Article 267 of the Criminal Code: Forgery of Documents

Section 267 of the German Criminal Code, concerning document forgery, enters the story through Frieder’s defacement of the narrator’s conscription file. The charge gives the authorities a formal name for his alterations to official papers, placing the household’s irreverent treatment of state symbols inside a criminal investigation that ends in different outcomes for different residents.

The file and the charge

The file’s history begins with the conscription process. After the narrator receives a police order to attend his examination, police officer Bogatzki waits outside the district military replacement office to ensure that he does not run away. Inside, the narrator is classified as fully fit for service. Later, during a search of Auerhaus, an investigator finds the conscription file in the freezer compartment.

Frieder’s alterations

When the prosecutor examines the file, the papers bear the federal eagle on their letterheads and stamps. Frieder has drawn a line through each eagle, making them resemble chickens skewered on spits, and added small campfires beneath them. The marks turn the official file into a satirical object, but the prosecutor reads them as part of a set of alleged offenses. He names section 267 for document forgery alongside charges for theft, suppression of documents, insulting the state and its symbols, and property damage.

Investigation and verdict

The file is not the only object scrutinized during the search: investigators also examine the household’s terrorist poster, where residents had placed their own portraits and crossed out photographs of dead celebrities they disliked. The ensuing trial separates the residents’ conduct into legal categories and produces unequal consequences. Vera, Pauline, and the narrator each receive 40 hours of community service for theft and defaming the memory of the dead; Frieder receives 50 hours, with the wooden pistol also part of his case. The proceedings do not specify a separate sentence for the document-forgery charge, so the file’s role is clearest as evidence of how Frieder’s mockery of official authority becomes legible to the prosecution as criminal conduct.