Armin Meiwes, a 42-year-old computer specialist from Rothenburg, confirmed that he stabbed and ate a man in March 2001. He also told the court that from the age of 8 he dreamed of becoming a cannibal.
According to investigators, in early 2001, a 42-year-old cannibal posted an ad on the Internet that he was looking for a “well-fed candidate to be eaten.”
In the spring, 43-year-old Berlin resident, Siemens programmer Bernd-Jürgen Brandes, responded to his call. For two weeks, the cannibal and the victim communicated with each other. On March 10, 2001, Brandes arrived from Berlin to Meiwes's house in Rothenburg. Before coming to the stranger, Bernd-Jürgen sold his personal car and took a leave of absence from work “to resolve personal problems.”
According to the investigation, before killing the man, Armin Meiwes cut off Brandes’s genitals, fried it, and they ate the dish together. Brandes then spent ten hours begging Meiwes to “cut off something else” and ultimately kill him. As a result, the programmer from Berlin lost consciousness from severe loss of blood, and the hospitable owner finished him off with an 18-centimeter kitchen knife. According to experts, Brandes died as a result of several blows to the neck. The scene of the murder and subsequent eating was recorded by the cannibal on a video camera, which was then added to the materials of the criminal case.
After the murder, Meiwes kissed the corpse, asked for forgiveness, and then dismembered Brandes' body and stored the parts in a freezer, labeling them "tenderloin," "fillet," and "steak."
He also left Brandes' skull in the freezer. “Every time I took out meat, I remembered it,” the cannibal later told investigators. Over the next few months, Meiwes ate about 20 kg of his victim's meat. The maniac was arrested only in December 2002. The cannibal was reportedly arrested thanks to an Austrian student who came across messages Meiwes was leaving on an online conference.
During a search of the suspect's house, the police found a room equipped with all the equipment necessary for cutting up carcasses.
The first trial of Meiwes began on December 3, 2003. The court hearings took place in the city court of Kassel. The psychiatric commission found some disturbances in Meiwes's mental activity, but found him fully sane. A member of the commission, psychiatrist Wilmer, said at the trial that Meiwes “was thinking more about himself when he committed this act.”
As the doctor put it, the cannibal was simply “fulfilling his dream.”
The psychiatrist also stated that Meiwes began eating human flesh, most likely to stimulate his emotions.
The defendant's defenders, in turn, insisted on the version according to which the main motive for the murder committed by Meiwes was the desire to satisfy the perverted request of the victim. Under German law, such an act could amount to illegal euthanasia, which carries a prison sentence of three to five years. Prosecutors argued that Meiwes committed the murder in response to his own unbridled desires. But the state prosecution simply could not demand the death penalty for Armin Meiwes - life imprisonment, since the investigation established that the victim herself wanted to be killed and eaten.
Meiwes himself pretended to repent of what he had done, but calmly talked about the shocking details of the murder.
As a result, in January 2004, Armin Meiwes was sentenced to only eight and a half years in prison.
Armin Meiwes was born on December 1, 1961 in Essen, West Germany. When he was 8 years old, his parents divorced. Mivers rarely saw his father, being under the excessive care of his mother. After her death, Armin lived isolated from society in a 30-room manor in the city of Rotenburg an der Fulda in Hessen.
Seeking a willing victim, Meiwes placed an ad on The Cannibal Café website, where the line between reality and fantasy was greatly blurred. In his non-trivial ad, the maniac stated that he was “looking for a well-built 18-30 year old man, whom he will first kill and then eat.” Homosexual programmer Bernd Jürgen Brandes with masochistic tendencies responded to the “tempting” offer. Many people also showed interest, but ultimately backed down; Meiwes did not try to force them to do anything against their will.
As it became known from the video recorded by the victim and his executioner, on March 9, 2001, they met at Meiwes’s house, where Meiwes amputated Brandes’ penis. Two men had sex and then tried to eat the penis before the master butcher finished off his lover. Brandes insisted that Meiwes bite his penis off, but this proved problematic, so a knife was used. Apparently they wanted to eat the cut piece of flesh raw, but it turned out to be too tough. Then Meiwes fried the penis using his partner's fat and seasoned it with salt, pepper, wine and garlic. As a result, the food was seriously burnt. They cut it up and served it to the dog.
Meiwes read a book for three hours while Brandes bled to death in the bathroom. Brandes took a large dose of alcohol and painkillers, 20 sleeping pills and another bottle of schnapps and "took" the last kiss of his executioner before he killed him in a room specially prepared for this - the Slaughter Room. After Meiwes slashed the throat of Brandes, who died from this, he hung the body on a meat hook and began tearing out pieces of flesh. The cannibal from Rothenburg even wanted to grind the bones to make flour out of them. This entire terrible procedure was captured on video lasting about 2 hours. Meiwes stored approximately 20 kg of human meat in the freezer in pizza boxes and ate it for 10 months.
The cannibal was arrested in December 2002 after a college student in Innsbruck alerted the police to him after seeing a new advertisement looking for volunteer victims and details of Brandes' murder on the Internet. Investigators searched Meiwes' home and found body parts and video of the murder.
An email from Brandes was presented at the trial, where he actually agreed to be eaten and hoped that Meiwes's offer was not a joke. On January 30, 2004, Meiwes was found guilty of simple murder and sentenced to only 8 years in prison. This case attracted a lot of media attention and sparked discussions about sentencing because... Bernd Jürgen Brandes voluntarily and consciously took this step.
