and that this is to be changed by next year. The response of the publishers was to humour Napoleon by producing two editions: one for France, with the recently ennobled, and another which included dynasties deposed since abolition of the Holy Roman Empire. A merged version, whose first section (Princely houses) included recently reigning dynasties but also the titulature of families that lost sovereignty after the fall of Napoleon in 1815, remained in publication as Gothaischer Hofkalender (Gothaic court calendar). The almanac was published in a German and a French edition as Gothaischer Hofkalender and Almanach de Gotha. In 1887 the Almanach began to include non-European dynasties in its first section, with the inclusion of one of the ruling families of India. Since 1824, the Princely houses, i.e. ruling and princely families listed in the court calendar, have been divided into three groups: (1) current sovereigns and their houses, (2) other princely and ducal houses in Germany, France and Italy and (3) mediatized German houses characterized by equality with the ruling houses. After the founding of the new German Empire, from 1877 the mediatized German princes and counts, i.e. the formerly ruling houses of the Holy Roman Empire, were grouped together as section II in order to emphasize their significance in the Old Empire as well as their right of equality with the ruling houses in the German Confederation and the New Empire, while the (never ruling) German and foreign titular princes have been moved to section III. The court calendar was later expanded to include the four series of paperbacks for the German and Austrian comital houses (i.e. counts, since 1825), the baronial houses (since 1848), the untitled Uradel houses (since 1900) and the untitled Briefadel houses (since 1907). The series continued until 1944, but in 1939 its title Gotha court calendar was changed to Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch (Gotha genealogical paperback). This format has since been widely replicated in dynastic compilations (e.g. Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Fürstliche Häuser, Burke's Royal Families of the World, Le Petit Gotha, Ruvigny's "Titled Nobility of Europe"). World War II and aftermath When Soviet troops entered Gotha in 1945, they systematically destroyed all archives of the Almanach de Gotha at the Perthes publishing company. Gotha became part of communist East Germany, the publisher ceased operations. Recent German publications From 1951 to 2013, a different publisher, C.A. Starke of Limburg, West Germany, published a multi-volume