Karl Baedeker publishing house
The Karl Baedeker Verlag is a German publisher , of the publication of the Baedeker travel guide specializes. Today he belongs to the MairDumont Group based in Ostfildern .
Company history
From the foundation to 1945
About the Baedeker editions of the publisher in detail:
The beginning under Karl Baedeker in 1827
After studying humanities in Heidelberg , the trained bookseller Karl Baedeker opened a publishing bookstore in Koblenz on July 1, 1827 . In the same year, the Prussian-Rhenish Steamship Company began regular shipping between Cologne and Mainz. The teacher and historian Johann August Klein (1778-1831) then wrote the Rhine journey from Mainz to Cöln, a manual for fast travelers , which Franz Friedrich Röhling published in 1828 (D 0). Karl Baedeker acquired his publishing house in 1832 and revised and expanded the Rheinreise so that with the appearance of the second edition in 1835 (D 1) one can speak of the first independent Baedeker travel guide. In 1839 the third edition of the Rheinreise (D 2) and the volumes Belgium (D 262) and Holland (D 259) appeared, in 1842 Baedeker published Germany and the Austrian Imperial State (D 38), followed in 1844 by Switzerland (D 289). In 1846, Baedeker introduced the red binding with gold embossing and the Baedeker stars, which for a long time were considered the highest accolades in tourism. Karl Baedeker's last work Paris and Surroundings appeared in 1855 (D 329), and died four years later.
The publishing house under the sons of Karl Baedeker from 1859
After the company's founder's death, his sons ran the publishing house, initially the eldest son, Ernst (1833–1861), who published the first English-language title ( The Rhine ), but died in 1861 at the age of only 28; afterwards Karl jr. (1837–1911), who added other titles in English to the program. In 1869 the younger brother Fritz (1844–1925) also became a partner in the publishing house. The two brothers gave up their father's bookstore in 1870 and relocated the publishing house to the publishing metropolis of Leipzig in 1872 . After seven years, Karl had to retire from the management of the publishing house in 1878 at the age of 40 due to a mental illness, Fritz now became the sole owner of the publishing house. Heinrich Ritter had already joined the publishing house in 1853 , became an authorized signatory in 1862 and a partner in 1878; he played a key role in the publication of the travel guide.
The extremely successful publishing house Fritz Baedeker, who brought the short text Baedeker style to perfection, had to cope with a significantly deteriorated market environment after the end of the First World War until his death in 1925, after the sale of the prestigious India volume from 1914 (D 499 ) and other titles with foreign travel destinations, such as Constantinople, Balkan States, Asia Minor, Archipelago, Cyprus (D 498) (1914) and Egypt and Sudan (D 493, 1913) as well as Russia (D 463, 1912) and Spain and Portugal (D 475, 1912), should not have been done to a great extent. The inflation then led to the impoverishment of the middle classes who were among the main buyers of travel guides. The associated shortage of foreign currency in Germany forced many German travel enthusiasts to limit themselves to domestic travel destinations, which from 1920 onwards led to the publication of so-called regional guides, such as for Brandenburg, Saxony, Silesia or - most recently in 1925 - Württemberg.
The grandchildren run the publishing house
After Fritz Baedeker's death, his sons Ernst, Dietrich and Hans Baedeker continued to run the publishing house. The tolerant working atmosphere at the publishing house at the time, which was completely results-oriented and without time pressure, required the elaboration of exact travel manuals, but also, in an old-fashioned way, was characterized by work on standing desks , was documented by the art historian Gerhard Peters , who worked there from 1925 to 1934, looking back in 1987 He noted to the editorial staff that, in addition to the publishing house owners and some auxiliary editors as well as external employees, the editors Ferdinand Moll , Eduard Reusch, Eugen Andrae and the cartographer Fritz Hölzel, who maintained a cartographic master's studio in Rheda after the Second World War, and were one of the founding members of the cartographic department Messages should belong, belonged.
On July 1, 1927, the publishing house celebrated its centenary with 22 members of the editorial team, office and bookbinding department as well as the owners of the Leipzig restaurant "Harmonie".
In 1928, after the successful excavations in the Valley of the Kings , the publisher succeeded in bringing a non-European travel destination back into the focus of the publisher's program and in bringing a revised edition of the Egyptian volume onto the market, but from 1929 the company got caught up in the global economic crisis again in a prolonged economic hardship. This was initially countered by financial support from the British publisher of the English-language Baedeker volumes Allen and Unwin at the end of the 1920s. Baedeker volumes were taken into stock as security for his loan with 6% interest. It was not until 1934, after an interest-free government loan of RM 120,000 had been granted, that the capital weakness was remedied in the long term, but it led to the publisher's dependence on the Propaganda Ministry .
