The History of Cartography, Volume 6
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mattered little during the economic crisis of the 1930s, and production was terminated in 1931, leaving the fi rm solely dependent on the Baedeker maps. Since Debes had worked on Stieler’s Handatlas in Gotha, his interest in designing a large, modern gen- W eral reference atlas using multicolor lithography is not surprising. His fi rst such work appeared in 1895, with Wagner & Debes (Germany). The history of the car- fi fty map sheets. Although it went through four edi- tographic publishing house Wagner & Debes is inter- tions and remained on the market with the 1914 edition twined with four prominent names in German publish- until 1919, the project was only marginally profi table. ing: Eduard Wagner, Karl Baedeker, and his descendants A small fi rm like Wagner & Debes could not compete Ernst Debes and Paul Oestergaard. Wagner & Debes successfully with Velhagen & Klasing, which published began in 1841 as a collaboration between the lithogra- Andree’s Handatlases. In addition, Wagner & Debes pher Wagner and the bookseller-publisher Baedeker that printed its maps from stone plates, and even though the lasted over one hundred years, ending in 1943. Baedeker fi rm used fast stone plate presses, the process remained is well known for his extensive series of travel guides for uneconomical because its plates were engraved directly which Wagner’s fi rm produced all of the maps. Debes on stone and thus were not easily replaced. By contrast, became a partner of Wagner in 1872. maps for Stieler’s Handatlas were originally engraved on During their collaborative years the cartographic work copperplates and then transferred to stone by a process of the Wagner fi rm (later Wagner & Debes) fell into four that made it easy to replace worn or damaged plates main categories: city maps and illustrations for the Bae- (Espenhorst 2003). deker guides, school atlases for various grade levels, a Despite these handicaps, the maps received interna- Handatlas (general reference atlas) compiled by Debes, tional recognition. In St. Petersburg the publisher Adol’f and numerous individual maps and small atlases pro- Fëdorovich Marks announced his intent to publish a duced on special order, such as an atlas of church history Russian reference atlas based on the Debes Handatlas. and an atlas of locations mentioned in the Old and New A colleague of Debes, Max Groll, traveled to St. Peters- Testaments (for details on atlases, see AtlasBase). burg to work with Eduard Yul’evich Petri, and later with From 1877 onward, the two fi rms—one directed by Yuliy Mikhaylovich Shokal’skiy, on the production of a Debes and the other by Fritz Baedeker, Karl’s son—op- modern general reference atlas. The resulting work fi rst erated under a single roof in Leipzig. The clear and con- appeared in 1905 and was continued through several sistent cartographic style that evolved under Baedeker’s editions until 1917 (Espenhorst 2003, 659–60). infl uence made reliable geographic details readily acces- A second project was undertaken in Prague: the fi rst sible to serious travelers (fi gs. 1089 and 1090) (Baum- large general reference atlas in Czech. Jindrˇich Metelka, garten and Baumgarten 1998, 40–41). who cofounded of the Czech geographical society, was Eduard Wagner had published school atlases at least initially in charge. His maps were based on those in the as early as 1840. Ernst Debes, who had worked for the Debes Handatlas, and were developed in close coopera- fi rm Justus Perthes, continued this tradition and in 1880 tion with the publisher in Leipzig. Despite this combi- launched an integrated series of progressively more de- nation of a local expert and an experienced publisher tailed school atlases. These atlases sold as well as the with a ready model, the project was not completed until Justus Perthes school atlases but never achieved the sales 1924. volume of school atlases published by Westermann or Another somewhat obscure project was a large Hun- Velhagen & Klasing. Although the Wagner & Debes at- garian reference atlas developed under the direction of lases were superior to those of its competitors, quality Count Pál Teleki in collaboration with Wagner & Debes. Wagner & Debes 1691 A total of sixty-fi ve maps were initially planned, but by ently worked together as early as 1880, when Wagner 1914 only thirty-seven had been published. The project & Debes produced an atlas for Austria (Kleiner Schul- was not resumed after World War I. Atlas [Vienna]). This was followed in 1882 by an atlas Following World War I, school atlases were the most for Denmark (Skole-Atlas) and a series of school atlases profi table segment of the cartographic market. Wagner under the title Atlas universal for countries in Central & Debes produced school atlases for Spanish-speaking and South America. There was also a version in Portu- countries as well as Latvia. In 