Armin Meiwes the cannibal

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Horrorphile - February 2007

THAT German cannibal

February 1st 2007 12:59

I’ve just finished reading Cannibal - The True Story Behind the Maneater of Rotenburg by Lois Jones. It’s a pulpy quick read, not exceptionally well written, but adequate enough in providing the morbidly fascinating and bizarrely gruesome details of this most outlandish crime of unbridled horror.

In 2001 Armin Meiwes, a polite and unassuming German native in his early 40s, placed an ad in an internet chat room catering to cannibals, modern cannibals that is (and apparently there’s a disturbingly large underworld of these sociopathic individuals).

“Looking for a well-built man, 18-30 years old, for slaughter” read the ad. Armin received hundreds of replies. Over two-hundred of these offered themselves up for his consumption. All of these whom Armin contacted directly through email never followed through with actually meeting Armin in person … except one; Bernd Juergen Brandes.

Bernd had a deep-rooted desire to be eaten by another human being. Armin wanted desperately to satisfy his own craving for cooked human flesh. Both men were deeply disturbed individuals who had been having these fantasies since they were pubescent boys. They were sexual fantasies, but rather than fellatio and intercourse; they were about devouring and being devoured. It was carnality taken to utter hardcore extreme.

Armin met Bernd at the train station and took him back to his dilapidated farmhouse where he had lived with his overbearing mother all his life until she died. Armin took Bernd upstairs to his custom built slaughter room. They indulged fleetingly in normal sexual activity, but there was something much more important on their menu.

Eventually, after Bernd had consumed many sleeping pills and glasses of Schnapps, the two men prepared to cannibalize. Armin took a kitchen knife and chopped off Bernd’s erect penis (but only after several agonising blows). After applying a diaper-like bandage to Bernd’s profusely bleeding penile stump the two men rushed downstairs to the kitchen and hurriedly tried to fry Bernd’s severed member. Bernd was delirious. Armin was equally excited. But the penis proved too chewy for impatient Bernd and then it burnt in the pan; not the succulent and tender piece of flesh Bernd had hoped it would be. Yet Armin was thinking more of Bernd’s rump steaks and thigh fillets.

They returned upstairs and Armin assisted Bernd into the bathtub where he proceeded to lose blood at a rapid rate. But Bernd was content. He knew of Armin’s intentions. They had agreed on this from the start. They had made a contract with each other. As Bernd had stated to Armin early on, “There is absolutely no way back now, only forwards, through your teeth”.

It took eight hours for Bernd to slip into a coma. At 4am Armin ended Bernd’s life, plunging the kitchen knife repeatedly into Bernd’s throat as he lay naked and prone on the makeshift slaughtering table. Then he hung Bernd from meat hooks in what is known in cannibal circles as the Gein Configuration and proceeded to butcher him; first he bled the body, then he severed the head by slicing away the neck muscle and twisting the head off where the spinal cord met the skull.

He went on to skin the body, gutting the carcass, then removing the legs and arms. It was long and arduous work. But Armin took great ardour in it. He had videotaped the entire butchery so that he could watch it all again for his own discrete pleasure. But what he was looking forward to most would be the eating and ingesting of Bernd, slowly and surely, which is exactly what he did over the next 18 months.

He got caught of course. A curious student dabbling in one of the cannibal chat rooms started a communiqué with Armin which eventually freaked the student out when he realized Armin was quite serious in his taste for human flesh. The frightened young man contacted police, whom quickly identified Armin, went to his house with a search warrant and found substantial evidence; from several thousand images of torture and deviant porn on his computers to the elaborate death chamber upstairs.

This brings me to Armin Meiwes' subsequent trial and sentencing in January 2004 where the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter, much to the horror and disbelief of most of Germany (and the rest of the world).

Armin Meiwes’ defense was claiming “killing on demand” (similar to euthanasia); that Bernd Brandes had wanted to die and be eaten. But the prosecuting attorneys were set on murder of the first degree with a minimum of 15 years.

(I might be a gorehound, a terrorfreak, a horrorphile, but I pity the poor souls in the courtroom who were forced to witness Armin’s video footage of Bernd’s slaughter.)

So Armin got eight years, with a chance of walking free in four years if he is a good boy in prison. Almost immediately after Armin’s lawyer told him publishers were already fighting for the rights to his life story, and a bidding war had broken out over the film rights as well.

There have been a couple of German films made already, based on the events, but nothing of any real impact. Perhaps German director Tom (Perfume) Tykwer will get down and dirty? Or maybe it’ll be that appalling Bavarian hack Uwe Boll who’ll get his hands on it. Argh!

An American movie has been made more recently titled Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story with Kerri Russell as a student who chooses as her thesis a case very similar to that of Armin and Bernd, even involving a snuff tape of the butchery. The film has been banned in Germany for infringing on Meiwes rights (!), but has been sold for international release under the title Grimm Love and will be released in the states in March of this year.

Here's the trailer to the "grim love story", which does look promising, however, I wonder how hardcore any of those movies actually are? I mean, we’re talking about real life modern cannibalism here, not the fictional world of Thomas Harris. You gotta go the whole hog, so to speak ....

But of course there’s the very controversial food for thought which lingers on the palette; Should Armin Meiwes have been given a life sentence? He could be out on the streets again in a year or so … trawling the underworld cannibal sites like Cannibal Café, Gourmet and Eaten Up, searching for his next “long pig”.

Oink, oink.

* the images on this page were taken from the following wikipedia pages:
Armin Meiwes and Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story
They are licensed under the GNU Free Document License

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: No Category

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Comments

42 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by David

February 1st 2007 13:17

Bryn ...