During the Second World War, the travel market collapsed again and with it the demand for travel guides. The publishing house on Nürnberger Straße was completely destroyed in the devastating bomb attack on December 3, 1943, which hit the Leipzig book trade district particularly hard, so that Baedeker from then on managed the publishing house from Villa Baedeker . The publisher's archive with all text and many map templates was also lost. It would then take more than 30 years until 1974, Baedekers USA, could again be presented as a travel guide with a destination overseas.
After the Second World War
The Baedeker publishing houses
Karl Friedrich Baedeker (1910–1979), a great-grandson of the founder, founded a new company in Malente in 1948 under the old name; the company headquarters moved to Freiburg im Breisgau in 1956 . In 1951, Karl Friedrich Baedeker joined forces with the publisher and cartographer Kurt Mair (1902–1957) in Stuttgart and founded the Baedekers Shell -Autoführer . After Kurt Mair's death, his son Volkmar (* 1931) took over the management of the publishing house. In 1972 the publishing house moved from Stuttgart to Ostfildern-Kemnat in the Esslingen district in the new publishing house of the Mair Group. After Karl Friedrich Baedeker died in 1979 and his son died shortly afterwards, Langenscheidt KG bought the Freiburg part of the publishing house. In 1987 the two publishing houses merged as Karl Baedeker GmbH based in Ostfildern / Kemnat. In 1997 Mairs Geographischer Verlag (since 2005 MairDumont) acquired the Karl Baedeker publishing house with all naming rights. Stephanie Mair-Huydts (* 1963) has been the publisher and managing director since 2010, while Rainer Eisenschmid is the editor-in-chief.
The Baedeker Travel Guide
About the Baedeker editions of this time in detail:
From 1948 to 1978, Karl Baedeker Verlag published country, regional and city editions in classic Baedeker format. On the other hand, the aforementioned Shell car guides as well as car travel guides, compact travel guides and a USA country guide were published by Baedeker Autoführer-Verlag .
In spring 1979 the Baedeker Autoführer-Verlag started the series of the Baedeker Allianz travel guides . It was in the colors of the participating companies "red / blue". The upright format with cardboard cover was later switched to a paperback cover in normal book format. From September 2010 onwards, they were also supplied with a “Special Guide” that dealt with specific topics for each holiday region. A total of over 150 Baedeker Allianz travel guides had been published by 2012 .
A newly designed Baedeker generation without the addition "Allianz" hit bookstores from 2013; the blue stripe on the upper edge of the cover, which has now been introduced to today's buyers, was retained. The brochures are for the first time equipped with infographics and are published under the motto "Knowledge opens worlds". As new releases in 2015, the publisher also offers so-called Baedeker SMART travel guides , which are described by the publisher as compact travel guides in a ring binding.
In 2018 the design was revised again. The title of the series has been reduced to a red rectangle containing the title and a white capitals as well as the series name "Baedeker" in the blue field. The book pages are held together by a rubber band in the Moleskine style. The bindings of the SMART volumes now have two cover photos. The previous level of the price levels, which is determined by the volume of the band, was retained. Until all titles have been converted to the new equipment with content updates, editions with both versions will still be distributed in parallel.
literature
- Alex W. Hinrichsen: Baedeker's travel guides 1832–1990; Bibliography 1832-1944; Directory 1948–1990; Publishing history , 2nd edition Bevern 1991.
- English: Alex W. Hinrichsen: Baedeker's Travel Guides 1832–1990. Bibliography 1832-1944; Listing 1948-1990. History of the publishing house . 2nd edition 2008 ( partially digitized ).
- Baedeker: A name becomes a global brand , Ostfildern 1998, ISBN 3-89525-830-X .
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ The serial number of the catalog numbers in this article follows the information provided by Hinrichsen: Baedeker's Travel Handbooks 1832–1990 , Bevern 1991.
- ↑ a b In fact, the volume appeared as early as autumn 1913 - including the Leipzig DNB registry: 19 13 A ... - The following year is indicated as the year of publication on the title page, corresponding to more frequent publishing practice .
- ↑ a b Gerhard Peters: Editor of Baedeker's travel manuals 1925–1934 . in: Reisen und Leben Issue 15, 1987 ( online version )
- ^ Judith C. Joos: Trustees for the Public? British book publishers between intellectual independence, economic interest and patriotic obligation during the Second World War . Verlag Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-447-05744-8 , p. 108 ff.