After the end of the war he was accepted into the Imperial Army as a first lieutenant ("Oberleutnant"). He joined the Reichswehr's Infantry Regiment 20 in 1919. With the 200,000-man transitional army in the spring of 1920, he was then part of the staff of the 10th Brigade as an aide-de-camp ("Ordonanzoffizier"). When the 100,000-man army of the Reichswehr was formed, he was transferred to the 16th Infantry Regiment on 1st October 1920. On 1st October 1921, he was transferred to the 16th Cavalry Regiment as a squadron officer. He was dismissed from active service in the Reichswehr on 1st April 1922. He then worked for the next few years as a department head in the tariff and freight department of "Gutehoffnungshütte Oberhausen".