would ultimately lead to his first exile on Elba. In 1913, the Monument to the Battle of the Nations monument celebrating the centenary of this event was completed.
A terminus of the first German long distance railway to Dresden (the capital of Saxony) in 1839, Leipzig became a hub of Central European railway traffic, with Leipzig Central Station the largest terminal station by area in Europe. The train station has two grand entrance halls, the eastern one for the Royal Saxon State Railways and the western one for the Prussian state railways.
Leipzig became a centre of the German and Saxon liberal movements. The first German labour party, the General German Workers' Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, ADAV) was founded in Leipzig on 23 May 1863 by Ferdinand Lassalle; about 600 workers from across Germany travelled to the foundation on the new railway line. Leipzig expanded rapidly towards one million inhabitants. Huge Gr�nderzeit areas were built, which mostly survived both war and post-war demolition.
With the opening of a fifth production hall in 1907, the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei became the largest cotton mill company on the continent, housing over 240,000 spindles. Daily production surpassed 5 million kilograms of yarn.
The city's mayor from 1930 to 1937, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was a noted opponent of the Nazi regime in Germany. He resigned in 1937 when, in his absence, his Nazi deputy ordered the destruction of the city's statue of Felix Mendelssohn. On Kristallnacht in 1938, one of the city's most architecturally significant buildings, the 1855 Moorish Revival Leipzig synagogue was deliberately destroyed.
Several thousand forced labourers were stationed in Leipzig during World War II.
The city was also heavily damaged by Allied bombing during World War II. Unlike its neighbouring city of Dresden this was largely conventional bombing, with high explosives rather than incendiaries. The resultant
