John Adam Rittinger

John A. Rittinger of Berlin, a successful journalist and weekly newspaper publisher, was renowned for his wit and humour.

He learned the printing business at the Rittinger and Motz plant and gained further experience in Toronto, Buffalo and Chicago before joining Dr. Aaron Eby in 1875 in a partnership to publish Der Glocke in Walkerton, Ontario. He became sole owner in 1878 and in 1904 succeeded his father in the Rittinger and Motz partnership in Berlin, publishers of the Berliner Journal.

Dr. Herbert Kalbfleisch, former head of the German Language Department, University of Western Ontario, said of Mr. Rittinger’s writing: “Most Pennsylvania-German material originated in the United States. The Briefe vun Joe Klotzkopp provide a most notable exception. Had Rittinger written in English he would be counted among the great humourists of Canada. His work is in the tradition of Haliburton and Leacock.”