Peter Töpfer (Peter Post): A beautiful song is to be deemed criminal

Regarding the summary order (Strafbefehl) for the use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations — an offense pursuant to § 86a para. 1 no. 1 StGB (Penal Code) — against me (December 25, 2025)

To the District Court of Z., Criminal Division

Notice of Objection

To whom it may concern,

I hereby lodge a formal objection against the summary order dated December 3, 2025, served on December 11, 2025.

The song in question, which has been unjustly incriminated, likely dates back to the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries; furthermore, its lyrics do not state „my honor is loyalty,“ but rather „our honor is loyalty.“ During that era, references to honor and loyalty were—in contrast to today—commonplace and part of the general vernacular.

The song was not uploaded to YouTube on February 11, 2024, but has been available there since approximately 2005—spanning twenty years—without ever having been subject to complaint. Its lyrics have been present on the Internet since roughly 1995 and remain accessible today under the same URLⁱ; here, too, no legal issues have ever arisen.

It is a most beautiful song; I hold it in high esteem and sing it often—transcending any ideology, just as I sing songs that may possess entirely different ideological backgrounds, including communist ones. Ideology is not my primary concern when singing. Consequently, I have performed and published on the YouTube channel in question the „Einheitsfrontlied“ by the communists Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler from 1937—slightly modified as the „Befreiungsfrontlied.“ⁱⁱ

Furthermore, an anti-fascist songⁱⁱⁱ based on a melody by the American artist Neil Young is also featured on the channel.

I am also a great admirer of Western liberal music and interpret on the channel further songs by Neil Young^iv, works by the Beatles George Harrison^v and John Lennon^vi, and the song „Solitude“^vii by the band Black Sabbath. Their liberal background, though I am a liberal person myself, is not my primary focus; my interest lies in the music, the art—which may also be of Christian inspiration.

Moreover, I am an official translator and performer, authorized by Bob Dylan, of the works of this great Jewish songwriter and Nobel Laureate in Literature^viii, whose art is rooted in the American folk tradition. The interpretations, released on a double CD, are partially published on the YouTube channel in question.^ix My colleague Bob Dylan would be profoundly astonished to learn what is currently befalling me here.

Bob Dylan, Neil Young, the Beatles, and the entirety of Anglo-Saxon rock and folk music are heavily oriented toward English, Irish, and American folklore and are themselves part of contemporary folk creation.

As a German, I am also a great devotee of German folk music and interpret on the YouTube channel, for instance, the famous and beautiful song „Feierohmd“^x by Anton Günther from my Saxon homeland. Furthermore, I provide two folk dance tutorials on my channel.^xi

In the popular children’s song „Unsre Heimat,“^xii it is said: „And we love our homeland, the beautiful, and we protect it because it belongs to the people.“ This is the foundation of all patriotic songs^xiii I have published on the YouTube channel—for example, the song by the national-liberal poet of our national anthem, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, „Ihr Freunde, so lasset das Fremde doch ruhn!“^xiv In this sense, I am, of course, a patriot. However, this has not the slightest connection to any „unconstitutionality.“ Furthermore, my YouTube channel features some other patriotic songs.^xv

Despite my affinity for traditional music from diverse nations, I also explore new musical horizons. For instance, I transpose psychotherapy sessions into music, as seen in the „Suite for Blues Group and Truth Teller Op. 1 ‚Questions'“^xvi or in the „Partita for Rock Formation, Chamber Orchestra and Truth Teller Op. 2 ‚The Song Within Me‘.“^xvii

The entire context of all my publications on the channel „Peter Post“ (my musical pseudonym), as well as the song in question itself, provides not the slightest cause or suspicion of anything „unconstitutional“; I protest against such an accusation!

Respectfully,

Peter Töpfer (Peter Post)

ihttps://ingeb.org/Lieder/wirmarsc.html

iihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjhGrR9ShqA

iiihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEtvfHSMv9s

ivhttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiMfvtPR40uVKKyJrQ2GhIfE5RxQVn90

vhttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiMfvtPR40uu_4d8v-QM2R1CoqXbNtFw

vihttps://youtu.be/nHLkjESdk5k, https://youtu.be/kgAL4PhNVYU

viihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OawxbPGc9pI&list=PLwiMfvtPR40uu_4d8v-QM2R1CoqXbNtFw&index=2, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QcuwCHu9-s&list=PLwiMfvtPR40uu_4d8v-QM2R1CoqXbNtFw&index=1

viiihttp://peter-post.net/dylan-covers/

ixhttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiMfvtPR40vMt-4mids3tRLrG8Y-IF72

xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyy9wfXiHC8

xihttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiMfvtPR40vugiLj-zWFluT6pWTH-GBD

xiihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pSs4pm3cj8

xiiihttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiMfvtPR40ud84QMl4Hr276pormMWv31

xivhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfNZSAtj2tM&list=PLwiMfvtPR40ud84QMl4Hr276pormMWv31&index=5

xvhttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiMfvtPR40ud84QMl4Hr276pormMWv31

xvihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6m5IswtbFI

xviihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsb0uRY4a70