About Rundschau für den Schwäbischen Wald – Der Kocherbote

Rundschau für den Schwäbischen Wald – Der Kocherbote

The Rundschau für den Schwäbischen Wald – Der Kocherbote is the regional daily newspaper for Gaildorf and the surrounding Schwäbischer Wald (Swabian Forest) region in Baden-Württemberg, published as one of the regional editions (Kopfblätter) of the Südwest Presse. Appearing six times a week, the paper covers the town of Gaildorf on the Kocher river and the forest communities of the Schwäbisch Hall district with local reporting produced for the edition, while the national and regional pages come from the Südwest Presse's central newsroom in Ulm. With around 3,100 sold copies, it is one of the smaller editions of the SWP network — and the forest region's own daily newspaper.

Overview

The Rundschau für den Schwäbischen Wald – Der Kocherbote is published in Gaildorf, the historic town on the Kocher river at the edge of the Swabian Forest, and serves Gaildorf and the surrounding communities of the Schwäbisch Hall district — the villages and small towns of the Schwäbischer Wald, the forest landscape between Schwäbisch Hall, Backnang and Aalen. The edition appears Monday through Saturday as a Kopfblatt of the Südwest Presse: the paper carries its own historic double masthead, with local pages produced by its own editorial team, while the mantle — state, national and international news, business, culture and sport — comes from the SWP's central newsroom in Ulm.

The Südwest Presse, headquartered in Ulm, is one of Baden-Württemberg's large regional newspapers: the German Wikipedia article on the paper lists the Gaildorf edition among its regional editions in which the Neue Pressegesellschaft holds a majority stake, with 3,140 sold copies. The SWP as a whole sells around 191,000 copies across its editions and associated titles (IVW, 1st quarter of 2026), making it one of the heavyweights of the south-west German press. The Gaildorf edition's readers are the classic audience of the rural local press: families, craftsmen, farmers, foresters, local officials and club members in a region where the daily newspaper remains the central medium of community life.

The paper's distribution covers the Gaildorf area and the Schwäbischer Wald communities: Gaildorf itself with its historic old town and castle, the surrounding villages, and the forest region's scattered settlements. In much of its area the paper holds a local monopoly — the Schwäbischer Wald is too small and too rural for competing dailies — and its family notices, council reports and club announcements make it the chronicle of the forest's everyday life. The double name reflects the paper's heritage: the Rundschau für den Schwäbischen Wald and Der Kocherbote, two historic titles united under one roof.

History

The paper's history reflects the consolidation of the south-west German press in the post-war decades. The Südwest Presse itself was founded in 1946 as the Schwäbische Donau-Zeitung in the American occupation zone, by the publishers Kurt Fried, Johannes Weisser and Paul Thielemann; the Ebner publishing house became a major shareholder in the 1950s, the paper merged with the Ulmer Nachrichten in 1962, and in 1968 the Schwäbische Donau-Zeitung was renamed Südwest Presse. From its Ulm base, the SWP built a network of regional editions across eastern Baden-Württemberg — the Hohenloher Tagblatt in Crailsheim, the Haller Tagblatt in Schwäbisch Hall, the Geislinger Zeitung, the NWZ in Göppingen, the Schwäbisches Tagblatt in Tübingen — and the Gaildorf paper became the network's edition for the Schwäbischer Wald.

The publishing company behind the Gaildorf edition is the SÜDWEST PRESSE Neue Kreis-Rundschau GmbH, based in Gaildorf — the institutional carrier of the paper's local identity within the SWP group. The Neue Pressegesellschaft, the SWP's publishing company, is owned in equal parts by the Ebner Pressegesellschaft and the ZVD Mediengesellschaft, and the SWP's editor-in-chief is Ulrich Becker. The Gaildorf edition takes the SWP's mantle from Ulm while producing its own local pages — the classic Kopfblatt arrangement that preserves the historic masthead while sharing the costs of national journalism.

Like the entire German regional press, the paper has faced the structural decline of print circulation: the English Wikipedia's table of SWP editions records 4,495 paid copies for the Gaildorf edition in 2012, against 3,140 in the more recent German Wikipedia listing — a decline of around 30 percent in a decade, typical of the rural local press. The response has been the group's digital investment: the e-paper, the swp.de portal, and the gradual integration of the editions' reporting into the shared digital platform.

Coverage and Content

The paper's local pages cover Gaildorf and the Schwäbischer Wald in depth: the town of Gaildorf with its historic market square, the castle and the old town, the surrounding villages and forest settlements, the town and municipal councils, the local schools and kindergartens, the police and court reports, the volunteer fire brigades, the church parishes, and the dense network of clubs and associations — from traditional costume societies and brass bands to sports clubs, shooting associations and the forest and hiking clubs that reflect the region's identity. Forestry and woodland management, the economic and ecological backbone of the Schwäbischer Wald, receive regular attention, as do tourism and the region's hiking trails.

The mantle pages from Ulm provide the wider context: Baden-Württemberg state politics from Stuttgart, national and international news, the business section, culture and the sports pages. The combination is the classic German regional newspaper formula: the local edition for identity and community, the mantle for the world beyond the forest. Special editions mark the region's calendar: the Gaildorf festivals, the traditional markets, the Christmas markets and the seasonal events of the forest communities. The paper also serves as the official gazette for the area's municipalities, publishing statutory notices from land-use plans to election announcements.

Organization and Ownership

The Rundschau für den Schwäbischen Wald – Der Kocherbote is published by the SÜDWEST PRESSE Neue Kreis-Rundschau GmbH in Gaildorf, as a Kopfblatt of the Südwest Presse. The SWP's publishing company, the Neue Pressegesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, is owned in equal parts by the Ebner Pressegesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and the ZVD Mediengesellschaft; the SWP's editor-in-chief is Ulrich Becker. The German Wikipedia article on the Südwest Presse lists the Gaildorf edition among the regional editions in which the group holds a majority stake (over 50 percent), with 3,140 sold copies — the institutional framework that gives the small forest paper the backing of one of Baden-Württemberg's large publishers.

The paper's local editorial team works from Gaildorf, producing the edition's local pages within the SWP's editorial organization, while the mantle pages are produced by the central newsroom in Ulm. The papers of the SWP group are printed at five printing locations in which the Neue Pressegesellschaft holds significant stakes. Advertising sales for the edition are handled within the group's structures, with the paper's reach reported as part of the SWP's media data. The editor-in-chief of the local edition is not publicly confirmed in the sources consulted; the group's overall editorial leadership sits in Ulm.

Digital Presence

The paper's digital home is swp.de, the shared online platform of the Südwest Presse and its regional editions — one of the most visited regional news portals in Baden-Württemberg. The platform carries the day's news from across the SWP's distribution area, including the Gaildorf edition's local reporting, alongside the central newsroom's regional, national and international coverage. Readers can access the paper as an e-paper — the digital replica of the printed edition — and the portal offers breaking news, photo galleries, videos and interactive features.

The SWP has invested steadily in its digital offering: the swp.de portal, mobile applications, newsletters for the editions and social media channels that distribute the day's local stories. For the Gaildorf edition, the digital platforms extend the paper's reach beyond its print distribution area — former residents of the Schwäbischer Wald, commuters and the region's diaspora can follow their home region's news online. The e-paper has become an increasingly important product as print circulation declines, preserving the complete local edition — every council report, every club announcement, every family notice — in digital form for readers who no longer take the printed paper. The paper's journalists use the digital platforms for reader interaction, from comment functions to photo submissions, keeping the forest region's daily newspaper present in the digital media habits of the Schwäbischer Wald.