Word: pforzheim
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...Pforzheim's jewelry firms were already digging themselves out. One of the first to get going was Adalbert Grosse, a necklace manufacturer. While his aged father scavenged for potatoes to feed the workmen, Adalbert rounded up 15 artisans to help rebuild his factory. They salvaged fragments of gold and silver buried in the rubble, bartered them for boards, bricks and concrete. Within a year the hardworking Grosses were back in business; their impressive turnover...
What helped Lascoe most was the West's decision to give Germany a new, healthy currency. Shops were empty, factories at a standstill because farmers and businessmen refused to sell their products for worthless Reichsmarks. One day in June 1948, a convoy of army trucks pulled into Pforzheim, bringing stacks of crisp, new Deutsche marks. Pforzheimers queued all day to exchange their old money for new. The city was transformed. Farmers glutted the market with fruit and vegetables; shop windows filled with furniture, cosmetics and shoes...
Marshall Plan aid reinforced Pforzheim's gains: 400,000 marks for a new bridge; 600,000 marks to rebuild the gasworks. On Pforzheim's wastelands, hundreds of new buildings mushroomed...
...Lascoe's job to infuse the new prosperity with democratic ideals. There were free city council elections. As Oberbiirgermeister the councillors chose Johann Peter Brandenburg, 44, an anti-Nazi lawyer who shared Lascoe's enthusiasm. Lascoe wanted the council to meet town-meeting style; no Pforzheim municipal official had ever before exposed himself to public questioning. Brandenburg winced but obliged, and won the city's first elections...