Soviet Military Administration in Germany

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The Soviet Military Administration in Germany (

According to the

• Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy 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

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

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

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 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