Under Nazi rule , Gotha became a centre of the arms industry with nearly 7,000 forced labourers working in the city 's factories , where more than 200 died . The Gotha barracks in the southern periphery were enlarged and during the '' Kristallnacht '' in 1938 the synagogue was destroyed . Allied air raid in 1944/5 damaged some buildings in the city , in particular the court theatre ( ruin demolished by East German authorities in 1958 ) and the main station ( which remains only " half-a-building " until today ) and the main church ( rebuilt after the war ) . Nevertheless , some 95 % of the city 's buildings survived the war unscathed . Jewish slave laborers working in quarries at Gotha were all murdered by their Nazi overseers on 4 April 1945 , just before the city was captured by American forces
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Gotha