This report, published in conjunction with a 2011 symposium on the Berlin Wall, is the first of a three part history and covers the years 1945 to 1961. A joint project between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Archives and Records Administration - National Declassification Center, the publication can be read in its entirety on this site. To understand the human impact of the "Iron Curtain," readers may like to start by reading "A Family Divided," where, in four photographs, a mother hands her young son over the barbed wire that would become the Berlin Wall, knowing that she might never see him again. Of special interest in the rest of the document are the four pages of historical maps depicting the dividing of Berlin, the excellent historical essays, and, perhaps especially, the nine pages of declassified documents that tell the story of the increasing East German regime's control of its population in real time.