Abstract

After World War II, the organization of State administration was fraught with greater problems in the Recovered Territories than in other parts of Poland. The German inhabitants had been resettled, leaving behind property that was plundered by Soviet troops and armed looters. The Red Army regarded German property as spoils of war. Soldiers plundered not only houses and apartments, but also industrial plants. Industrial machines were disassembled and transported to Russia, and equipment that could not be taken apart was often mindlessly destroyed. In 1944, in an effort to secure German-built industrial property, the Provisional Government created industrial operations groups whose task was to protect and prepare industrial equipment for sequestration by the Polish authorities. On 1 September 1945, industrial operations groups were transformed into the Industrial Department of the Government Plenipotentiary’s Office for the District of Mazury. The Industrial Department created local industrial directorates which were tasked with setting up industrial infrastructure in the region. The first report submitted by the Management Board of the Local Industrial Directorate in Olsztyn to the Ministry of Industry on 19 December 1945 provides an account of the grim reality faced by industrial organizers in the Olsztyn region after the war.