The Man Who Consented to Being Eaten Alive

If you have been around on the Internet for as long as we have, then you should already be aware that cannibalism is, if not always technically illegal, then at the very least universally frowned upon. For whatever reason, even the most hardcore carnivores among us seem to draw the line when it comes to consuming actual human flesh. Even those who have been faced with the decision to either engage in cannibalism or starve to death and opted for the former have faced serious backlash later in life.

All that being said, Rule 34 exists for a reason, and you don’t have to look too deeply into the dark corners of the Internet in order to find people who at least claim to have a disturbing level of interest in cannibalism. But what would happen if cannibalism occurred between two consenting adults? What if somebody who had a genuine interest in eating another human being went online and found somebody who had a genuine interest in being eaten?

The following is just such a story.

Who was Armin Meiwes?

As most of us know, online dating can be an interesting game. You probably would not have to ask too many of your friends to find one who has gone on at least one date expecting to meet up with a six-foot-four, musclebound bodybuilder, only to find that their date for the evening was in fact a five-foot-two, 110-pound faker hoping to carry the day on a non-existent personality. What with this being a well-known problem within the dating world, people have got into the habit of writing some very specific requests in their profiles.

Take, for example, Armin Meiwes, who said he was looking for a young, well-built man who was prepared to be eaten.

Born on the 1st of December 1961 in Essen, Germany, Armin Meiwes had the kind of childhood that many followers of true crime may recognise. Abandoned by his father at the age of eight, he spent a rather lonely childhood being raised by an exceptionally dominant and overbearing mother. Fairly recently, he is reported to have said that he always wished for a younger brother whilst growing up. Whilst this is a reasonably common wish among only children and should by no means raise any red flags, that is only half of what he said.

He would go on to say that he would also fantasise about eating this brother, so that they would be with him forever. In fact, fantasising about eating people would become a fairly common theme as he grew up.

Urges and suppression

As Meiwes progressed through school, the hunger only got greater. Whereas most of us start paying attention to whichever gender we are attracted to as we enter our teenage years, for Meiwes this was other men, but he denied this even to himself for quite a while. He quickly discovered that his interest in eating those people was far greater than any other physical allure. During this time at least, he was able to keep these fantasies as just that—fantasies—successfully suppressing his urges and attempting to lead a normal life. Even if he had decided to truly live his dream during his teenage years, the insane levels of control held over him by his mother would have very likely made this impossible. The phrase “helicopter parent” is bandied around a lot these days, but Armin Meiwes’s mother took not letting her child out of her sight to the extreme. According to an article published in the London Evening Standard: “When he took a girl on a date, she accompanied them, sitting in the back seat of the car.” Even when he eventually joined the army, an occupation that usually guarantees you a little time away from home, he somehow managed to arrange it so he could still reside at home in the family mansion.

It is likely that, until his mother’s demise on 2 September 1999, when he was 37 and she 77, they had never spent so much as a night apart. Even when travelling for work, he is reported to have brought his mother along with him and shared a double hotel room.

Although this kind of codependent attachment can be really, really bad for you, it is just possible that the sudden and complete freedom afforded to Meiwes upon his mother’s death was even more of a problem. With his father and two elder brothers utterly estranged, and him living alone in the mansion that his mother had bequeathed to him, he was free to do absolutely anything he wanted. As it turned out, what he wanted to do was research.

Consequences of freedom

Without his mother constantly looking over his shoulder, he very quickly discovered, and then joined, some of the most depraved communities on the Internet.

The thing about the Internet is it allows you to find anything. If you can think of a thing, then there is a very good chance that others have already made at least one website about it. Taking into account some of the things that you can find online if you put your mind to it, cannibalism is actually quite tame.

Well, that’s a bit misleading. The Internet contains quite a few places such as the Cannibal Café, where people who fantasise about eating people or being the person who is eaten can get together, swap fictional stories, engage in online role-play, that sort of thing—but the majority of members have no intentions of actually going through with it in real life. After all, if you are the person who wants to be eaten, then you really only get one opportunity, and there are very few people out there who are prepared to end it all just to be part of somebody else’s fantasy.

Although many websites and videos that tell Meiwes’s story claim that it was in fact the Cannibal Café where he posted his now-famous request, thanks to the work of the Stories From the Internet channel, we know that this is not true.

Although the Cannibal Café, a subhost of another site called Necrobabes.org, truly was the fantasist’s dream—even going as far as to include information on the best way to carve, cook, and preserve human flesh, as well as providing a message board for its hungry patrons—Meiwes was never successfully able to interact with anybody who wanted to make their fantasy a reality.

This is not to say that he was not an active user of both the site and the message boards, but when the site went live in 2001, he had already met his future victim, Bernd-Juergen Brandes, on a different Yahoo message forum aimed at the gay cannibal community.

