Talk:Pforzheim

message: In the past, much has been written about the reason for the bombing of Pforzheim. Especially as Pforzheim was only a regional center with the character of a country town and only moderate industries, and because the relative number of casualties was so high (about one quarter of the population), the reason for the bombardment has stirred up much controversy. The RAF Bomber Command, which made the decision, so far has not disclosed all details about how the decision was made. The relevant, known facts are the following:
1. In response to the bombing of cities in the United Kingdom by the German Luftwaffe in 1940/1941, the British cabinet approved the aerial bombing of German cities by carpet bombing in early 1942. The aim was to break the morale of the population and disrupt industrial activity in Germany. Details are given in article Area bombardment.
2. Pforzheim appeared on a list of bombing targets in November 1944 with lowest priority on a scale of 5 priority levels.  A report compiled for RAF Bomber Command dated 28 June 1944, stated that Pforzheim was "one of the centres of the German jewellery and watch making trade and is therefore likely to have become of considerable importance in the production of precision instruments [of use in the war effort]." An Allied report issued in August 1944 stated that "almost every house in this town centre is a small workshop" and that there were few larger factories in the south and one in the north of the city centre. 
3. The mission order to bomb Pforzheim issued by the Bomber Command states as the intention of the raid on Pforzheim "to destroy built up area and associated industries and rail facilities". 
The British cabinet's decision to carpet bomb German cities and towns was carried out decisively by the RAF Bomber Command from mid 1943 under the leadership of Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur T. Harris. By February 1945 many of the higher priority targets had already been damaged badly (some of them repeatedly), and aided by the air superiority over Germany, which the Allies had gained by mid 1944, almost every day hundreds, sometimes more than 1000, RAF aircraft were on bombing missions to German cities and towns. The still (mostly) undamaged, but potential targets in western Germany left at that time were lower priority targets, such as Pforzheim, and most likely these were now increasingly considered in day-to-day target decision making. 
On February 23, 1945, cloud cover over central Germany and the Ruhr district prevented major air raids on higher priority targets there, while good visibility was predicted for southwest Germany.  So it apparently was decided to dispatch one division of the bomber fleet to destroy the built up area of Pforzheim, its associated industries and rail facilities. It was clear that the destruction of built-up area would entail a large number of civilian casualties, but this possibility had been anticipated and was put up with by the British cabinet when it made its decision in 1942, just as the German leadership earlier had ordered the bombing of Polish and British cities inspite of a large number of anticipated casualties. On the evening of the raid, the illuminant markings dropped in place over Pforzheim by pathfinder aircraft for delimiting the area to be bombed by the stream of bomber aircraft marked an area that included a large chunk of Pforzheim town area. A navigator of one the Lancaster aircraft reported that from a distance of 40 kilometres he saw a perfect ring of yellow light markers inside of which a field of green markers had been placed.  The RAF Bomber Command Campaign Diary of February 1945 reports for 23/24 February 1945: "The marking and bombing, from only 8,000 ft, were particularly accurate and damage of a most severe nature was inflicted on Pforzheim." The map showing the destroyed area on the official website of the City of Pforzheim shows that the marked ring-shaped area must have included the railway facilities and many factories, but the largest part of it were areas with family homes, apartment houses, shops, churches and public facilities. 
Judging by these accounts, the bombing of Pforzheim appears to have been a routine mission for the RAF along the lines of the carpet bombardment campaign. Working down the list, it was "Pforzheim's turn", as well as a bit of bad luck as far as the clear weather conditions were concerned. There is no reason to believe that any single one of the three aspects included in the mission order, i.e. "destroy built up area", "destroy associated industries" and "destroy rail facilities", was more dominant than the two others. In Pforzheim there was a built-up area of significant size and its population, there were factories which since May 29, 1942 had been manufacturing precious metal materials and precision machinery parts for the German armament effort  (this was most likely the reason for about 3,000 forced-labor workers to be present in town ; they would not be hand-crafting jewellery), and there was a modest (passenger) railway station and two freight railway yards through which military personnel trains and freight trains loaded with military equipment undoubtedly were rolling - as was the case almost everywhere on Germany's rails. We have no reports nor other indications that Pforzheim's railway facilities were used in other than the usual ways during the war. In fact, these facilities were quite small on an absolute scale (about 100 meters in width) and also small in comparison with the total town area, as can be verified by examining the "area of destruction map" of Pforzheim. 
The crews of a reconnaissance flight on Febr. 25, 1945 by the USAAF issued a report on the following day which gave an assessment of the destruction of the built-up area, the destruction of the buildings of ten of the larger companies involved in metal processing and instruments manufacture, the destruction of public buildings, and the destruction of the railway station and two freight yards. The RAF had its own reconnaissance flight on Febr. 28, 1945.  A post-war survey was carried out by the RAF to determine how much of the built-up area had been destroyed (result: 83%).  These reports reflect all three aspects of the mission order.
Thus in summary, unless we receive direct evidence from the RAF that one of the above-cited three aspects of the mission order was more prominent than the two others, all three aspects must be considered as having been equally important in the decision to bomb Pforzheim. 
However, there seems to be one more aspect which is worth pondering. By February 1945 the German military was loosing ground both in the east and the west, and the western front line was rapidly approaching the Rhine river. Pforzheim is located only about 30 kilometers from the Rhine river. The RAF Bomber Command Campaign Diaries of February and March 1945  reveal a concentration of strikes at cities and towns close to the Rhine: Mönchengladbach (Febr. 1), Ludwigshafen (Febr. 1), Mainz (Febr. 1),  Siegen (Febr. 1), Wiesbaden (Febr. 2), Karlsruhe (Febr. 2), Bonn (Febr. 4), Goch (Febr. 7), Kleve  (Febr. 7), Mainz (Febr. 7), Duisburg (Febr. 21), Worms (Febr. 21), Pforzheim (Febr. 23), Mainz (Febr. 27), Mannheim (March 1), Cologne (March 2), Zweibrücken (March 14), Hagen (March 15), Rheine (March 21), Wesel (Febr. 16, March 6, 23). This list does not include the strikes against war-crucial targets such as oil refineries and heavy armament factories, especially those in the Ruhr district.
Most of these towns suffered heavy blows, only Karlsruhe escaped because the RAF crews were unable to locate it because of cloud cover. The possibility that the RAF through these attacks was "preparing the ground" for the imminent invasion of German territory of state may therefore be considered as real. This kind of reasoning has been stated explicitly in the case of the February 14, 1945 bombardment of Dresden, which RAF Bomber Command claims that it was destroyed in  preparation for the invasion by the Red Army on the eastern front line , and this reason was also cited in the case of the bombardment of Zweibrücken close to the western front line.  If true, this argument could serve as one additional reason for the main raid on Pforzheim, but on the other hand it is not clear why Pforzheim was attacked and not the much larger Karlsruhe, which had more important railway facilities, was closer to the front line, had been missed once before, and must have had weather conditions similar to those in Pforzheim. Indeed, difficult to explain aspects remain. As much as this line of argumentation on the whole appears to be reasonable and probable, we do lack direct evidence from RAF documents to back it up.
===References===
*Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary
*Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary February 1945
*Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary March 1945
*Pforzheim - 23 February 1945 by Christian Groh. In German.
*Folge14: "23.Februar1945" Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 16 2005, No.38, p.20. In German.
*Folge16: "23.Februar1945" Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 18 2005, No.40, p.23. In German.
*Folge20: "23.Februar1945" Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 23 2005, No.44, p.22. In German.
*Folge22: "23.Februar1945" Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 25 2005, No.46, p.24. In German.
*Folge23: "23.Februar1945" Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 26 2005, No.47, p.24. In German.
*Map of destroyed town area
===Notes===
# References Christian Groh, Pforzheim.
# References Christian Groh, Pforzheim.
# References Christian Groh, Pforzheim.
# References Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary.
# References Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 18 2005 under headline "Fuellziel bedeutet Todesurteil".
# References Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 23 2005.
# References Map of destroyed town area. It shows the city plan of 1945. Black area indicates destroyed buildings, while red area indicates undamaged buildings.
# References Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 25 2005 also shows the map of destroyed area with textual explanations.
# References Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 16 2005 under headline "Code Yellowfin in Kritik".
#  References Christian Groh, Pforzheim.
# References The railway facilities appear on the map of destroyed town area in the upper half, with rails running horizontally in east-west direction.
# References Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 26 2005.
# References Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary February 1945.
# References Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary February 1945.
# References Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary March 1945.
# References Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary February 1945.
# References Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary March 1945.
 