1922 the fi rm even pro- guese, presumably for use in Brazil. The maps in these duced one for Turkey with map labels and descriptive atlases were among the best available at the time in Cen- text in Arabic. There might have been versions in other tral and South America and in Spain. foreign languages as well: a school atlas in Hebrew dis- Wagner & Debes believed that foreign markets had covered around the turn of the century was published such a bright future that they established a cartographic in London in 1925 using cartography from Wagner & branch in Barcelona and arranged for the publishing Debes (fi g. 1091). Indeed, the fi rm was so well known house FTD (a mission order of the Marists) to distribute internationally that the Soviet government decided to school atlases to Catholic schools in Spain and South produce a school atlas in Russian at Wagner & Debes America. This endeavor ended in the late 1930s, when and even had it printed in Leipzig. FTD facilities at Barcelona were destroyed by Republi- Following World War I the company allied itself with can troops during the Spanish Civil War. the book wholesalers Köhler & Volckmar, a fi rm with With the onset of the economic crisis in the late 1920s international connections that enabled Wagner & Debes the demand for travel guides plummeted so dramatically to obtain foreign contracts. The two fi rms had appar- that Baedeker was forced to ask the German government Fig. 1089. DETAIL FROM BAEDEKER’S DIE SCHWEIZ, Size of the entire original: 26.7 × 37.9 cm; size of detail: 1913. The map has the same scale, 1:1,000,000, as the map 10.9 × 17.3 cm. From Karl Baedeker, Die Schweiz: Nebst in fi gure 1090, which was produced the following year at the den angrenzenden Teilen von Oberitalien, Savoyen und Tirol, same facility. This earlier map is clearer and easier for travelers Handbuch für Reisende, 35th ed. (Leipzig: Baedeker, 1913), to read than the map in fi gure 1090. map before the title page. 1692 Wagner & Debes Fig. 1090. DETAIL FROM DEBES’S ALPENLÄNDER, 10.9 × 17.3 cm. From Ernst Debes, ed., Neuer Handatlas über WESTLICHER TEIL, 1914. This map covers the same area alle Teile der Erde in 65 Haupt- und 131 Nebenkarten, mit al- as fi gure 1089 at the same scale. It also contains topographic phabetischem Namenverzeichnis, 4th ed. (Leipzig: H. Wagner information. & E. Debes, 1914), sheet 24. Size of the entire original: 38.8 × 50.5 cm; size of detail: for fi nancial assistance—a dependence that eventually Verlag was able to produce a new edition of Debes’s ref- led to cooperation with the Nazi dictatorship. The maps erence atlas in 1950. Under the cartographic supervi- produced under the Third Reich could not show any fa- sion of Karlheinz Wagner, a fourth-generation Wagner, cilities of military signifi cance nor could city maps iden- the atlas was repeatedly expanded and updated and was tify politically sensitive locations such as synagogues. published until 1970. Following this, cartographer and Nevertheless, the maps were kept up to date. In 1938, publisher Kurt Mair absorbed the cartographic portion for example, Baedeker published the fi rst automobile of Baedeker (but not Columbus Verlag, which was able tour guide for Germany. to continue producing globes). In 1970 the long line of A similar fate befell the Debes Handatlas. Condi- German reference atlases came to an end—a tradition tions had improved somewhat by 1935, when publisher begun ca.1800 in Weimar with the work of Adam Chris- Paul Oestergaard collaborated with Hans Fischer, a car- tian Gaspari and Friedrich Justin Bertuch. tographer trained by Debes, to produce a new version Jürgen Espenhorst of Debes’s work. For marketing reasons the atlas was See also: Atlas: School Atlas; Marketing of Maps, Mass called the Columbus Weltatlas: E. Debes Großer Hand- Bibliography: atlas. In December 1943, the offi ces of Baedeker and AtlasBase Project. Online database of atlases in the German language, Wagner & Debes were completely destroyed in an air 1800–1955. In public-private partnership, hosted by the Staatsbib- raid. Because additional copies of the printing plates had liothek zu Berlin. Administered by Robert Michel, Jürgen Espen- horst, and Markus Heinz. accidentally been kept in Freiburg im Breisgau, those at- Baumgarten, Peter H., and Monika I. Baumgarten. 1998. Baedeker: las plates survived intense Allied bombing during the Ein Name wird zur Weltmarke. Ostfi ldern: Baedeker. fi nal months of World War II. Thus, the fi rm Columbus Espenhorst, Jürgen. 2003. Petermann’s Planet: A Guide to German Wall Map 1693 Fig. 1091. DETAIL FROM MAP OF EUROPE IN HEBREW 15.4 × 16 cm. From Vladimir Jabotinsky and S. Pearlman, .Atlas) (London: Hevrat “ha-Sefer,” 1925), sheets 20/21) אטלס ,SCHOOL ATLAS, 1925. The map, at a scale of 1:8 million is drawn in an entirely different style, one that was primarily Image courtesy of the American Geographical Society Library, used in school atlases.