‘Fulfilling the dream shouldn’t become a nightmare for you. No one will know where I’ve disappeared to’.
This is just one chilling message Bernd-Jürgen Brandes sent to his cannibalistic killer days before he sliced up his his victim’s penis and slaughtered him on videotape.
In the quaint German town of Rotenburg, Armin Meiwes, now infamous as ‘The Cannibal of Rotenburg,’ carried out a series of horrifying acts that defied comprehension.
His victim? Brandes, the seemingly ordinary man with a shocking secret desire.
After meeting through an advertisement posted online in March 2001, the two men’s fates became entwined in a tale of consensual cannibalism, dark fantasies, and questions that still haunt psychologists, criminologists, and society at large.
The internet of the early 2000s was a burgeoning frontier, teeming with forums and chatrooms that allowed people to explore the depths of human curiosity and taboo.
Among these was a dark corner known as ‘The Cannibal Cafe,’ a platform where users discussed fantasies too grotesque to speak of in the daylight.
It was here, in 2001, that Meiwes, a mild-mannered computer repair technician, posted his disturbing advertisement: he was looking for someone willing to be killed and eaten.
To most, such a post would be dismissed as the ramblings of a deranged mind. But for Brandes, a successful and charismatic engineer from Berlin, it was a siren song.
Brandes harbored a chilling secret: he longed to be consumed.
Their online conversations, preserved in disturbing detail, paint a picture of mutual obsession, and together, they planned an encounter that would blur the lines of legality, morality, and sanity.
Bernd Juergen Brandes (pictured) answered an advertisement on a cannibalism fetish forum, through which Armin Meiwes was looking for a volunteer to be killed and eaten
Brandes visited Meiwes house in Rotenburg, Germany, where the pair engaged in cannibalism before Meiwes killed his willing victim
The twisted tale of a willing victim and bloodthirsty cannibal
To family and friends, Brandes was an average 42-year-old engineer.
But little did they know he was trawling internet chatrooms under the username Cator99, where beneath a chilling advertisement he met his killer, known online as Antrophagus – a name inspired by a 1980s horror film about a group of friends and a hitchhiker who become stranded on an island where they are stalked by a disfigured cannibalistic murderer.
Here, Brandes would delve into his deepest fantasies and eventually plot and execute his grisly desires with chilling precision.
In a dark corner of the web, on the forum for cannibal fetishists, an unassuming man named Armin Meiwes, 41, had posted a haunting advertisement.
He was looking, he wrote, for ‘a willing volunteer to be slaughtered and consumed’.
Meiwes was quiet, polite, and liked by his neighbors.
But behind the closed doors of his sprawling half-timbered house was a world few could imagine.
He was obsessed with cannibalism, a fantasy that consumed him from childhood.
As an adult, the internet gave him a platform to explore his desires, and he found a dark corner of cyberspace where others shared his grotesque fascination.
While the post might have seemed like a macabre joke to most, it caught the eye of Brandes, the successful but deeply troubled Berlin engineer.
Brandes, who harbored his own dark fantasies of being killed and eaten, responded enthusiastically to Meiwes’ request.
The two began corresponding, sharing explicit details of their desires and planning the gruesome encounter that would shock the world.
In a disturbing chat log between the pair, revealed by Harper’s Magazine in 2008, Brandes had replied to advertisement from a man who was seeking a ‘well-built man, 18–30, who would like to be eaten by me’.
According to the disturbing chat log between the two men, Brandes had made the first move, contacting Armin Meiwes with an eager ‘Hallllooooo????’.
Armin Meiwes (pictured in 2006), 41, also known as the ‘Cannibal of Rotenburg’, killed engineer Bernd Juergen Brandes, 42, at the house, in the small town of Rotenburg an der Fulda, on 10th March 2001, in a case that appalled Germany two decades ago
Once Meiwes, hiding under the username Antrophagus had responded asking what Brandes did for a job for him to be awake so late at night, the victim leapt straight into telling his killer: ‘I can’t sleep well anymore because of our meeting’.
The excited Brandes, apparently keen on finally coming face-to-face with the flesh eating man, continued the dialogue, entertaining Meiwes with his conversation.
Cannibal Meiwes eventually revealed he, too, was ‘looking forward’ to their March 9 meeting, telling his victim ‘it will definitely be really cool’.
A bizarrely enthusiastic Brandes quizzed his killer on whether he was setting an alarm for the awaited day before telling him: ‘I would have rather met you yesterday and felt your teeth’.
Keen Brandes, his anticipation growing, then asked his killer the ultimate question on whether he has ever killed before.
Meiwes admitted that while he has not, the thought consumed his mind: ‘Unfortunately, only in my dreams, but in my thoughts I do it every night.’
The wannabe cannibal also revealed he had never tasted human flesh prior to the conversation before the chat took a more unsettling turn – as he admitted he had experimented with his own blood to prepare himself.
‘Once I was so excited I grabbed a needle and drew my own blood so I could drink it,’ he said, describing it as ‘quite tasty.’
The soon-to-be killer also recounted a moment when an accident involving a drill allowed him to taste his own blood, calling it ‘a real treat’ and claiming, ‘Blood is the juice of life. It contains everything a person needs for nutrition.’
The pair then discussed the logistics of carrying out their dark plan, with Meiwes admitting that consuming living flesh will be challenging.
‘To bite into your penis will certainly not be easy – living flesh is somewhat more resistant than fried – but one thing is certain: our dream will be fulfilled.’
Brandes, seemingly complicit, asked about the disposal of his body after death.
Meiwes described his plan in detail: ‘After you’re dead, I’ll take you out and expertly carve you up. Except for a pair of knees and some fleshy trash (skin, cartilage, tendons), there won’t be much of you left.’
