Durchs Kupfer- und Kochertal

On the road with regional geographer Robert Gradmann. From country pastor to professor of geography and thus the most important regional historian of the 19th century. Robert Gradmann, born in Lauffen am Neckar in 1865, worked as a country priest in Forchtenberg from 1891 to 1901.

Here, he not only fulfilled his pastoral duties, but also founded a Raiffeisen loan fund, was responsible for the further education

of primary school teachers and worked on his work "The plant life of the Swabian Alb, with consideration of the neighboring areas of southern Germany", which he began in Tübingen during his training. Eugen Nägele, the editor of the "Blätter des Schwäbischen Albvereins" at the time, had once encouraged him to do so.

This comprehensive work was recognized as a dissertation and Robert Gradmann was awarded a doctorate summa cum laude as Dr. scientiae naturalis from the Faculty of Natural Sciences! Hohenlohe had a multifaceted impact. Librarian and private lecturer in geography (1901 - 1919) in Tübingen and then professor in Erlangen until 1936 were his further stations. Since then, hardly any description of the region (the "Kingdom of Württemberg", descriptions of the upper districts) can do without Gradmann's description and organization of the landscape.
Even today's common terms in ecology, such as Bannwälder, Prallhänge and Steppenheide were coined by R. Gradmann as early as 1905. His scientific interests included the connections between soil, climate, vegetation and settlement history.</p