Stohess District Mayor

Sunken eyes of a golden shade dominate the mayor's middle-aged face. Brown hair is kept short above a thin mustache, his build is unremarkable, and he conducts official business in a black suit worn over a white shirt.

Composure defines him. Sitting across from the officer whose operation left hundreds of Stohess residents dead, he never raises his voice, working through the disaster point by point with the detachment of a seasoned administrator and hearing out Erwin Smith's reasoning before passing judgment on it.

The mission to trap the Female Titan leaves his district devastated, and the mayor summons Erwin Smith along with other prominent figures, Minister Nick among them, to answer for it. He wants to know why the Military Police were kept in the dark; Erwin explains that the suspect might have had accomplices, so only people already ruled out could be told of the plan. The mayor concedes the logic, since the Female Titan proved to be Annie Leonhart of the Military Police itself, yet still demands an accounting for the destruction. Erwin offers an apology, admitting the operation spiraled far beyond his intentions, but argues that letting Annie slip away could have ended with the Walls themselves torn down, damage of an entirely different magnitude; from that angle he simply chose the lesser evil.

The mayor questions whether anything was truly gained, given that Annie's crystal shell makes interrogation impossible. Erwin counters that capturing even one hidden enemy of humanity proves such enemies live among the population, and he asks for the authority to hunt down and corner the rest. Before the mayor can respond, the soldier Thomas bursts into the room reporting a breach in Wall Rose.