Soviet Military Administration in Germany

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The Soviet Military Administration in Germany (

According to the

• Georgi Zhukov
  , supreme commander of SMAG, 1945–46
• Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Sokolovsky, supreme commander of SMAG, 1946–49
• Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Chuikov, supreme commander of the SMAG, March 1949– October 1949
• Sergei Ivanovich Tiulpanov, director of the Propaganda Administration^[1]
• Lieutenant colonel Aleksandr Dymshits, director of the Cultural Department
• Colonel general Vladimir Kurasov
  , chief of staff

The main purpose of the SMAD was to maintain the unity of Germany.^[citation needed] It also had to deal with refugees, such as those resettled from Poland, the homeless, and former German soldiers. Resources were short, and the economy needed to be shifted from wartime production to peacetime. However, the Soviets were also concerned with their own well-being, and dismantled entire factories and railroads to be reassembled in the USSR.

In late 1945 a land reform confiscated the land of German nobles (

.

The SMAD set up

ten "special camps" for the detention of Germans, some of them former Nazi concentration camps. In 1947, the started prosecuting Nazi crimes based on the SMAD Directive 201 with 8,300 verdicts passed.^[2]

Politics

A decree of 10 June 1945 allowed for the formation of antifascist democratic political parties and called for elections in October 1946. A coalition of four parties was formed in July, consisting of the

KPD and SPD merged under Soviet pressure into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands – SED). In the October 1946 elections, the SED won in the East German states, but lost in Greater Berlin

to the local SPD, which had not merged with the KPD there.

In May 1949, when a West German government began to be formed, a German People's Congress (Deutscher Volkskongreß) was elected for the Soviet occupation zone. However, the only options voters had were to approve or reject "unity lists" of pre-picked candidates from the various parties, largely made up of communists. About two-thirds of East Germans approved the list for the new Congress.^{[citation needed]}

In November 1948, the

Soviet Control Commission (Sowjetische Kontrolkommission – SKK). However, the SKK did not formally turn over administrative responsibilities to the GDR government until 11 November 1949.^[3]

See also

• Soviet Occupation Zone
• Group of Soviet Forces in Germany
• Allied Occupation Zones in Germany
• German Economic Commission
• German People's Congress
• German People's Council
• People's Control Commission

References

1. ISBN 978-3-05-002680-0
   .
2. ^ "Political prisoners in the German Democratic Republic". Political prisoners in the German Democratic Republic | Communist Crimes. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
3. ^ Keiderling, Gerhard. "Die Vier Mächte in Berlin – Zur Rechtslage der Stadt von 1949 bis 1961". Berlinische Monatsschrift (in German) (3/2001). Berlin: Edition Luisenstadt: 4–17. Retrieved 2008-02-25.

External links

• World History at KMLA: History of East Germany