Systems and Cybernetics, to take the post of vice chairman. It was an honorary offer, meaning international recognition. Unfortunately, the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences put forward so many obstacles and made such a red tape that Axel Ivanovich had to abandon this place.
With wife and daughter, 1967
The years meanwhile took their toll, Axel Ivanovich increasingly sick, and the dropper became his frequent companion. However, the radio engineer, known for his gladiatorial character, was ironic about illnesses and he joked off all questions about his state of health. In his declining years, he loved to say: “My life is not lived in vain. And although I have not discovered a single law, I have not made a single invention - but thirty years of work in the field of radio electronics have undoubtedly benefited my country. ” It should be noted that all the years of work in the field of radio engineering, Berg paid great attention to the promotion of knowledge among the masses, and most of all to radio amateur. Axel Ivanovich had an outstanding oratorical talent. His speeches left an indelible impression on the audience and were remembered for a lifetime. The non-standard presentation, the free handling of statistical data, the breadth of problems, witty aphorisms and cues — all this captivated and amazed the listener. Berg himself said: “The main thing is to capture the audience,” and he succeeded in it fully. In addition, Axel Ivanovich was the initiator of the founding of the Mass Radio Library Publishing House, which produces works of amateur radio profile. The publishing house began to function in 1947, Axel Ivanovich headed his editorial board until his death. And one more curious fact - according to Evgeny Veltistov, the author of “The Adventures of Eletronik”, it was Berg who was the prototype of the creator of Electronics, Professor Gromov.
Axel Ivanovich died at the age of eighty-five on the night of July 9 1979 in a hospital ward. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
According to the materials of the books of Yu.N. Erofeev "Axel Berg" and I.L. Radun "Axel Berg - a man of the XX century."
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