20th century
From 1900: Revival of the Pforzheim watchmaking industry.
1905: The western borough Brötzingen was incorporated into the administration Pforzheim.
1906: The 1. FC Pforzheim football club was defeated by VfB Leipzig with a score of 1–2 in the final game of the German football championship.
1907: Julius Epple founded Aristo, the watch brand, benefitting from the bull market for wristwatches in the 1920s.
1914–1918: Pforzheim was not a battlefield in World War I, but 1600 men from Pforzheim lost their lives as soldiers on the battlefields.
1920s: The Pforzheim watchmaking industry thrived due to the new popularity of wrist-watches.
1927: Stowa, another well-known German watch brand from Pforzheim, was founded by Walter Storz in Hornberg, moving the business to Pforzheim in 1935. Walter's son, Werner, eventually takes over the business.
From 1933: On 5 March 1933, Germany held a federal election. In Pforzheim, the NSDAP won an absolute majority with over 57% of votes. On 21 March 1933, the Potsdam Day celebration, which marked the reopening of the Reichstag with speeches from Paul von Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler, lead to a large rally and torchlit parade in Pforzheim, with around 30,000 people participating. On 1 April 1933, the Nazis initiated a national boycott of Jewish businesses, which was also carried out in Pforzheim. The liquidation sales of Jewish businesses were also boycotted. On 10 April 1933, the city council awarded Adolf Hitler and Paul von Hindenburg honorary citizenship of the city. It also renamed Panorama Avenue and Hachel Park (today's Hachelallee and Hachelanlage) as Adolf Hitler Avenue and Adolf Hitler Park (Adolf-Hitler-Allee and Adolf-Hitler-Anlagen). On 17 June 1933, Pforzheim also held a book burning on the market square attended by several thousand people, organized by the local chapter of the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls. By the end of 1933, 13% of Jewish residents had left the city.
Along with the installation of the Nazi government in Germany the local subsidiaries of all political parties, groups and organizations other than the NSDAP were gradually disbanded in town. Public life as well as individual affairs were increasingly affected by Nazi influences. Persecution of Jewish fellow citizens occurred in Pforzheim, too, with boycotts of Jewish shops and companies.
1938: Establishment of the municipal Jewellery Museum.
1938: On 9 November, the so-called Kristallnacht, the Pforzheim Synagogue (see WWW-site) of the Jewish community was so badly damaged by Nazi activists that it had to be demolished later on.
1939: Regional Administration Pforzheim (Bezirksamt) was converted to the Rural District Pforzheim (Landkreis) with Pforzheim city as its administrative site. However, the town itself became a district-less administrative body.
1940: On 22 October 1940, the Gestapo deported most of the German Jewish population of Baden, the Palatinate, and Saarland to the Gurs internment camp in Vichy France as part of the Wagner-Bürckel Operation (Wagner-Bürckel-Aktion). As part of this operation, 186 Pforzheim residents were deported under the authority of Robert Heinrich Wagner, the Gauleiter of Gau Baden. Some of these were later transported to concentration camps in the east. Of the Pforzheim Jews deported to Gurs, only 55 were confirmed to have survived the Holocaust.
In 1944, many factories were converted to produce weaponry such as anti-aircraft shells, fuses for bombs, and allegedly even parts for the V-1 and V-2 rockets.
On the evening of 23 February 1945, Pforzheim was bombed in one of the most devastating area bombardments of World War II. Carried out by the Royal Air Force, the air raid killed about one quarter of the town's population, over 17,000 people, and destroyed about 83% of the town's buildings. The mission order to bomb Pforzheim issued by RAF Bomber Command states as the intention of the raid on Pforzheim "to destroy built up area and associated industries and rail facilities". The bombardment was carried out as part of the British carpet bombing campaign. The town was put on the target list for bombardments in November 1944 because it was thought by the Allies to be producing precision instruments for use in the German war effort and as transport centre for the movement of German troops.
There were also several minor raids in 1944 and 1945.
After the main attack, about 30,000 people had to be fed by makeshift public kitchens because their housing had been destroyed. Almost 90% of the buildings in the core city area had been destroyed. Many Pforzheim citizens were buried in mass graves at Pforzheim's main cemetery because they could not be identified. There are also many graves of complete families. Among the dead were several hundred foreigners who had been in Pforzheim as forced labor workers.
The inner-city districts were severely depopulated. According to the State Statistics Bureau (Statistisches Landesamt), in the Market Square area (Marktplatzviertel) in 1939 there were 4,112 registered inhabitants, in 1945 none (0). In the Old Town area (Altstadtviertel) in 1939 there were 5,109 inhabitants, in 1945 only three persons were still living there. In the Leopold Square area, in 1939 there were 4,416 inhabitants, in 1945 only 13.
The German Army Report of 24 February 1945 devoted only two lines to reporting the bombardment: "In the early evening hours of February 23, a forceful British attack was directed at Pforzheim." RAF Bomber Command later assessed the bombing raid as the one with "probably the greatest proportion (of destroyed built-up area) (of any target) in one raid during the war".
