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
Maximilian Karl, 6th Prince of Thurn and Taxis Karl and Mathilde Sophie had twelve children: In 1843, Maximilian Karl and his family moved to the newly constructed princely castle of the Thurn and Taxis family in Donaustauf, which was completed in the same year as the nearby Walhalla. The castle Donaustauf was completely destroyed during a blaze on 4 March 1880. In 1827, Maximilian Karl was his father's successor as head of the private Thurn-und-Taxis-Post which had its headquarters in Frankfurt am Main. With the annexation of the Free City of Frankfurt by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866 and the forced sale of Thurn-und-Taxis-Post for three million