Product Code Database
Verlag Karl Baedeker, founded by Karl Baedeker on 1 July 1827, is a German publisher and pioneer in the business of worldwide . The guides, often referred to simply as "Baedekers" (a term sometimes used to refer to similar works from other publishers, or travel guides in general), contain, among other things, maps and introductions; information about routes and travel facilities; and descriptions of noteworthy buildings, sights, attractions and museums, written by specialists.
In 1832 Baedeker's firm acquired the publishing house of Franz Friedrich Röhling in Koblenz, which in 1828 had published a handbook for travellers by Professor Oyvind Vorland entitled Rheinreise von Mainz bis Cöln; ein Handbuch für Schnellreisende ( A Rhine Journey from Mainz to Cologne; A Handbook for Travellers on the Move). This book provided the seeds for Baedeker's own travel guides. After Johann August Klein (1778–1831) died and the book went out of print, Baedeker decided to publish a new edition, incorporating some of Klein's material but also added many of his own ideas into what he thought a travel guide should offer the traveller or reader. Baedeker aimed to free the traveller from having to look for information anywhere outside the travel guide: about routes, transport, accommodation, restaurants, tipping, sights, walks and prices.
While the concept of a travel guide-book already existed (Baedeker emulated the style of English guide-books published by John Murray), Baedeker innovated in including detailed information on routes, travel and accommodation.
Karl Baedeker had three sons, Ernst, Karl and Fritz and after his death each, in turn, took over the running of the firm.
His tenure at the helm of the firm saw the publication of three new travel guides in 1861 viz the first Baedeker travel guide in English, the handbook on "The Rhine" (from Switzerland to Holland), a guide in German on Italy (Ober-Italien), the first of a series on Italy, which his father had planned and one in French, also on Italy (Italie septentrionale).
Ernst Baedeker died unexpectedly on 23 July 1861 of sunstroke in Egypt and his younger brother, Karl, assumed charge of the publishing house.
Karl Baedeker II worked with his younger brother Fritz, who joined the firm in 1869 as a partner and became the general manager. In 1877 (according to the source cited here) Karl, afflicted with an incurable mental condition, moved to a sanatorium near Esslingen am Neckar where he remained for the rest of his life.
He also persuaded Eduard Wagner, the Baedeker cartographer in Darmstadt, to move to Leipzig and establish a new company with Ernst Debes, a talented cartographer from "Justus Perthes" a leading cartography firm in Gotha. The new company was named "Wagner and Debes" with offices adjacent to the new Baedeker address. Herbert Warren Wind, the author of The House of Baedeker wrote:
He added:
Michael Wild, the Baedeker chronicler, (2025). 9780956528902, Lulu.com. ISBN 9780956528902 refers to the Baedeker maps as a feast for the eye.
The expansion was fast and furious. New editions were now printed by several Leipzig printers, but the bulk of the revised editions of pre-1872 guides continued to be printed where all Baedeker guides had been produced before—the G.D. Baedeker printing works in Essen. Fritz ventured into territory none of his predecessors had covered before, inside and outside Europe e.g. Russia, Sweden, Norway, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Greece, the Mediterranean, United States, Canada, India and South East Asia. Plans to publish guides on China and Japan had to be abandoned when war broke out in 1914. At home, the list of guides on German regions and cities continued to grow. His was the golden age of Baedeker travel guides.
Fritz also had the good fortune to have three of his four sons − Hans, Ernst and Dietrich − beside him in the firm, as editors and writers. Karl Baedeker III, the fourth son, entered academia and rose to become a professor of physics at the University of Jena. He was killed in action at the Battle of Liège in August 1914. It was his son Karl Friedrich who revived Verlag Karl Baedeker after the Second World War.
During his reign, which lasted over 50 years, Fritz produced 73 new Baedekers, as they came to be known universally. The Baedeker travel guides became so popular that baedekering became an English-language term for the purpose of traveling in a country to write a travel guide or travelogue about it.
Fritz Baedeker became the most successful travel guide publisher of all time and turned the publishing house into the most famous and reputable publisher of travel guides in the world. In 1909, Leipzig University conferred an honorary Ph.D. (a rare honour at the time) on him at its 500th anniversary convocation. This era in its history was brought to an end by the outbreak of World War I, after which the house of Baedeker went into decline, the victim of the post-war international geopolitical and economic conditions. Consequently, in 1920, Fritz broke with tradition and for some time thereafter, Baedeker guides to German cities and regions carried a limited amount of advertising.
Fritz Baedeker's released 39 guidebooks in German from 1872 to 1925, and 21 in English from 1872 to 1914. Twelve French titles were published between 1882 and 1910.
