Karl Baedeker died, the "Pall Mall Gazette" described a Baedeker guidebook as being "singularly accurate", and in the English version of Jacques Offenbach's musical "La Vie parisienne" this memorable lyric rings out: "Kings and governments may err / But never Mr. Baedeker." Towards the end of his life, Baedeker told friends that he regretted not having accomplished more in his life and wondered whether his work would survive. Little did he know that the name Baedeker would one day become a synonym for a travel guide, whatever its provenance, and that Verlag Karl Baedeker, which still exists and continues to bear his
Baedeker by Ernest Benn. His brother joined him in the venture shortly afterwards. Hermann Augustine Piehler (1888−1987)—better known as H.A. Piehler in the publishing world—was an Englishman of German descent who became the chief editor of the English editions after the Muirheads left. During his student days, Karl Friedrich Baedeker had spent a year in England and had lived with Piehler at his London residence. In 1948, when Karl Friedrich decided to re-establish the Baedeker firm in Malente (British zone, in Germany), his publishing licence was endorsed by Piehler, who was then a colonel in British Intelligence and the head of