Just in case you can also set encoding by the following way:
@RequestMapping(value = "ajax/gethelp")
public ResponseEntity<String> handleGetHelp(Locale loc, String code, HttpServletResponse response) {
HttpHeaders responseHeaders = new HttpHeaders();
responseHeaders.add("Content-Type", "text/html; charset=utf-8");
log.debug("Getting help for code: " + code);
String help = messageSource.getMessage(code, null, loc);
log.debug("Help is: " + help);
return new ResponseEntity<String>("returning: " + help, responseHeaders, HttpStatus.CREATED);
}
I think using StringHttpMessageConverter is better than this.