The Pforzheimer Zeitung was founded in October 1949 by Jakob Esslinger, who had been operating in Pforzheim as a printer and newspaper publisher since 1928. His earlier newspaper was the daily "Pforzheimer Rundschau", a newspaper with a long tradition, which he took over in 1928 and published until March 1, 1943, when it was shut down by the Nazi regime citing "lack of paper" as the reason. But this reason was only a pretense, given the independence of the paper in times when the Nazi regime was aiming at total control of the media. The PZ was founded in economically difficult times after the end of World War II and in a town that to a large extent had been destroyed by an area bombardment.
