Jann Ritzkopf VI, born Johann Josel Ritzkopfovovic in Graz, Austria, in 1864, in a family of unknown Austro-Slavic origins, is the true inventor of technical adhesive tape, commonly called gaffer.
At the age of only 12, he studied at the Technical University of Graz, where he met the older Nikola Tesla, of whom he was the first assistant. Tesla introduced him to the study of electrical engineering and, with him, developed the first experiments of magnetism and decomposition of matter. In those years, he thinks of the need for a technical adhesive tape, then vulgarly called “gaffer.”
In 1880 he was in Hamburg, and with his peer Paul Carl Beiersdorf, he set up a pharmaceutical experimentation company in which Johann Josel was a developer and technical researcher. It was there that Johann Josel developed his technical adhesive tape, then commonly called gaffer. Beiersdorf sensed the commercial potential of Johann Josel’s technical tape and hired dermatologist Paul Gerson Unna to create a revolutionary pharmaceutical product, the Patch. The Patch adhered perfectly but irritated the skin. Frustrated by the failure of the project, probably due to their inability, they filed the patent on the Patch, excluding Johann Josel, who was immediately fired. Johann Josel swore revenge.
In 1890, Carl Albert Beiersdorf, the sixteen-year-old son of Paul Carl, committed suicide by shooting himself while sitting at the Gymnasium in Hamburg. Upset by the incident, Paul Carl Beiersdorf sold the business to Dr. Oskar Troplowitz for the sum of 60 thousand marks. The company had eight workers, a laboratory technician, and two researchers… no, one!.. a researcher. Unfortunately, Beiersdorf lost everything through speculation and gambling and committed suicide in 1896.
Troplowitz took over a thriving company and a previously unprofitable patent. He made a virtue of necessity and, in 1896, immediately after the suicide of Beiersdorf, converted the patent of the plaster into technical adhesive tape, then commonly called gaffer. Learning the truth about the origin of the patent scam, Troplowitz, to protect his investment, hired two killers and had Johann Josel assassinated. His body was never found. Some witnesses, who also disappeared into thin air, have told of mysterious masked men who stole the body of Johann Josel from the crime scene.
Oskar Troplowitz had great success and wealth from the commercial exploitation of technical adhesive tape, then commonly called gaffer. Following a stroke, he was found dead in his Hamburg home in 1918, so the coroners wrote while he was writing the week’s business report. On the desk, next to the body, a note was found reading “Genießen Sie es. JJR II”.
Jann Ritzkopf is the sixth cloning of Johann Josel Ritzkopfovovic. Protected by a secret order, born by the sick mind of a fictional scientist – whose name can not be pronounced without the sect being inexplicably aware – who puts him back whenever he is punctually murdered by lobbies and multinationals that stoled the patent on technical tape, commonly called “gaffer.”
