There was a ten week period while Berlin was solely under the Soviet control. The Allies needed time to gather the resources to start governing Berlin. During this time Russia removed much machinery from Berlin and transported it to Russia. Over 85% of Berlin's machinery was removed. Machinery included factory machines, telephone exchanges, buses, and street cars. Basically that was everything that wasn't destroyed in the bombing of the war. In addition to debilitating the economy, Russia also immediately set up a government. The city was under control of an appointed magistrate. The main executive body also consisted of mostly Russian communists. Aside from these two infiltrations the Soviets also permeated the Berlin police force. This proved to be a important move later.
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Berlin Wall: Past and Present by Nathan Wolski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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