History of the Raumberg School

Therefore, in the 1947/1948 school year, a two-year course in alpine agriculture for farmers and consultants was established at the venerable Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter in Salzburg, under the direction of Dr. Ladislaus Hula. Classes began on April 15, 1947, and the first graduates took their final exams on May 18, 1949. On February 21, 1948, the three-year course was officially opened in the village of Grins near Landeck, under the direction of Heinrich Putz, a civil engineer appointed by the Tyrolean state government. As early as February 1949, the school was relocated to the vacant "Hotel Post" in Seefeld, Tyrol, after the planned move to Stams Abbey, a Cistercian monastery, fell through. Alphons Kromer then assumed leadership. As early as January 1, 1950, DI Krommer was appointed Direktor in Wieselburg, and DI Edmund Lerner took over the management of the Seefeld school. Within the framework of the Marshall Plan, or ERP, a United States program to promote democracy and a market economy in the war-ravaged countries of Europe, the Seefeld agricultural school was also to be expanded and re-equipped. It soon became clear that the hotel building was unsuitable for a large-scale school operation. National Council member Johann Pötsch from Raumberg and Economic Advisor Franz Thoma from Gröbming, who served as Minister of Agriculture from 1952 to 1959, successfully lobbied for Raumberg to be considered as the new location for the ERP school. In 1954, the Republic of Austria purchased the necessary land for the school building, and construction began in 1955 according to plans drawn up by the Styrian state government. It is probably no coincidence that Josef Riegler, a graduate of Raumberg, developed the concept of the "Global Marshall Plan," which would serve as an education-based, ecologically, economically, and socially well-balanced guideline for human development. Our school itself is an example of development cooperation through education! Together with the Stainach Agricultural Cooperative, the secondary school in Raumberg, and the agricultural research institute relocated from Admont to Gumpenstein Castle, the Styrian Enns Valley was to become precisely what is now known in regional development as a "cluster." Thus, the school changed location once more, and so far for the last time. In November 1956, 180 students and their teachers, under Direktor of Edmund Lerner, moved into the new school building, which had been constructed in just two years. The opening of our school was celebrated with great optimism on November 24, 1956.

Pieslinger Herwig, Prof. OStR Dr.