During WW2, when armies advancing through enemy territory captured enemy factories / oil refineries, how did this actually work in practice?

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Did they have their own scientists / specialists travelling in the rear who then try to figure out how to get the facility back online? I’m assuming here that the enemy workers have already fled and the facilities are empty.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

The general idea is that the invading army wants to replace the government and officials of a country, not the population.

So when they fight, they want to push out the military without involving the civilian population – that the locals will put down arms and the government will willingly hand over control when they see the big invading army advancing on them.
Those being invaded will often need to be pragmatic – choosing where to retreat and give up land, and where to hold out and fight will often include consideration towards the population of an area and how a battle will affect them.

This may then leave a local population living under the rule of an invading army, rather than the country they consider home. To solve degree this may invoke resistance against the invaders, but for the average person life still had to go on – they still need to earn a living and provide for themselves, which means buckling down under the new rules and not fighting back – and watching those that do face the consequences set by the new government.

In other cases areas will be flattened and destroyed by fighting, leaving little behind and with populations having been evacuated in advance. The industry in these areas just won’t really be workable until that area is considered peaceful enough that a population starts to return and rebuild.

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