Editing Baedeker (section)

==History (since 1948)==
===Karl Friedrich Baedeker===
1948−1979: Karl Friedrich Baedeker (1910−1979) was the son of [[Karl Baedeker (scientist)|Karl Baedeker]] III, who was killed in action at the [[Battle of Liège]] in 1914. He had worked as an editor at the firm before the outbreak of the [[Second World War]]. During the war, he saw active service and rose to the rank of captain.  Towards the closing stages of the war, he was taken prisoner in Austria by the Americans. After the war, he moved to Malente-Gremsmühlen in [[Schleswig-Holstein]], where his wife and sister were living and which was in the British zone. Here, he worked in local government until 1948, latterly sorting out the [[Schleswig-Holstein]] archives when he decided to revive the family publishing business under the name of ''Karl Baedeker''.  His uncle Hans had decided to stay on in Leipzig, which was now under the jurisdiction of the Russians who had not granted him a publishing licence. However,  they were very close and Karl could draw on his uncle's experience to get things going.  Even before the outbreak of war, Hans used to tell him:<ref name="herbertwarrenwind"/>

{{blockquote|"You're the oldest Baedeker of the next generation. You will carry on."}}

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]]:<ref name="herbertwarrenwind"/>
{{blockquote|"The war had been almost too much for us. But I never seriously considered any of the offers. I had been brought up to regard Baedeker as a family company. It was as simple as that."}}

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 {{lang|de|Baedekers Autoführer-Verlag}}, [[Stuttgart]] was born. The slim guides called {{lang|de|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 [[Esslingen (district)|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.

===Florian Baedeker===
Florian Baedeker (1943−1980), the only son of Karl Friedrich Baedeker, succeeded him when he died in 1979. After completing his studies in [[Munich]] in 1971, he had devoted himself to matters relating to book publishing under the guidance of his father, and had helped him with the preparation of the ''Munich'' guide, released for the 1972 [[1972 Summer Olympics|Munich Olympic Games]]. Florian also carried out most of the work involved in preparing the city guides titled [[Baden-Baden]], [[Konstanz|Constance]], [[Strasbourg]] and [[Wiesbaden]], published in the mid-1970s.<ref name="herbertwarrenwind"/>

He also produced several short city guides.<ref>{{cite web|last=Baedeker |first=Karl |url=http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3ABaedeker%2C+Florian.&qt=hot_author |title=Results for 'au:Baedeker, Florian.' | publisher=Worldcat.org |access-date=2013-02-17}}</ref>
[[Basel]], the [[Switzerland|Swiss]] 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.<ref>{{cite book|title=Basel : Stadtführer (Book, 1978) |publisher=[WorldCat.org] |oclc = 600476248}}</ref>

Florian Baedeker, a keen parachute jumper, was killed in a parachuting accident on October 26, 1980. He was 36.

===Eva Baedeker===
Following the death of Florian, his mother, Karl Friedrich's widow Eva Baedeker, née Konitz (1913−1984), piloted the firm until she died in 1984. She was the last Baedeker to play an active role in running the Baedeker publishing house founded in 1827, and negotiated the sale of the Freiburg branch to [[Langenscheidt]] before she died. However, the  "Karl Baedeker"  brand name has been retained by all subsequent owners of the company, in one form or another.

===Allianz===
Since 1979 Baedeker travel guides have appeared as {{lang|de|Baedeker Allianz Reiseführer}} (travel guides), published in collaboration with the German insurance group [[Allianz]]. Multi-coloured with copious illustrations and in many languages, they now cover most of the popular tourist destinations in the world. Over 150 guides have been published already and the list keeps growing, as well as the number of languages in which they are published.
In Britain, the guides have been published in collaboration with the British [[The AA|Automobile Association]] and in the USA by Macmillan Travel, a [[Simon & Schuster Macmillan]] company.

===Langenscheidt===
The [[Freiburg]] Baedeker branch was acquired by the German publisher [[Langenscheidt]] following the death of Eva Baedeker. In 1987, both Baedeker branches, the [[Langenscheidt]] operation in [[Freiburg]] and the Baedeker Autoführer Verlag in [[Stuttgart]] operated by the Mairs publishing group, were merged and housed together in Ostfildern/Kemnat as "Karl Baedeker [[GmbH]]" with a branch in [[Munich]]. The ownership of the new venture was split down the middle between Langenscheidt and Mairs.