Dinner companion

Although we refer to Juergen Brandes as a “victim,” in reality it is far more complicated than that. As the following email exchange between Antrophagus [Meiwes] and Cator99 [Brandes] indicates, both participants were absolutely consenting.

Antrophagus: I’m looking forward to our meeting — it will definitely be really cool. I want it to be. I hope it really is cool. Are you setting an alarm clock? It is only a few days until March 9th.

Cator99: Still, I would have rather met you yesterday and felt your teeth.

Antrophagus: One can’t have everything. There is still some time before you really feel my teeth.

Cator99: I hardly know what to expect. Have you ever slaughtered a man before?

Antrophagus: Unfortunately, only in my dreams. But in my thoughts, I do it every night.

Cator99: So, I am the first? You have eaten human flesh before, or you haven’t?

Antrophagus: No, you don’t exactly find it in the supermarket, unfortunately.

Cator99: I hope you won’t wilt and are able to go through with it properly.

Antrophagus: Our dream will be fulfilled.

As we can see from these messages, not only are both participants definitely consenting, but we can go as far as to say that they are consenting with a great deal of enthusiasm.

So, just exactly what did happen on the 9th of March 2001?

Well, as originally planned, Brandes arrived at the mansion and, after setting up a video camera to immortalise the entire event, the two men went straight to a specially prepared room and had sex.

In order to get a rough idea of just how much time Meiwes had spent preparing for this moment, let us take a quick look at a description of that room provided by a German newspaper:

“It is a chamber beyond the imagination of even the most creative horror writer. In one corner stands a wooden cage into which Meiwes placed young men whom, he said, were sexual playthings, but not victims of his cannibalism. There is an iron bedstead with a blue, floral pattern mattress on which lie ropes and a leather harness.”

As you can tell, not exactly traditionally styled for a romantic encounter, but certainly fit for purpose.

After consuming two bottles of Night Nurse mixed with alcohol, Brandes lay down on the aforementioned bed and allowed Meiwes to attempt to bite off his penis.

Unfortunately, this proved to be incredibly difficult so, in order to speed up the process, a knife was used instead.

With the video camera still recording, Meiwes attempted to fry the severed organ with some garlic and herbs but, perhaps due to having no previous cooking experience when it came to human genitalia, the resulting snack was burned to such a degree that neither of them enjoyed it, so it was thrown away.

Some sources claim that Meiwes fed it to his dog, but we are choosing to believe that this is not true.

The cookery experiment attempted and largely failed, Brandes climbed into the bathtub in order that he might bleed out with the minimum of mess, and his host retired to another room in order to read a Star Trek novel and wait.

When Meiwes returned several hours later, it was to discover Brandes both very much still alive and in tremendous pain.

As it turns out, severing somebody’s penis is unlikely to cause death by blood loss — who knew.

After discussing the problem for a while, it was agreed that Brandes would need further assistance in order to actually die, so Meiwes stabbed him several times in the neck and he died shortly afterwards.

Whereupon, the body was hung over the bath on a meat hook and processed as thoroughly as a cow in a slaughterhouse.

Meiwes froze the majority of the meat and ate much of it over the next several months, often setting the table for a romantic meal for one complete with candles, flowers, and a nice bottle of wine.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about this entire story is that, had Meiwes decided to give up his cannibalistic ways after achieving his goal just once, he would have almost definitely gotten away with it.

Brandes appears to have taken great pains to ensure that nobody knew where he was going, and given that there wasn’t exactly a body to hide, the police knew nothing about what had happened and would have struggled to find evidence if they did.

Things very rarely work out that way though — or, if they do, the stories do not make it out into the public domain.

The arrest and the trial

A few months after his first kill, Meiwes was back advertising online in order to restock his freezer.

This time though, he was not so lucky.

His post was discovered by a German college student who very quickly reported it to the authorities.

Shortly thereafter, the Meiwes mansion was raided by the police who found not only portions of human meat in the freezer but also the videotape documenting the entirety of that fateful evening.

As you won’t be surprised to hear, he was arrested on the spot, and so began a rather interesting trial.

Meiwes told the police almost immediately what he had done, but argued vociferously that he was guilty of no crime.

After all, he had both written and video evidence to prove that the deceased had consented, and the prosecution was further hampered by the discovery that cannibalism is not, in fact, illegal in Germany.

Arguing against the initial charge of murder, the defence claimed that, if Meiwes was guilty of anything, it was of the far lesser crime of “killing upon request,” which in Germany carried a maximum sentence of five years.

They would go on to claim that, because he had taken such great efforts to find somebody consenting, he was not a real danger to the public.

In this at least, they may have had a point.

It turned out that Brandes was not the only person to visit the mansion with plans of being eaten.

