Armin Meiwes

Consider the following scenario: Before Armin Meiwes, who had killed and eaten Bernd Brandes, was convicted to lifetime imprisonment by the Land Court of Frankfurt in 2006, his lawyers contended that the sentence should be of “killing upon request”, which would have amounted to a sentence of up to five years. Their claim was based on the fact that Brandes had agreed to be killed and eaten. Contrarily, German prosecutors claimed that due to the victim’s perturbed mental state, something that should have been known by Meiwes, he ought to be convicted of “murder” instead of “manslaughter" and face a sentence of lifetime imprisonment. It is worth noticing that neither the defense nor the prosecution had any doubts about either Brandes’ perturbed mental state or his consent to be killed. There seems to be nothing particularly puzzling with the claim that in such a situation prosecutors and lawyers hold different opinions about the law. Their different views about how this case should be legally treated could even lead them into a linguistic exchange of the following form: Lawyer: The…

Bernd Brandes had fantasized about being eaten by a cannibal, and Mewies had fantasized about eating a human man. They communicated over email for a few weeks, and then met at Meiwes home. After engaging in sexual relations, to Brandes’ request, Meiwes cut Brandes’ penis off, and they both ate it. The gore does not stop there, and the mutilation continued. In the book Territories of Evil, it explains the timeline of events, “After Brandes’ took a bath, Meiwes suggested that he finish the act,…

Most people of the past viewed cannibalistic acts as those that barbaric people only participated in. Therefore, the idea that cannibalism could be considered consensual and good was not even a thought. This view is not drastically different in the 21st century, but it has made its way into the main forms of media. Germany In March of 2001, the first case of its kind popped up in a small town in Germany. In this instance, a man, Armin Meiwes, killed and ate parts of another man, Bernd Brandes…

These cannibal fantasies were developed by watching the Robinson Crusoe film on television and Armin says “this awakened the fascination of cannibalism within me.” Armin later explains that he “started wishing that Sandy the boy in the TV ‘Flipper’ series would his fantasy brother, the one who would be in me.” Later on Armin says the fantasy began to frustrated him that now he “wanted something more solid than an idea.” He explains “I wanted a real person to be part of me.” Armin also explains…

In 2003, a German citizen, Armin Meiwes appeared in court for his crimes of murder and cannibalism. Although Mr. Meiwes confessed to these crimes, the case was not as straightforward as it sounds. The major twist to the story is that the victim in this instance, Bernd-Jurgen Brandes, willingly volunteered to take part in these gruesome acts. This case threw the German legal system for a loop. While the prosecution argued that since Mr. Meiwes killed a man and then proceeded to consume the victim…