Schlosskirche St. Michael

The Schlosskirche St. Michael is Pforzheim's oldest building — a Romanesque–Gothic former collegiate church on the rocky bluff above the Enz. Most of the city around it was flattened in 1945, but enough of the church survived to allow reconstruction, and the result is a strange and powerful mixture of medieval stone and post-war restoration.

Inside, look for the Renaissance tomb monuments of the Baden-Durlach line in the choir, and the simple memorial slab to Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522), the Hebrew scholar and humanist born in Pforzheim. Open daily; free.

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A story
The Schlosskirche is the burial place of the Margraves of Baden-Durlach, and one of the few medieval buildings in Pforzheim to partly survive the 23 February 1945 firestorm. The vaulted choir and the Margrave tombs in the crypt are essentially intact; the rest of the church was rebuilt around them after the war.