Somebody else had, at some point, signed up to the meal plan, but got cold feet at the last minute and was allowed to go on their way.

Nevertheless, the jury wasn’t having any of it, and Meiwes was eventually convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to prison for eight years.

Many individuals, both members of the public and various online communities around the world, believed this sentence to be particularly harsh.

However, the German legal system took an entirely different view and Meiwes was forced into a re-trial, this time charged with murder for sexual gratification.

On the 9th of May 2006, his initial sentence was overturned and he received a whole life sentence.

He remains alive and imprisoned to this day.

Wrapping up

So, what about the online community of cannibalistic fantasists?

Although steps were taken to remove Necrobabes.org and, by extension, the Cannibal Café from the Internet, it ultimately survived an official takedown.

It would, however, finally go offline in around 2013 after multiple denial-of-service attacks.

Its existence, and the existence of other websites like it, raises an interesting question though.

Assuming that all content on the site remains purely within the realms of fantasy, no laws are being broken and no people are actually getting physically hurt, should such websites be allowed to exist?

Yes, very occasionally somebody will cross the boundary between fantasy and reality, as this story proves, but generally such fantasy communities have a reputation of being rather stringently self-policing.

Statistically, even if you factor in the vast discrepancy in user numbers, an individual is far more likely to come to harm through using mainstream websites such as Facebook or Twitter.

If the worst thing to come out of this community since the inception of the Internet is one case of an individual who was exceptionally thorough when it came to finding somebody who definitely wanted to participate, is that really grounds to deploy blanket bans?

Obviously, we are not condoning the actions of Meiwes in any way whatsoever, but his story does raise several interesting points when it comes to the topic of Internet freedom.

Key Takeaways

• Armin Meiwes, a German man, sought a consenting adult to eat, finding Bernd-Juergen Brandes online.
• Meiwes and Brandes had a consensual agreement, with Brandes eager to be eaten.
• The act involved elaborate preparation and failed attempts, leading to Brandes’ eventual death.
• Meiwes was initially sentenced to eight years for manslaughter, later increased to life.
• The case raises questions about the legality and regulation of online cannibalism communities.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Armin Meiwes?

Armin Meiwes was a German man born on December 1, 1961, in Essen, Germany. He gained notoriety for his involvement in a consensual cannibalism case. Meiwes had a troubled childhood, being raised by a dominant mother and having fantasies about eating people from a young age.

What was Armin Meiwes looking for in his online profile?

Armin Meiwes stated in his online profile that he was looking for a young, well-built man who was prepared to be eaten.

How did Armin Meiwes’s childhood influence his later actions?

Armin Meiwes had a lonely childhood raised by an overbearing mother. He fantasized about eating people, including a younger brother he wished for. His mother’s control over him likely suppressed these urges until her death in 1999, after which he was free to act on them.

What happened when Meiwes’s mother died?

After his mother’s death in 1999, Meiwes was suddenly free to act on his long-suppressed urges. He joined depraved online communities and began actively seeking someone who wanted to be eaten.

How did Armin Meiwes meet Bernd-Juergen Brandes?

Armin Meiwes met Bernd-Juergen Brandes on a Yahoo message forum aimed at the gay cannibal community. They had a consensual agreement where Brandes wanted to be eaten by Meiwes.

What happened during the encounter between Meiwes and Brandes?

On March 9, 2001, Brandes arrived at Meiwes’s mansion. After setting up a video camera, they had sex, and Meiwes attempted to bite off Brandes’s penis. When this proved difficult, he used a knife. Brandes later died from being stabbed in the neck by Meiwes.

What was the outcome of Meiwes’s trial?

Meiwes was initially sentenced to eight years for manslaughter, but this was overturned. He was then sentenced to life in prison for murder for sexual gratification. He remains imprisoned to this day.

What was the Cannibal Café and its role in Meiwes’s story?

The Cannibal Café was an online community where people could discuss and role-play cannibalistic fantasies. Meiwes was an active user but did not meet Brandes there. He met Brandes on a different Yahoo message forum.

What legal issues arose from Meiwes’s actions?

Meiwes argued that he was not guilty of any crime because Brandes had consented. The prosecution faced challenges because cannibalism is not illegal in Germany. Meiwes was eventually convicted of murder for sexual gratification.

What happened to the online communities like the Cannibal Café after Meiwes’s arrest?

Steps were taken to remove the Cannibal Café from the Internet, but it ultimately survived an official takedown. It went offline around 2013 after multiple denial-of-service attacks. The existence of such communities raises questions about Internet freedom and self-policing.

Sources

• Original Into the Shadows video: The Man Who Consented to Being Eaten Alive
• Hero image source by Philafrenzy / openverse, by-sa.

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