With the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 , the " Gleichschaltung " ( forcing into line ) was also enforced in Speyer . On 9 November 1938 , in the night known as Kristallnacht ) , the Speyer Synagogue was burnt down and soon after totally removed . With the beginning of the “ Thousand Year Reich ” , once again the Jewish population was expelled from Speyer and most of them were eventually killed . Speyer escaped the great bombing raids of World War II ; one of the few bombs falling on the town destroyed the railway station . Speyer was taken by the American army , but not before the bridge over the Rhine was blown up by the retreating German army . Until the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 , Speyer was in the French occupation zone and once again became a garrison town of the French . General Charles de Gaulle took a military parade in front of the cathedral . With its establishment on August 30 , 1946 , Speyer became part of the new federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate ( Rheinland-Pfalz )
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
History of Speyer