Photo of members of the Soviet control commission in Germany for the state of Thuringia at a banquet, 1945.

The original photo is in excellent collector's condition. The size is 125*170 mm. The photo was taken, apparently, in the summer of 1945, during the grand opening of the SWAG representative office in Thuringia. The reverse side is clean. Guarantee of authenticity.

The Soviet Military Administration in Germany (German: Sowjetische Militaradministration in Deutschland, abbreviated as SVAG) is a military administration body established on June 6, 1945 and replaced the state administration bodies in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. The SVAG was separated from the operational command of the troops in this territory and was directly subordinate to the Council of People's Commissars. The headquarters of the SVAG was located in Berlin's Karlshorst district. The Administration directly managed the Soviet occupation zone of Germany from 1945 until the formation of the German Democratic Republic in 1949. The structure of the SVAG bodies in the field generally reproduced the structure of the central office. It included 5 directorates of the Soviet military administration in the provinces and lands of the zone (Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg and Brandenburg), as well as the Office of the military commander of the Soviet occupation sector of Berlin, which, in turn, were subordinate to the district, district and city military commandantships. Since the initial organizational scheme of the SVAG, fixed in the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated June 6, 1945, was rather general in nature, in the future, taking into account the realities of the work, it was forced to change more than once.