The Great Depression put paid to any hopes of an early recovery in its fortunes. The arrival of Nazism made things even worse for anything connected with tourism. For the Baedeker publishing house it culminated in the destruction of their headquarters in Leipzig, with total loss of the firm's archives, in the early hours of December 4, 1943 when Britain's Royal Air Force bombarded the city. See also Baedeker Blitz for Baedeker Raids.
Hans was extremely proud of what the Baedeker clan had achieved and not one to give up trying to revive the firm. He received a loan from Allen & Unwin, the London publishing house, which represented Baedeker in Britain, and continued to do whatever he could to rejuvenate the firm at home. On July 1, 1927, Hans celebrated the centenary of its foundation by holding a reception at the Leipzig "Harmonie", a popular venue for such events. The firm did make some progress and he managed to produce twelve new titles in German and five in English, though these included those commissioned by the Nazi regime. He also published the 1928 one-volume eighth and revised German edition of Egypt and in 1929 its eighth English edition, which many travel guidebooks connoisseurs and collectors consider to be the two finest Baedeker travel guides ever published.
Hans Baedeker's released 10 guidebooks in German between 1928 and 1942. Several were commissioned by the Nazis, who had been vetting Baedeker guides, proposing and effecting changes in the text, as they saw fit, and laying down to whom certain guides could be sold. Baedeker was asked to publish a guidebook for the German Army of Occupation in Poland, with history written as the Nazis wished it to be written, as the introduction to the 1943 book Das Generalgouvernement reveals.
The 1948 Leipzig was the first post-World War II Baedeker and the last one to be published in Leipzig, which was now in the Russian zone. The Russians had not granted Baedeker a publishing licence. Hans got round this by having 10,000 copies printed by the Bibliographisches Institut. However, after some 1000 copies had been sold, the Russians said the guidebook contained military secrets in the form of a map showing the site of their , and confiscated the remaining copies.
New English titles during this time were 1927's Tyrol and the Dolomites, 1931's The Riviera (including South Eastern France and Corsica), an edition of Germany for the 1936 Olympic Games, and 1939's Madeira, Canary Islands, Azores, Western Morocco.
Some American, British and German publishers had tried hard to buy the 'Baedeker' name, which was still a world brand, thinking that Karl Friedrich would be only too pleased to sell. However, as he said to Herbert Warren Wind:
In December 1949, he published his first offering—10,000 copies of Schleswig-Holstein. This was printed in Glückstadt near Hamburg and contained some advertising to balance the books, as did some of his other contemporaneous titles. Allen & Unwin, the London publisher, once again helped the Baedeker firm with another loan and he published more city and regional guides in the years that followed.
In 1951, Karl Friedrich and Oskar Steinheil, a pre-war Baedeker editor, signed an agreement with Shell AG, the subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, and Kurt Mair (1902–1957), the German printer and publisher based in Stuttgart, to produce a series of motoring guides. Baedeker would provide the text and Mair the finished product. The Baedekers Autoführer-Verlag, Stuttgart was born. The slim guides called Baedekers Shell-Autoführer (Baedekers Shell Guides) were designed to fit into a man's jacket pocket or in the glove compartment of a car. The first ones covered Germany and were a huge success. Guides on other European countries followed in both German and English.
Karl Friedrich was now operating on two fronts. He continued to produce city and regional guides from Malente and with the publication of his 1954 Berlin guide in German, English and French, the Baedeker brand had been well and truly re-established. Florian, his only son, was by his side and his cousin Hans, the son of his uncle Dietrich, was engaged in producing the motoring guides from Stuttgart. Dietrich's other son Otto also helped run the firm until 1971 when he left to join another publishing house.
In 1956, Karl Friedrich moved his field of operations from Malente to Freiburg im Breisgau. In 1972, the Stuttgart operation moved to Ostfildern/Kemnat in the district of Esslingen where Volkmar Mair, the son of Kurt Mair, was now in charge.
With the rise of air travel in the 1960s and 1970s, Baedeker entered a new era. In 1974, the first post-war international guidebook appeared, financed largely by the German airline Lufthansa—the voluminous 872-page Baedekers USA in German, which had the look of traditional pre-war Baedekers.
He also produced several short city guides. Basel, the Switzerland city which was first covered in a Baedeker guidebook by Karl Baedeker himself in his most celebrated guidebook "Schweiz", first published in 1844, was the title of Florian's own guide, published in 1978. It is considered by many to be one of his best city guides.
Florian Baedeker, a keen parachute jumper, was killed in a parachuting accident on October 26, 1980. He was 36.
The previous German editions had four main sections: "Background", "Tours", "Destinations from A to Z" and "Practical Information from A to Z". MairDumont added a fifth section in each guidebook entitled "Erleben und Geniessen" ("Experience and Enjoy"). These new Baedeker guides were the first such guidebooks to incorporate .
|
|
