Baedeker 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
Baedeker 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 Automobile Association (The AA) and in the USA by Macmillan Travel, a Simon & Schuster Macmillan company. 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