Frederick Ritter Collection

Frederick (Fritz) Ritter, the son of Moses (Moritz) Ritter (1854-1933) and Charlotte née Steckelmacher (1865-1940), was born on May 20, 1896, in Vienna, where he later studied and received his Matura in 1915. He served as a soldier in World War I from 1916-1918. After the war, Ritter worked as an actor, radio announcer, and contributor to various periodicals, mainly in Berlin and Munich, and was a member of the “Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnen-Angehörigen” (German Stage Workers Union) from 1921-1928. Most significantly, Ritter was a cast member of the first production of Bertolt Brecht’s Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera) in Berlin. Due to the “Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums” (Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service), his career as an actor in municipal theaters was cut short. Furthermore, as a “non-Aryan,” he was denied admission to the Reichstheaterkammer (Reich Theater Chamber)—the equivalent of an occupational ban. Subsequently, Ritter, as member “no. 181,” was among the first to join the Kulturbund deutscher Juden (Cultural League of German Jews), which was founded in July 1933. He became a well-known figure of the Kulturbund and performed in its production of Shakespeare’s Othello in the Berliner Theater on Charlottenstrasse, as well as at its offshoots in other German cities. In November 1938, his contract with the Kulturbund was terminated because the National Socialist regime ordered the closure of all Jewish institutions—just one day before the November Pogroms.

Like many of his colleagues, Ritter gave up acting. From December 1938 to May 1939, he took part in a training program at the Krankenhilfe der Jüdischen Gemeinde (Healthcare Center of the Jewish Community). He then immigrated to the Bahamas via London with his wife, the painter Ida (Ady) Lauinger (1900-1975), where, expecting to enter the United States, he gave Latin and Greek lessons. In 1944, he immigrated to the United States. Initially employed in a factory, he subsequently worked as a school teacher and studied German philology at the University of Chicago, where he received his M.A. in 1951 and his Ph.D., with honors, in 1955. He was then a professor of German language and literature at the Illinois Institute of Technology and at Indiana University from 1952-1968. During this time, he also frequently gave recitations of German works in the original and, starting in 1947, published several novels. In 1968, he retired from teaching and received a Swiss residence permit through the intercession of Carl Jakob Burckhardt and Emil Staiger; from 1969, he was a freelance writer and lecturer in Minusio, Switzerland (and later Chiemgau). His wife Ida Ritter died on 29 November 1975 in Minusio. He then married Doris née Dulies (born 1916 in Budenigken). Ritter died on 28 December 1987 at age 91 in Riedering. He is buried in the Israelitische Friedhof in Munich (Garchinger Straße).