Machine and Tractor Station

The machine-tractor stations ( MTS) were socialist countries in facilities where the farmers could borrow agricultural machinery and tractors for use. They were created for the first time in Soviet Russia from 1920.

The machine-tractor stations in the GDR

In the GDR first machine rental stations ( MAS) in 1949, after the land reform, set up to manage the machinery of the dissolved goods and service.

With the founding of the first agricultural production cooperatives ( LPG) 1952, the MAS were converted into machine-tractor stations ( MTS).

The machines and tractors were not the property of the peasants, but remained in the hands of the socialist state. The MTS were legally autonomous state-owned production plants, where the tractor drivers and other service personnel were employed for the technology. The MTS were considered strongholds of the working class in the country, so far as the mechanics in the workshops of the MTS - as workers - in the development of their class consciousness not as well advanced, farmers should instruct. Basis for cooperation between MTS and LPG formed between them completed years of work contract.

Since the early 1960s was systematically transfer of agricultural machinery to the collective farms. The MTS was renamed in 1964 in county farms for agricultural machinery ( KfL ). Their task was limited to the maintenance and repair of agricultural machinery.