Post by Graveyardbride on Jun 12, 2015 6:22:12 GMT -5
Tales of Two Cannibals
In 1819, Alexander Pearce, an Irishman born in 1790, was sent to Australia for stealing six pairs of shoes. He was sentenced to serve seven years on Van Diemen’s Land, now known as Tasmania. Pearce escaped in 1822, but was recaptured and sent to the harsher penal settlement of Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbor. Later that same year, Pearce and seven other convicts escaped and got lost in the bush. Three men dropped out and decamped. After 15 days without food, the party began to kill and eat each other. Pearce was the only survivor.
“The men were subjected to both physical and psychological horror and it goes as far as being flogged for looking at a prison officer or talking out of turn,” Niall Fulton, who wrote the 2008 documentary The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce, said in an interview. “And I think, without wanting to in any way declare cannibalism a cool thing or something that could happen, or should happen, I can empathize with the men that were on Sarah Island. I can empathize with the notion of doing anything to escape that kind of horror. The whole notion of hunger is explored in the film and Pearce condemned himself by using the phrase, ‘No man knows what hunger will make him do.’ And I think the overarching theme in the story is that question,” he added. “Unless you’re in that situation and you’ve suffered the barbarity of what Pearce suffered, then you can’t begin to fathom what he went through.
After being free for more than 100 days, Pearce was later captured. The authorities did not believe his stories of cannibalism and thought the others were still living as bushrangers. Pearce would escape a second time with a young convict named Thomas Cox. Ten days later, Pearce was captured, with parts of Cox’s body in his pockets. He was tried and convicted of murdering and cannibalizing Cox and hanged at Hobart Jail July 19, 1824. (The pencil sketch above depicts Pearce following execution.)
Cannibalism in the 21st Century. In an interview, Armin Meiwes (above), the German cannibal serving a life sentence for killing and eating a man who begged to be devoured, described how he prepared human steaks and how they tasted. In his first television appearance, broadcast on the RTL channel, Meiwes, 46, appeared relaxed and healthy as he spoke about his decades-long yearning to consume another man.
The case came to light in December 2002 and the grisly details made world headlines. Meiwes filmed himself killing, eviscerating and cutting up the corpse of computer engineer Bernd Brandes, 42, whom he met after posting messages in Internet chatrooms seeking “men for slaughter.”
“Yes, people who can’t think their way into this find it monstrous. But in principle, I’m a normal human being,” he told interviewer Günter Stampf, who has written a book, Interview with a Cannibal, based on 30 meetings with Meiwes in jail. The interviews were approved by the Frankfurt district court that convicted the cannibal.
“I sauteed the steak of Bernd, with salt, pepper, garlic and nutmeg. I had it with princess croquettes, Brussels sprouts and a green pepper sauce,” he continued, adding that the meat was a “little tough.” He froze meal-sized portions of Brandes, some in the form of minced meat, and ate more than 45 pounds of the man in the months following the March 2001 slaughter.
During his two trials in 2004 and 2006, Meiwes said he had always dreamed of having a younger brother – “someone to be part of me” – and became fascinated by cannibalism as a means of fulfilling his obsession. His desires, he claimed, were fueled by the Internet, where he had contact with around 400 men interested in cannibalism. He found a perfect match in Brandes, who was obsessed with being eaten.
“The first bite was, of course, a peculiar, indefinable feeling at first because I had yearned for that for 30 years, that this inner connection would be made perfect through this flesh,” Meiwes related during the interview. “The flesh tastes like pork, a little bit more bitter, stronger. It tastes quite good.”
He recalled that as a child he had enjoyed having his mother read him the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel,” about a witch who traps two children and prepares to eat the boy. “The bit where Hansel is to be eaten was interesting. You wouldn’t believe how many Hansels are whizzing around the Internet.” Police estimate that around 10,000 people in Germany alone share Meiwes’s fascination for cannibalism – either eating human flesh, or being eaten.
A pretrial psychiatric examination concluded Meiwes is not insane, but possesses a “severely disturbed soul.” In the interview, Meiwes said, “I want to undergo therapy, I know I need that and I hope it will be done at some point.”
Meiwes, who is serving his sentence in Kessel, could be eligible for parole after serving a mandatory 15 years, making him eligible for release in 2021.
Cultural Impact of the Meiwes Case. Marilyn Manson credited Meiwes as the inspiration for his album Eat Me, Drink Me. Rammstein, the German industrial metal band, produced the hugely controversial song “Mein Teil” (“My Part,” slang for “My penis”), about the Meiwes case; and Bloodbath, the Swedith death metal band, did a song called “Eaten” concerning the desire to be eaten alive.
The 2005 short film An Appetite for Bernard Brady, was loosely based on the case, but is from the perspective of the victim, not the cannibal. The film was nominated and won multiple awards at Montana State University School of Film and Photography’s 2005 Tracy Awards. The feature film Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story (aka Rohtenburg) was banned in Germany after Meiwes complained that his personality rights had been violated. The ban has since been lifted. The film won multiple awards at the 2006 Festival de Cine de Sitges. Other films based on the case include Rosa von Praunheim’s Dein Herz in Meinem Hirn (Your Heart in My Brain), and Ulli Lommel’s Diary of a Cannibal. The 2005 Australian thriller Feed, though not a direct adaptation, is similar to the Meiwes case. In 2006, Cannibal, directed by Marian Dora, reconstructed the Meiwes case. The film was banned in Germany.
In television, Season 2, Episode 3 of sitcom The IT Crowd, entitled “Moss and the German,” parodies the Meiwes case. The character Maurice Moss, believing he is taking a German cooking class, goes to the home of Johann, a German cannibal, where he learns that because of Johann’s poor grasp of the English language, he has misunderstood “cooking” for “being cooked.” Season 1, Episode 1 of the TV series Rake, entitled “R V Murray,” featured an accused cannibal who eats his volunteer in circumstances similar to that of Meiwes and Brandes. Also, “Cannibal,” in Season 1, Episode 4 of the 2014 American remake of Rake, features an accused cannibal.
In 2014, TASTE, an award-winning play inspired by the Meiwes incident, premiered in Los Angeles at the Sacred Fools Theater Company, starring Chris McKenna. The production was nominated for various awards by the major Los Angeles Theatrical Critic Organizations.
Author: Graveyardbride.
Sources: The Irish Central, June 6, 2015; Frank McNally, "A Binge Too Far," Irish Times, May 31, 2014; and Spiegel International.
Note: The third photo is from Meiwes’s videotape.
See also “Modern-Day Cannibals”: whatliesbeyond.boards.net/thread/5054/modern-day-cannibals
