THE ROTENBURG CANNIBAL: ARMIN MEIWES

Not being actually a proper serial killer, the truth is that the very scabrous and exceptional conditions surrounding the consummation of his only murder were enough to turn german Armin Meiwes into one of the most unusual psychopaths ever known, and not just in recent history. Such a macabre fact was what encouraged the media at the beginning of this century to finally baptize him with the already worn-out, but no doubt suitable, appellative "the Rotenburg Cannibal" and the more german definition Der Metzgermeister (The Master Butcher).

"Vorarephilia" (shortened “vore”), commonly known as "cannibalism," is a paraphilia that has become a motivation for countless crimes and the main obsession of many of the cruelest psychopathic murderers, both in the real world (Jeffrey Dahmer, the " Milwaukee Butcher"or Andrei Chikatilo, the "Rostov Butcher") as in fiction (the machiavellian Hannibal Lecter, main character in Thomas Harris’ best-sellers series). Although anthropophagy as such has a controversial historical-cultural background, having formed part not only of the mythological heritage but also of the practical idiosyncrasy of certain peoples and civilizations, it is necessary to distinguish it from the more modern and scientific term "vorarephilia", which could be translated from the greek as the "desire to devour" and that would correspond to a sexual deviation or drive that leads some people to feel the erotic desire to be consumed by, or, sometimes, to personally consume, another person.

In the specific case of "the Rotenburg Cannibal ", the ambiguity of the concept and the bizarre motivation of those involved were determining factors to hamper the work of the court in order to issue a final verdict. Firstly, in 2003, the year in which the first trial began, the German Penal Code did not take cannibalism as a crime at all, perhaps because it was considered too an unthinkable or perverse taboo for its very society, but the truth was that it meant starting from a complex conflict in terms. On the other hand, and what is undoubtedly the most unusual point in our history, the criminal act that was then judged had been totally consensual, that is, planned, consented and virtually executed by both parties, so that the real dichotomy was to determine if it was a murder or a sort of wicked euthanasia.

Armin Meiwes was born on 1 December 1961 in the city of Essen, in West Germany, and enjoyed a normal childhood with his parents and his two half-brothers. The family used to spend weekends and school holidays in their country house in Rotenburg, where little Meiwes developed a great love both for animals and nature. However, at the end of the summer of 1969, when he was 8 years old he witnessed how his father drove away from the country house never to return, which meant a very traumatic experience for the child. His two stepbrothers also left shortly afterwards. Suddenly Meiwes was left alone by his mother Waltraud, a 50-year-old woman who had gone through three unsuccessful marriages and who, after this new hard blow, retreated to herself completely. To the emotional trauma was also added the economic precariousness, since the father had emptied the family bank accounts when leaving. Waltraud Meiwes lived ever since locked up in the huge mansion, created a fantasy world in which she and her son got dressed in medieval costumes, and became a controlling mother who ruled Armin's life for his own desires and whims. He sought solace by creating an imaginary little brother who, at the onset of puberty, would end up becoming an object of sexual desire, just like the real boys who began to awaken in him the properly attraction of his very age. The extremely lonely character of the young man made it very difficult for him to establish relationships, so he began to develop a different kind of desire, characterized by the need to create such a close bond that the desired person of the same sex had to become in fact a part of him, fusion that he could only reach through eating him. By always carrying his friend or lover inside him, he would feel how his loneliness vanish. Nevertheless, Meiwes never meant to force anyone to fulfill this fantasy, in which the fetish was the male flesh, but hoped that his victim would sacrifice himself voluntarily, thus demonstrating his love towards him.

During his adolescence he had friendship with both girls and boys, but he never abandoned this man-eating fantasy. After a while he joined the army for twelve years, where he has several promotions and is recognized and accepted by his companions, socialization that perhaps, linked with a remoteness from the besetting influence of his mother, caused him to slow down his cannibal impulses. He even started a relationship with a woman named Petra, whom he met through a marriage agency, but the matter did not settle and the later women he met never enjoyed his mother's approval. Waltraud suffers in 1996 a car accident of which she will never recover, having Armin to be again responsible for his care and returning to suffer his obsessive and constant requirements. Finally she passes away in 1999, reason why Armin feels free to begin with a new life.

But this "new life" actually meant keeping two parallel lives. On the one hand he played the typical "normal" neighbor rol, a computer repair technician who went on sailing with his friends and rode horses, affectionate and cheerful. Nicole A., who achieved a close friendship with Meiwes, to the point of entrusting him her four children as a baby-sitter, states: "The children loved to meet him and spent a great time with him. I trusted him absolutely, and even then, after all that happened, I would still entrust him my children at any moment". On the other hand, released from his mother and alone in the huge country house, Meiwes was completely unleashed and internet became his second secret life. He surfed every night and, apart from watching zombie movies and images of animal slaughterhouses, he begins to discover websites and chat forums about cannibalism, such as The Cannibal Cafe. At first he did not take them too seriously but soon he began to be amazed by the number of people who offered themselves to be eaten, so he finally decided to answer to some of the ads and went on to set several appointments. His first meeting was with a cook, who proposed a role or simulation game in which Armin pretended to kill and eat him. Another partner got sexual pleasure from having pinned paper labels with the names of the different pieces of meat on his body. Meiwes told that there were even people asking to be grilled or chopped, but that none of them were really willing to materialize it and for him it was essential to have explicit consent. Until he met Brandes.

Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes was a 43-year-old engineer from Berlin who also had a traumatic past. His mother committed suicide when he was 5 years old and since then the relationship with his father deteriorated until it definitely brokes up when his son confessed to him that he was gay. Like Meiwes, Brandes had a double life as a businessman and sexual adventurer. Jimmy F., an ex male-prostitute of the busy Berlin Railroad Station at the Zoological Garden he met in 1995, stated that Brandes "liked to feel pain", being his biggest fantasy that he "would rip his penis off with a bite". He even offered to give him a huge amount of money and much of his possessions in order to do it. He was the perfect victim for Armin Meiwes, who immediately answered his online advert titled, according to the latter, “something like "Dinner" or "Your dinner"” and whose text offered "the chance to eat me alive".

On March 9, 2001 they met at the Kassel train station from where Meiwes drives to his house in Rotenburg. During the journey Brandes becomes excited and starts touching Armin. Once in the mansion the berliner begins to undress and the couple goes directly to the very room that soon will be called the “Slaughter Room”, being the place where the crime would be committed. There they practiced sex but this did not satisfy Brandes, who sought ecstasy through being devoured alive and accused Meiwes of being "too weak" to do that. When he was determined to return to Berlin, Meiwes told him at the station that he had changed his mind. They stopped at a pharmacy and bought sleeping pills, since Brandes considered that Meiwes would only be able to amputate his penis if he offered himself completely drugged. Back at the house and after several hours of conversation Brandes snapped at Meiwes: "I can not stand it anymore. Cut it!". They had already planned all the details before this meeting, including the use of a video camera to record everything, as Brandes wanted to look at his own face at the time of the amputation. The first time it did not work because the knife was not sharp enough. Meiwes went then to get another one and finally managed to cut the limb. "Blood came out as if it were a fountain", he recalled, but after a few seconds, after the shock and the initial cry, Brandes told him that he no longer felt pain and asked him to cut the amputated appendage in half. Startled, Meiwes obeyed and then took the two pieces to the kitchen, where he prepared and cooked them as if it were a stew. However the meat shrank in the pan to the point that there was nothing left eatable, but still Brandes tried to eat it while he was bleeding. Afterwards Meiwes puts him in a bathtub full of hot water and goes to his bed to read a Star Trek book, going to see him every fifteen minutes. In a later interview, the man from Rotenburg even stated that Brandes "was happy to be immersed in his own blood". About three hours later he decided to leave the bath and fell completely unconscious, so Meiwes dragged his body back to the second floor and set him on the bed. He would still regain consciousness several times before he died a few hours later, at late-night. Meiwes was hesitant about what to do next, but finally he cut off the head of the body, hung the corpse of a hook on the ceiling and proceeded to dismember it, storing the pieces of meat in bags under the false bottom of a freezer, which were successively cooked and eaten over several months. In the later trial he recognized that he had consumed about 20 kilos of human flesh.

Some of his cannibalistic impressions were captured in the interview made for the Barcroft TV documentary "Docs: Interview with a cannibal":

“I prepared the table as if it were a special occasion. I decorated the table with nice candles, I took out my best dinner service, and fried a piece of rump steak - a piece from his back - made what I call princess potatoes, and sprouts. After I prepared my meal, I ate it.

The first bite was, of course, very strange. I'm not really describing. I'd spent over 40 years longing for it, dreaming about it. And now I was getting the feeling that I was actually achieving this perfect inner connection through his flesh.

The flesh tastes like pork but stronger. It is a bit more juicy, although I do not think others would notice the difference if they ate it. It tasted really good."

Two days later Brandes' boyfriend reported his disappearance, but he had already deleted all the files on his computer and with them all possible connection with his murderer. However Meiwes continued to seek another victim through the net for a few more months, until his suspicious responses led a young austrian student to report to the head of the Federal Criminal Office (BKA), the german criminal police. Five months later, in December 2002, 6 police officers entered the Rotenburg mansion with a search warrant, and after a thorough inspection of the site they encountered the macabre find in addition to various incriminating objects: Meiwes’ computer, a video camera and numerous tapes, 3 knives, 1 ax and a butcher's apron.

The news spread very quickly, even worldwide, and caused a great wave of commotion at the time, as it could not be otherwise in such a case. Swedish death metal band Bloodbath reflected the victim's point of view in their song "Eaten" and the germans Rammstein also addressed the subject in "Mein Teil" ("My part"), being curiously demanded for it by Meiwes himself, what made the song banned in Germany for a while. Something similar happened to the Martin Weisz’ film Rohtenburg (Grimm Love Story) (2006). Another version about the story was Cannibal (2006), by the bizarre german filmmaker Marian Dora.

The circumstances of the crime made the first trial, carried out at the Provincial Court of Kassel, extremely complex. To begin with, as has already been explained, because there is no law against cannibalism in Germany, and then because Brandes was a voluntary victim, what demonstrated the video that the couple had recorded and that was projected during the hearing. Only 19 minutes of his total four hours were shown and some of those who viewed it must to attend therapy. Meiwes admitted having eaten Brandes and expressed regret for what happened. Psychiatrists determined that both had no mental disorder and were therefore fully aware of their actions. The prosecution asked for life imprisonment for "sexually motivated murder and disturbance of the rest of the dead”, while the defense claimed a conviction for "murder with consent of the victim". The first sentence dated January 30, 2004 was manslaughter and sentenced Meiwes to 8 years in prison.

In 2005 the prosecution appealed the verdict and the Supreme Federal Court (BGH) ordered a repeat of the trial because it considered that some evidences had not been properly evaluated in the previous trial. Finally, in May 2006, the Territorial Court of Frankfurt found Armin Meiwes guilty of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He is currently serving a sentence in a high security prison in Kassel.