The court heard how horror films had fuelled Meiwes’ childhood fantasies of eating school friends. Pictured: Meiwes in his youth
Brandes swallowed 20 sleeping tablets and drank half a bottle of Schnapps before Meiwes hacked off his willing victim’s penis. Pictured: A playground behind the house of the cannibal
In a morbid addition, Brandes suggested using his knees as fertilizer, to which Meiwes agreed, demonstrating his meticulous preparation.
They also discussed targeting only willing participants, with the cannibal confessing he had considered abducting strangers but would prefer to kill only those who consent: ‘I’d do it, if it were legal,’ he concluded.
The dialogue ends with both men expressing hope that the act will fulfill their shared fantasy, with Meiwes chillingly suggesting that Brandes may not be his last victim.
This haunting exchange exposes a calculated and deeply disturbing dynamic, with both individuals rationalising and even romanticising their macabre plans.
Dinner for Two: A brutal slaying
On March 9, 2001, Brandes arrived at Meiwes’ secluded farmhouse in Rotenburg, , bringing with him a bottle of painkillers and a willingness to embrace his bizarre fate.
To outsiders, Meiwes was an ordinary man who loved gardening and cared for his mother until her death.
Yet inside his home, he had created a makeshift ‘slaughter room,’ complete with a meat hook and a butcher’s table.
After a dinner of traditional German schnitzel, the two men retreated to Meiwes’ bedroom, where they filmed a macabre encounter – a chilling video that would later become central evidence in one of Germany’s most infamous trials.
According to court testimony, Brandes drafted a will, leaving his belongings to Meiwes, and consented in writing and on video to being killed and consumed, before taking part in the deadly act.
Brandes swallowed 20 sleeping tablets and drank half a bottle of Schnapps before Meiwes hacked off his willing victim’s penis.
When Brandes awoke, the pair ate the raw severed flesh together, in what would become known as a gruesome ‘last supper’.
However, the reality of the dire situation quickly diverged from the fantasy and Brandes’ suffering was far from over.
Severely injured but still alive, he lay bleeding in Meiwes’ bathroom, while Meiwes – calmly and methodically – read a Star Trek novel and contemplated the next step as his victim slowly lost consciousness due to blood loss.
Brandes was left bleeding out in Meiwes’ bathtub after having his penis hacked off
Meiwes read a Star Trek novel and contemplated the next step as his victim slowly lost consciousness due to blood loss
On March 9, 2001, Brandes arrived at Meiwes’ secluded farmhouse in Rotenburg, , bringing with him a bottle of painkillers and a willingness to embrace his bizarre fate
Pictured: A circular saw on the terrace outside of Meiwes’ house in Rotenburg
Investigators found frozen human flesh, the chilling video of Brandes’ death, and the macabre tools of his crime in his house (pictured)
After hours of agonising indecision, he finished off his victim by stabbing him in the neck with a large kitchen knife, kissing him first.
The cannibal then chopped Brandes into pieces and put several bits of him in his freezer, next to a takeaway pizza, and buried the skull in his garden.
Over the following months, Meiwes consumed approximately 20 kilograms of Brandes’ flesh, storing the remains in a freezer and preparing meals from the human meat.
The cannibal also documented the entire process on video – a key piece of evidence that would later shock jurors and the world.
He later described the taste as being ‘like pork, but stronger.’
In interviews, Meiwes spoke with an eerie detachment about his actions, insisting that everything had been consensual.
But the dark secret couldn’t stay hidden forever.
Meiwes, seemingly emboldened by his success, posted another advertisement online seeking a new victim.
This time, a concerned internet user tipped off the authorities, and Meiwes’ farmhouse was raided in December 2002.
Investigators found frozen human flesh, the chilling video of Brandes’ death, and the macabre tools of his crime.
Meiwes’ trial in 2004 captivated audiences worldwide, not least because of the bizarre legal questions it raised.
Could it be considered murder if the victim had not only consented but actively sought their own death? Defense lawyers argued that Brandes’ willingness to die absolved Meiwes of criminal intent, while prosecutors maintained that the act was a grotesque violation of human dignity.
Ultimately, Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison.
However, the case didn’t end there.
Police with a tracker dog trained in searching for bodies at the house of Meiwes on December 12, 2002
Pictured: The house is pictured with police tape outside in 2002 (file photo)
Meiwes, right, talks to his lawyer Harald Ermel as he faced trial for murder at the regional court in Kassel, Germany, Wednesday, December 3, 2003
Police are seen searching Meiwes’ garden in 2002
A gravestone pictured in the garden of the cannibal after police raided his home
Public outrage over the relatively light sentence prompted a retrial.
The court heard how horror films had fuelled Meiwes’ childhood fantasies of eating school friends.
‘I had the fantasy, and in the end I fulfilled it,’ he said. The fantasy first developed between the ages of eight and 12, he added.
The killer spoke of how he felt ignored by his father, and longed for a good-looking younger brother – whom he would bind to himself forever by consuming.
In 2006, Meiwes was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
More than two decades later, the case of Armin Meiwes and Bernd Jürgen Brandes remains a chilling reminder of the darkest corners of human nature.
It has inspired documentaries, books, and even the 2006 horror film Grimm Love.
But for many, it is not the sensational media portrayals that linger – it is the disturbing reality of what happened between two consenting adults in a quiet German farmhouse.
Today, Meiwes sits in a maximum-security prison, where he reportedly has become a vegetarian and expresses regret for his actions.
Meanwhile, the story of Bernd Jürgen Brandes serves as a grim cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked desires in the digital age.
