Between 1910 and 1917 , the provincial hospital of Pfafferode was built on the western edge of the city , one of the largest hospitals in the Prussian Province of Saxony . The Great Depression after 1929 hit Mühlhausen very hard and led to massive unemployment . In 1935 , the Nazi armament campaign resulted in the building of a large military complex with several barracks with the deliberate side effect of boosting the city 's weak economy . The synagogue was damaged during the '' Kristallnacht '' in November 1938 , but as one of only a few in Germany , it was not completely destroyed and still stands today . At the Pfafferode hospital , nearly 2,000 patients were killed or died during the Nazi period ( Action T4 ) , most of them were mentally or physically disabled . From 1944 to March 1945 , a women 's forced labour camp was located directly outside Mühlhausen ( a branch of the Buchenwald camp ) , producing arms . The women were deported in April 1945 to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . The US Army came to Mühlhausen on 4 April 1945 and the city was handed over without a fight . On 5 July 1945 , the Soviet Army took over the city , which became part of the GDR in 1949
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Mühlhausen