Meiwes admitted everything and expressed his regret. He added that he would like to write a book about his life in order to deter all those who wish to follow his example. Websites dedicated to the master butcher immediately appeared, where people were looking for people who were ready to give themselves to slaughter. Meiwes said on this occasion: “They need to be treated so as not to end up with what happened to me.” According to him, about 800 cannibals lived in Germany.
In April 2005, a German court insisted on a retrial when the prosecutor decided to appeal the verdict. The question was raised about whether Brandes himself actually agreed to kill him and whether he was legally capable of doing so, given his mental problems and his state of intoxication. The question also arose that, probably, by killing Brandes, Meiwes satisfied his own desires, including sexual ones, and did not commit it only because the victim allowed him. After the re-trial, the psychologist said that Meiwes is capable of doing this again and to this day lives “fantasies about devouring the flesh of young people.” On May 10, 2006, a court in Frankfurt sentenced Meiwes to life imprisonment.
Cannibalism - the eating of living creatures, including humans, of individuals of their own species - has been known since ancient times. However, in our enlightened age, such an act seems not just a crime. This is an immoral act, the lowest point of the fall of human consciousness. Nevertheless, to this day there are people eager to taste the flesh of their own kind. In 2003, such a person was German citizen Armin Meiwes, who killed and ate his friend Bernd Brandes. This whole story does not fit in the heads of normal people. Nevertheless, it happened.
In 2003, all of Germany shuddered during the trial of 42-year-old cannibal Armin Meiwes. From the case materials, it became known that in the winter of 2001 a man posted an advertisement on one of the Internet portals saying that he was looking for a “well-fed candidate to be eaten.” It would seem that this is “black humor” in its purest form. However, there was a person who took the announcement completely seriously. Bernd-Jürgen Brandes, a 43-year-old Berliner who works for Siemens, showed up on Meiwes's doorstep on March 10, 2001. Before going on this trip, he sold his car, apartment, settled all his personal affairs and took a leave of absence from work. According to Meiwes, they talked for some time. After which he cut off Brandes’ penis, which he fried and shared the “delicacy” with the guest. For several more hours, Brandes was bleeding and begging to be killed. In the end, he lost consciousness, after which the owner of the apartment cut up his body with a 20-centimeter cleaver. The entire process of murder and butchering was meticulously recorded on film, which became the main evidence of the criminal case. Meiwes meticulously, with purely German pedantry, cut the corpse into “tenderloins”, “fillets” and “steaks”. Separating the head of the unfortunate programmer, he put it in freezer. In total, Meiwes managed to eat 20 kilograms of Brandes before the police knocked on his door. A young Australian student came across correspondence between a maniac and a victim on one of the forums, and it seemed strange to him. He reported this to the law enforcement officers, and they decided to check the apartment and its owner, just in case. During the search, even less impressionable cops fainted. The search participants completely ruined their appetite for several days. At the trial, which began in December 2003, Meiwes said that he was just fulfilling his dream. A psychiatric examination confirmed his sanity. The defense relied on the fact that the victim herself wanted to be eaten. They wanted to reduce everything to illegal euthanasia. Investigators focused on the cannibal’s complete lack of remorse. In addition, it turned out that after the murder of Brandes, he again advertised, wanting to get more “fresh meat”. And at least twenty people responded to him and were involved in the case as witnesses. Meiwes' fate fluctuated between life imprisonment and several years of probation. As a result, the judge sent the cannibal to prison for eight years.
During the trial, the man behaved very decently, answered questions calmly and adequately. It was hard to believe that this man, several years ago, eagerly ate his own kind. The judges never found a motive for his actions. He did not receive sexual pleasure from tormenting the victim, and did not fall into aggression. He didn't feel any emotion at all. It was like cutting up a lamb carcass. The judges were confused.
The former lover of the eaten Brandeis, Rene Yasnik, added fuel to the fire. The man stated that he and the victim were in a homosexual relationship and were open to each other. But Bernd never showed any thoughts of suicide. And even more so in such a sophisticated way. After Yasnik got acquainted with the correspondence between the killer and the victim, he fell into hysterics.
In any case, Meiwes went to jail. For some period of time they tried to forget about this sensitive matter. However, the man behaved decently in prison, did not violate the prison regime, and in 2005 was given the opportunity to apply for early release. And again the question came up sharply. All of Germany was chilled by the mere thought that the terrible cannibal might be free again.
The judge from Frankfurt had to watch at least five hours of terrible home video, in which Meiwes prepares the meat of a murdered person in order to prepare for a new process. It was impossible to release a person who committed such an atrocity.
After all, the story of the cannibal received wide publicity, and he himself became a popular personality. He has inspired several writers to write novels about similar psychopaths. And the rock band Rammstein dedicated a song to him. In the end, his story was filmed. The film "Rothenburg" was released on German screens in the fall of 2008. Ultimately, Meiwes himself sued this creative fraternity, saying that they had slandered him, presenting him to people as a “killer beast.”
In April 2005, the case was finally reviewed. Firstly, Meiwes was denied early release. Secondly, having examined the crime from a new perspective, the judge noted that there is no question of considering the cannibal as a person performing an act of mercy. Ultimately, the cannibal was given the death penalty - life imprisonment. In his final speech, the prosecutor stated that “cannibalism is morally and ethically so reprehensible that under no circumstances can it be given a different assessment.” According to him, “the accused has sunk to the level of an animal.”
