As head of an important occupation authority that built up and 'guided' the political parties, societal organisations, propaganda bodies and publishers as well as cultural institutions in the Soviet Occupied Zone, Colonel Tjulpanov had to submit reports on a regular basis. His written reports, drawn up at short intervals, were sent to his superiors in Berlin-Karlshorst and then usually forwarded from there to Moscow. He also directly addressed various leading functionaries at the Foreign Ministry and in the central party apparatus. Many of these reports reached Stalin, to whom precise information on German matters were extremely important. The report published here, which covers the decisive initial phase of Soviet politics in Germany from 1945 to 1948, was compiled from earlier reports on the occasion of a review of Tjulpanov's activities by a high-ranking investigative commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU.