In 1945, the search for uranium in old tunnels and shafts of existing mining operations in the Ore Mountains began under the military direction of the Soviet army. In 1947, the “Soviet State Joint Stock Company of the Non-ferrous Metal Industry (SAG) Wismut” was founded - a camouflage name intended to distract from the actual goal of providing uranium for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons program.

From 1954, the newly founded Soviet-German joint stock company (SDAG) Wismut continued uranium ore mining as a two-state company with the participation of the GDR. The mining company founded during the Cold War developed into the world's largest single producer of uranium concentrates by 1990. Annual uranium production peaked at 7100 tons in 1967.

A total of 216,350 tons of uranium were delivered to the Soviet Union. From an initially primitive technical level, an ultra-modern mining industry developed from the mid-1950s onwards, mastering extraction in various types of deposits and at depths of up to 2,000 meters . In the 1960s, a core workforce of around 45,000 employees was formed, which lasted for over three decades.

In the course of German reunification, the Federal Republic of Germany acquired half of the shares in the two-state company SDAG Wismut. With the intergovernmental agreement with the USSR dated May 16, 1991, the Federal Republic of Germany assumed responsibility for the entire company
Wismut with all its ecological, financial and social dimensions and risks.