In early April, as the Allied forces and the French Army advanced toward Pforzheim, the local German military commander gave orders to destroy the electric power generating plant and those gas and water supply lines that were still working, but local residents succeeded in persuading the staff sergeant in charge of the operation to refrain from this action in the face of the imminent and seemingly inevitable surrender of the German military. Likewise, orders were issued for the destruction of those bridges that had remained unscathed (some of the bridges had been destroyed by the air strikes of 23 February, others damaged or destroyed earlier in the war). Only the Iron (Railway) Bridge in Weißenstein ward was saved by citizens who pulled off the fuse wiring from the explosive devices which had already been installed, and dropped it into Nagold river. On 8 April, French troops, including an armored vehicle unit, moved into Pforzheim from the northwest, and were able to occupy the area north of Enz river, but the area south of the Enz river was defended by a German infantry unit using artillery. Fighting was especially fierce in Broetzingen. The French army units (including an Algerian and Moroccan unit) suffered heavy losses; among the dead was the commander of the army unit, Capitaine Dorance. The advance of the French army came to a halt temporarily, but with the support of fighter-bomber aircraft and due to the bad condition of the defenders - which included many old men and young boys who had been drafted into the Volkssturm - the French troops took possession of the vast rubble field which once was the a residential town of the Baden Margraves on 18 April.
The three months of French occupation were reportedly marked by hostile attitudes on both the French army side and the Pforzheim population's side; incidents of rape and looting, mainly by Moroccan soldiers, were also reported. Au Bridge (Auerbruecke) and Wuerm Bridge received makeshift repairs by the French military. The US Army, which replaced the French troops on 8 July 1945, helped repair Goethe Bridge, Benckiser Bridge, Old Town Bridge (Altstädterbrücke) and Horse Bridge (Roßbrücke) in 1945 and the following year. The relationship between the population and the US military was reportedly more relaxed than had been the case with the French army.
1945–1965: Pforzheim was gradually rebuilt, giving Pforzheim a quite modern look. In September 1951 the Northern Town Bridge (Nordstadtbrücke) was inaugurated (the ceremony was attended by then Federal President Prof. Dr. Theodor Heuss). Jahn Bridge followed in December 1951, Werder Bridge in May 1952, the rebuilt Goethe Bridge in October 1952, and the rebuilt Old Town Bridge was inaugurated in 1954.
1955: On the occasion of the 500th birthday anniversary of Johannes Reuchlin, the city of Pforzheim established the Reuchlin Prize and awarded it for the first time in the presence of then President of the Federal Republic of Germany (West-Germany), Prof. Dr. Theodor Heuss.
1961: Inauguration of the culture center "Reuchlinhaus", which from then on housed the Jewellery Museum, the Arts and Crafts Association, the City Library, the Homeland Museum (Heimatmuseum), and the City Archives.
1968: On 10 July 1968, Pforzheim and its surrounding areas were hit by the Black Forest tornado, a rare F4 storm considered one of the worst in Germany in the 20th century. With wind speeds between 333 and 418 kilometers per hour and a path of around 30 km, it destroyed more than 2,000 buildings in the city and caused damages of around 130 million DM. Two people died in Ottenhausen and more than 200 people were injured. Across the town between Büchenbronn and Wurmberg, the storm caused severe damage to forest areas. During the first night and the following days French 3rd Hussar Regiment and the US Army soldiers, stationed at the Buckenberg Barracks, helped clear the streets of fallen trees (especially in the Buckenberg/Haidach area). It took about four weeks to carry out the most necessary repairs to buildings. The overhead electric contact wires for the electric trolley buses then still operating in town and the streetcar to the village of Ittersbach were never repaired, and those transport systems were retired.
1971–1975: The townships of Würm, Hohenwart, Buechenbronn, Huchenfeld and Eutingen were incorporated into the city administration.
1973: On 7 July 1973, Pforzheim inaugurated its New City Hall (Neues Rathaus) to replace the building destroyed in the 1945 air raid. Constructed between 1968 and 1973 in the Brutalist style, it was designed by architect Rudolf Prenzel.
1973 As part of the reform of administrative districts, the rural district of Pforzheim was incorporated into the newly established Enz rural district, which has its administration in Pforzheim. But the city of Pforzheim itself remains a district-less city. In addition, Pforzheim became the administrative center of the newly formed Northern Black Forest Region.
1975 On 1 January, the population exceeded 100.000 and Pforzheim gained the status of a "large city" (Grossstadt).
1979: Inauguration of the Pforzheim City Museum.
1983: Inauguration of the "Technical Museum of the Jewellery and Watchmaking Industry" and the "Citizens Museum".
1987: Inauguration of the City Convention Center.
1987/1990: Inauguration of the City Theater at the Waisenhausplatz.
1989: Sister City agreement with the City of Gernika, Spain.
1990: Sister City agreement with the City of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, France.
1991: Sister City agreement with the City of Vicenza, Italy.
1992: State Gardening Expo in Pforzheim. Enzauenpark was created and part of the Enz river was re-naturalized.
1994: Inauguration of the cultural institution "Kulturhaus Osterfeld".
1994: Merger of the Pforzheim Business School and the Pforzheim School of Design to form the Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences in Design, Technology and Business.
1995: Inauguration of the Archeological Site Kappelhof.
