Bombing by Baedeker

Battle of Britain

Old Karl Baedeker's son Fritz catalogued Britain for future tourist generations with the same 19th-Century Teutonic thoroughness his father had lavished on the rest of Europe. But few British cathedrals, Christopher Wren churches or public monuments rated the final cachet of Baedekerian approval --two asterisks. Salisbury Cathedral did, but the Houses of Parliament got only one.

Along the cathedral-country route once traveled by Fritz Baedeker, a new band of German tourists swarmed last week --with even less respect for British architectural treasures. Over York, Exeter, Norwich on successive nights Goering's Luftwaffe toured, dumping bomb cargo after vindictive bomb cargo on the startled cathedral towns. Another night they visited Bath, left that venerable watering place looking like a piece of old lace, ripped and soiled, but still worn with dignity.

A Nazi broadcast boasted that "every three-star Baedeker attraction" in Britain would be blasted to bits. Britons got a chuckle when Critic Hannen Swaffer pointed out Baedeker's niggardliness with asterisks for things British. Fact is that two stars is the highest accolade given in any country by Baedeker. "Perhaps the German braggarts," mused Swaffer, "have been indulging in Three-Star Brandy."

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