" ...it is not clear why Pforzheim was attacked and not the much larger Karlsruhe, which had more important railway facilities, was closer to the front line, had been missed once before ... " - the British were reading the German Deutsche Reichsbahn signals detailing the traffic using the railways, and it is possible they didn't bomb Karlsruhe because the Wehrmacht supplies to a particular Front at the time weren't being routed through Karlsruhe, but through Pforzheim.
At that stage of the war Germany's railways were being bombed and rocketed by Allied aircraft and so lines could be out of service necessitating trains being re-routed through other, perhaps lesser used, areas. It's possible Pforzheim was bombed because a train carrying troops or armour was due through there going to the Front and they wanted to stop or delay it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.52 (talk) 17:14, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Draft of text: On the reason for the Pforzheim bombardment 

message: # References Christian Groh, Pforzheim.
# References Christian Groh, Pforzheim.
# References Christian Groh, Pforzheim.
# References Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary.
# References Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 18 2005 under headline "Fuellziel bedeutet Todesurteil".
# References Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 23 2005.
# References Map of destroyed town area. It shows the city plan of 1945. Black area indicates destroyed buildings, while red area indicates undamaged buildings.
# References Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 25 2005 also shows the map of destroyed area with textual explanations.
# References Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 16 2005 under headline "Code Yellowfin in Kritik".
#  References Christian Groh, Pforzheim.
# References The railway facilities appear on the map of destroyed town area in the upper half, with rails running horizontally in east-west direction.
# References Pforzheimer Zeitung of February 26 2005.
# References Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary February 1945.
# References Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary February 1945.
# References Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary March 1945.
# References Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary February 1945.
# References Official RAF Web Site: Campaign Diary March 1945.
 
" ...it is not clear why Pforzheim was attacked and not the much larger Karlsruhe, which had more important railway facilities, was closer to the front line, had been missed once before ... " - the British were reading the German Deutsche Reichsbahn signals detailing the traffic using the railways, and it is possible they didn't bomb Karlsruhe because the Wehrmacht supplies to a particular Front at the time weren't being routed through Karlsruhe, but through Pforzheim.
At that stage of the war Germany's railways were being bombed and rocketed by Allied aircraft and so lines could be out of service necessitating trains being re-routed through other, perhaps lesser used, areas. It's possible Pforzheim was bombed because a train carrying troops or armour was due through there going to the Front and they wanted to stop or delay it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.52 (talk) 17:14, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Notes

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message: The photograph of the school is in the wrong place. 90.249.31.216 (talk) 08:06, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
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