During the onset of the Cold War and its tensions between the Western and the Soviet-occupied sectors of Berlin, the Friedrichstrasse station played an important role for citizens of Berlin to reach their friends and relatives in other sectors of Berlin. At the end of 1946, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany had created an East German border police tasked with preventing "Republikflucht" (escape from the East German republic). With the erection of the Inner German border in 1952, East Germany was to a large degree sealed off from the west. However, Berlin, and in particular the public transport system that criss-crossed between the western Allied and Soviet sectors was still a hole in that Iron Curtain. Accordingly, Berlin became the main route by which East Germans left for the West. The 3.5 million East Germans that had left by 1961 totaled approximately 20% of the entire East German population, many using the Friedrichstrasse station with its bustling traffic as the starting point for their escape. During the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany and East Berlin, the Reichsbahn national railway stopped S-Bahn transport between 17 June and 9 July 1953.