Actions of The SMAD
The main purpose of the SMAD was to maintain the unity of Germany. 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 (Junker), to be given to cottagers and landless farmhands. Banks were also nationalized that year. In 1946 an education reform established separation of church and state in elementary schools, and heavy industries were nationalized under the guise of confiscation of the property of Nazi war criminals.
The SMAD set up ten "special camps" for the detention of Germans, some of them former Nazi concentration camps.
Read more about this topic: Soviet Military Administration In Germany
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