Baedeker "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
Baedeker 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, 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