One of the best reads I've had for a while ... Can't wait for the film ... (Can't wait to do a director's course and start making some reality films ... either ...

David ...

Comment by Bryn

February 1st 2007 14:04

Horrorphile

Ahhh, my favourite nut, cheers my man, thanks for the kind words ... yes, the movie does entice ... in a darkly gastronomic way ... I wonder what a cannibal's flatulence would be like? If pork is anything to go by, then probably foul as hell ....
Reality flicks huh?

Comment by Tracy

February 1st 2007 20:33

Movies and Life

Hi Bryn

I've never heard of anything like it...I doubt if I could sit through the film, I feel queasy just reading about it..

Tracy

Comment by Damo

February 1st 2007 21:59

For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics

Good read
Now where did I keep my barf bag?

Strange how a the story of a person fascinated by cannibalism can become a film to satisfy the desires of more people who are fascinated by cannibalism.

Is art imitating life or will life try to imitate art which is imitating life which is....

Comment by JohnDoe

February 1st 2007 22:45

Film & TV on DVD

Fun read first thing on a friday morning, fascinating stuff...though the keri Russell film looks a little made for TV like, maybeit will be good...

If you havent read them yet Bryn I recommend Hunting Humans by Elliot Leyton which theorises on the social and cultural mnotivations of the most notorious serial killer.

Also MindHunter which is all about the art of profiling and delves deep into the sociopathic, psychotic mind of the big hitters. Its written by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker real life FBI profilers who developed most of the techniques still used today...

Last one would be Forty Years of Murder which is written by Professor Keith Simpson of Scotland Yard. The guy who caughht John Christie and worked on the acid bath murders.

Great read as always my friend

Comment by KylieW

February 1st 2007 23:42

Celebrity Obsession

Bryn,

Bloody great post (pun intended)!

I'm not sure how good the Grimm Love movie will be, but the book sounds grotesque and fascinating. I'm not sure who is more disturbed, Armin for slaughtering and eating Bernd....or Bernd for volunteering to be slaughtered and eaten????

A book I read on Fred and Rosemary West....it might have been called Happy Like Murderers....but I can't recall exactly. Great read and very disturbing.

I feel so sorry for those jurors who had to watch Armin's video!!! ***shudder***

Kylie

Comment by Ash

February 2nd 2007 00:17

Australian Traveller
Flashes of memories

I agree with Kylie on this one...

I'm not sure who is more disturbed, Armin for slaughtering and eating Bernd....or Bernd for volunteering to be slaughtered and eaten????

very bizarre!

Mindhunter is a good movie btw

slightly queasy...
ash

Comment by JohnDoe

February 2nd 2007 01:19

Film & TV on DVD

Ash your thinking of Michael mann's Manhunter, the best of teh hannibal films.

This book is MindHunter which is essentially the
story of the real life dude who caught Bundy, Dharmer etc..going deep into the black psyche of killers

Comment by MelissaA

February 2nd 2007 01:27

Fun Facts

What a lovely story to read over lunch! ; )
I think I'd better put my pizza back down for a while now! Funny thing that.

I always wondered about this, the whole story of it - well there you go - be careful what you wish for as they say.

I thought 1 man offering himself up to be eaten was bad enough, but to know that there were more than 200 candidates!!! *shakes head*

Comment by Ash

February 2nd 2007 03:04

Australian Traveller
Flashes of memories

My bad JD I didnt read your comment properly. There is also a movie called Mindhunter with Christian Slater in which is about FBI profiling - i automatically jumped to that one - bit of selective reading going on there

Comment by JohnDoe

February 2nd 2007 03:47

Film & TV on DVD

Oh god, that straight to video shit Mindhunter was an embarrasment even by Christian Slater standards...I was trying to forget it ever existed

No chance of that now

Comment by Ash

February 2nd 2007 03:57

Australian Traveller
Flashes of memories

*lol* yep that`s the one! always willing to bring back happy memories

The man didn`t last too long in it, if memory serves correctly.

Comment by Cibbuano

February 2nd 2007 04:33

20/20 Filmsight
Science News
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak

damn... the disturbing part, for me, is that guy wanted to get eaten. And that he had hundreds of replies!

How many cannibals do we have among us? Is Bryn one?

Comment by Damo

February 2nd 2007 05:16

For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics

If native call people long Piggy.
And we taste like Roast Piggy,
Do we have crackle like roast Piggy?

And what ever happened to Wa Wa?

Comment by Bryn

February 2nd 2007 05:49

Horrorphile

Most excellent comments fair readers (and writers)!
Yes, I've been having strange dreams since the book ... and I wake up with a craving for pork crackling ... (muah-ha-ha-ha!) ... yes, Cibby, care to come round to mine for din-dins? I do a delicious rare ham-string in garlic and white wine ...
JD, yeah, was wondering what the title was on Dahmer ... cheers! It's all research of course!
Yup, apparently Europe, and especially Germany, is crawling with modern cannibals, the Armin Meirwes case opened a whole can o' mealworms!
Curiously, I wonder how one accesses some of those cannibal sites ... ?? In the book the police had to get Armin to assist them in doing so ... so I guess one can't simply type in "cannibal cafe" in google then ... (not that I've tried mind you ... not yet, anyhow ... heh heh heh ...)

Comment by Tracy

February 2nd 2007 05:55

Movies and Life

Hi KylieW

I read that Rosemary and Fred West book too. It was disturbing but very good...

Comment by Damo

February 2nd 2007 06:17

For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics

Cannibal Cafe?
I bet it is BYO.

Comment by MelissaA

February 2nd 2007 06:52

October 8th 2008 22:26

Because this is over the internet

Really Long Link

The Cannibal Cafe

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