Armin Meiwes, the "Rotenburg Cannibal"

The victim

Bernd Jürgen Brandes was a 43-year-old engineer who lived in Berlin. In the second half of 2000 he came into contact with Armin Meiwes, a computer technician from the Rotenburg an der Fulda area of northern Hesse, through a contact advertisement on an internet forum devoted to cannibal fantasies. Little else about his private life has been made public. The two men were in contact for several months before arranging to meet.

What happened in Rotenburg

On 9 March 2001 Brandes travelled from Berlin to Meiwes's house in Wüstefeld, a village belonging to Rotenburg. According to the chronology later compiled by Hesse's public broadcaster, he was killed there on 10 March 2001. Meiwes filmed parts of the encounter, and that recording later became central evidence. Meiwes always maintained that Brandes had consented to being killed. Meiwes also kept and later consumed parts of the remains, which is why German media still call him the "Cannibal of Rotenburg". For more than eighteen months nobody outside the house knew what had happened.

How the case came to light

Between July and September 2002 an internet user in Austria alerted police to Meiwes's online posts. The Federal Criminal Police Office identified the author, and the information was passed to the Hesse State Criminal Police Office. Officers searched Meiwes's property and arrested him on 10 December 2002. He confessed, and a judge issued an arrest warrant on suspicion of murder the following day. Kassel prosecutors filed a murder indictment in July 2003, and the trial began at the Kassel Regional Court that December.

A manslaughter verdict, then murder

On 30 January 2004 the Kassel court convicted Meiwes of manslaughter, not murder, and sentenced him to eight and a half years in prison. The prosecution had sought a life sentence for murder, while the defence had argued for the far milder offence of killing on request, which carries a maximum of five years. Both sides appealed. On 22 April 2005 the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) quashed the verdict. It found that the Kassel judges had not properly examined two of the aggravating features that turn a killing into murder under section 211 of the Criminal Code: killing for sexual gratification, and killing in order to make another offence possible, here disturbing the peace of the dead. The case was sent to a different court. On 9 May 2006 the Frankfurt Regional Court convicted Meiwes of murder and of disturbing the peace of the dead, and imposed a life sentence, without ordering preventive detention. In October 2008 the Federal Constitutional Court rejected his complaint against that sentence.

Why consent did not make it "killing on request"

The case is still taught in German law schools because of how it treats a victim's consent. Section 216 of the Criminal Code gives a much lower penalty when someone is "determined" to kill by the victim's express and earnest request, as in some assisted-dying situations. In its 2005 ruling (published as BGHSt 50, 80) the BGH held that consent alone is not enough: the victim's request must actually be what drives the perpetrator to act. Because Meiwes had sought out a victim to fulfil his own wishes, the request did not determine his decision, so the lighter offence did not apply. The court expressly left open whether Brandes's consent was legally valid at all. The ruling also held that a victim cannot consent away the public interest protected by the offence of disturbing the peace of the dead. Together these points confirmed that, under German law, agreeing to be killed does not stop an act from being murder when the killer's own motives are the driving force.

Life sentence and parole bids

Under section 57a of the Criminal Code, a life sentence can be suspended on probation after 15 years if a court finds a favourable prognosis and public safety allows it. Meiwes reached that point after his December 2002 arrest, but the Kassel court refused release in 2017, and in autumn 2018 the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt upheld the refusal, finding that no favourable prognosis could yet be made. A further application was rejected in August 2020. In April 2023 a fire broke out in the empty former house on his property, and firefighters let the unstable building burn down in a controlled way.

Developments in 2025 and 2026

In August 2025 Meiwes, then 63, applied again for early release. Prosecutors opposed it, citing an expert assessment. The proceedings were paused at the end of 2025 and resumed in February 2026, when the Kassel court asked the prison for a report on his conduct. In early September 2026, however, Meiwes withdrew the application. The Kassel Regional Court confirmed in October 2026 that no release proceedings were pending, so he remains in prison in Kassel, now aged 64, serving the life sentence imposed in 2006.