Paul Gercke

Paul Gercke is a German army captain in the account of Hans Reiter’s early military service, and his significance lies in the contrast between his conventional expectations of a soldier and the elusive composure he observes in Reiter. He assigns the unusually tall recruit to an assault company, anticipates that his height will make him vulnerable, and later questions whether Reiter is afraid of dying. Gercke’s practical judgments repeatedly meet a mystery: Reiter goes into combat without seeming to be transformed, yet the enemy repeatedly fails to hit him.

Identity and Military Role

In 1939, after military training, Hans Reiter joined the 310th Regiment of the 79th Light Infantry Division, first as an assistant machine-gun operator and then in an assault company. Paul Gercke was the captain responsible for that second assignment. The regiment belonged to a larger military formation preparing for war, but Gercke’s role in Reiter’s story is personal and immediate: he evaluates the recruit’s body as a military asset and liability, then watches how Reiter behaves when the rehearsed spectacle of soldiering becomes actual combat.

Gercke is also characterized as an aesthete. That quality shapes the way he initially regards Reiter’s height: it might inspire respect, even fear, during a practice charge or parade. But Gercke understands that a quality suited to display could become dangerous under real conditions. In his estimation, the most effective assault soldier is short and thin, able to move quickly; Reiter’s conspicuous stature could therefore make him an easy target. The judgment is not simply a comment on appearance. It sets up a conflict between the military image Gercke can imagine and the unpredictable performance he will witness.

Assignment and Expectations

Before joining the infantry, Reiter tried to obtain a place in the German navy and hoped to serve on a submarine. Gercke had encouraged the ambition, claiming or believing that he had called on military and government contacts on Reiter’s behalf. The effort failed: naval officers rejected Reiter, whose six-foot-five height was plainly unsuited to the restricted dimensions and living conditions aboard a submarine. The rejection left him with his original military path, and Gercke’s assignment placed him in the assault company instead.

The contrast between submarine and assault service gives Gercke’s decision a practical edge. Reiter’s body rules out one military environment and appears to compromise him in another. Gercke assigns him despite recognizing the danger of his height, reasoning that the feature may have some use in drills even if it is disadvantageous in combat. The assignment thus begins with a mismatch between bodily conspicuousness and the requirements of the work, a mismatch the fighting at Kutno will complicate rather than resolve.

Kutno and the Unexpected Outcome

Reiter’s first real battle took place on the outskirts of Kutno. His assault group attacked a farm and a forest where the remaining Polish artillery had gathered. Gercke watched the group leave and expected Reiter to be killed, imagining the tall soldier as a conspicuous animal entering a pack of predators. The prediction arose directly from his earlier assessment: Reiter seemed too visible to survive an assault against an armed enemy.

The attack produced losses, but not the one Gercke anticipated. Two German soldiers were killed and five wounded at the farm; at the forest, another German soldier was killed and three more wounded. Reiter came through both attacks unharmed. The sergeant later reported that Reiter had somehow frightened the opposing soldiers, who fired at him several times without hitting him. Gercke tried to account for this through possible explanations—perhaps Reiter had shouted, cursed, or acted ruthlessly; perhaps combat had transformed him into a fearless warrior or a skilled hunter. These possibilities show Gercke searching for a recognizable military quality that could explain the result.

The sergeant rejected those explanations. Reiter had not become another person, entered a trance, or ceased to follow orders. He had gone into combat as if he were not going into combat, as if the quarrel were not with him. The account leaves the cause of his survival unresolved, and Gercke’s initial confidence in his own assessment gives way to questions. Reiter remains physically conspicuous, but his conduct does not fit the role Gercke had predicted for him.

Fear and the Limits of Gercke’s Reading

After Kutno, the 79th Division continued fighting in the area, but Reiter did not take part in another skirmish before the division was transferred west. During the long period of relative stillness that followed, Gercke sometimes came to speak with him and asked whether he was afraid of dying. Reiter answered that, of course, he was afraid. Gercke stared at him and called him a liar, insisting that he did not believe Reiter was afraid of anything.

The exchange sharpens the distance between Reiter’s self-report and Gercke’s reading of him. Gercke does not accept the ordinary answer, because it conflicts with the composure he has observed and with the account of Reiter’s conduct in combat. Yet the scene does not establish that Reiter feels no fear; it establishes that Gercke believes his apparent fearlessness is more revealing than his words. His blunt disbelief makes him an observer who presses against the limits of what Reiter can explain, without resolving the discrepancy for the reader.

Narrative Function

Gercke links the military’s external assessment of Reiter with the unresolved mystery of Reiter’s experience. First, he interprets height as a tactical problem and expects a predictable consequence: the conspicuous soldier will be targeted and killed. Then the battle produces a different outcome, and the sergeant’s account denies the obvious explanations of transformation or trance. Finally, Gercke’s question about death returns the same problem in personal form: Reiter says he is afraid, while Gercke is convinced that he is not.

His role is therefore less that of a mentor who explains Reiter than that of a military witness whose judgments are repeatedly unsettled. Through Gercke, the narrative tests the language available for courage and fear against an action that resists easy classification. The captain can assign Reiter, predict his vulnerability, and question him, but he cannot turn Reiter’s survival or composure into a settled explanation.