HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man, nothing has to be as disappointing as finding out that you don't even have enough dick for lunch.
ED LARSON
I know I don't.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know I don't.
MARCUS PARKS
No, nobody does.
ED LARSON
Yeah. Well for me you can have one ball for one lunch and another for dinner.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's different.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
But that's only if you want to eat the same thing twice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Absolutely. And that's the type of German eggs that I don't want. I don't want your German eggs. It's just weird the idea of-
ED LARSON
(German accent) What about for Easter?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Oh! Hippity hop, hippity hop. Big bouncy eggs for me and my pop! I love Germany. What a great day today is gonna be.
MARCUS PARKS
Welcome to the Last Podcast on the Left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks, I'm here with Henry Zebrowski.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hungry, hungry, Henry Zebrowski. Oh man. I honestly did eat lunch.
ED LARSON
What did you have?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I had my 'gurt, I had berries and 'gurt.
ED LARSON
I had that for breakfast.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. That was my lunch.
ED LARSON
And I had a green smoothie for lunch today knowing that we were gonna have this episode.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I'm excited about today because today.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because today it's time for dude to be on the menu! Yay, we did it! We made it!
MARCUS PARKS
We made it. And of course making it with us is Ed Larson.
ED LARSON
For years I worked at a cheesesteak restaurant. Years. 99 Miles to Philly.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you think one of the saddest things-
ED LARSON
This is 99 Miles to Frankfurt.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you have to shave the meat? Like when you do-
ED LARSON
It comes pre-shaven but we kind of half cook it and then put it with some juice on the side and then freeze it and then unfreeze it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But does it come in a big frozen block that you shave sections off?
ED LARSON
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because I wonder how he'd make cheese dick.
ED LARSON
Cheesesteak?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like how would he make human cheesesteak?
ED LARSON
I would imagine he'd probably use the back and shave it. Yeah. But we never went through, it was a storefront.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
We're not shaving legs of cow and shit like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. No, no.
ED LARSON
They're giving us the meat and it's got a little deli paper in between it, we're flapping it on the grill.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It's a tiny little place in the East Village and man, I miss that place.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I miss that place.
ED LARSON
RIP.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But guys, today it's getting romantic. But just remember, tone's gonna shift because last week you remember it gets very romantic but it gets a little intense. That's why we're going from old school (polka music plays) hey! Ho! Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!
ED LARSON
It's a good bouncing up and down song.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're going from that to (record scratch) (Rammstein plays) yeah! Fuck yeah, dude! Yeah! Fuck yeah! Woo!
ED LARSON
Man.
MARCUS PARKS
And of course that is Rammstein.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Rammstein.
MARCUS PARKS
Rammstein with their song about... Well actually it's not necessarily about Armin Meiwes, it's from the perspective of the man Armin Meiwes ate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The man who came to dinner and was dinner!
ED LARSON
Yeah, appropriately names Bernd.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah! Hey, it was medium rare.
ED LARSON
Well not the penis. We'll get into it. You know what's interesting about Rammstein? I didn't realize they're named after the town. Because I went to Ramstein Air Force Base. I don't know if it's 'stine' or 'steen'.
MARCUS PARKS
Shtine'.
ED LARSON
It's 'shtine'. I went to Ramstein Air Force Base when I did USO.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh wow!
ED LARSON
So they're like Germany's Chicago.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow. That's amazing!
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's Chicago? Is that their version of Saturday in the Park?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I love that song.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Love that song.
MARCUS PARKS
So when we last left Armin Meiwes, his fantasies of killing and eating another man were about to come true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Lucky boy!
MARCUS PARKS
After spending months on various cannibal forums searching for a potential willing victim and coming up empty, Armin had finally found a man who was pathologically obsessed with being annihilated by another human being, culinarily speaking.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As is called epicurean cannibalism. Did you know that there's a whole world of cannibalism that's called epicurean cannibalism which means to eat for the taste?
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah. It's not for survival. I guess you should distinct the two.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well we do. We covered it when we covered the Alive!
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When we talked about the rugby team. That's technically anthropophagy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is eating for survival. It's called survival cannibalism. But yeah, he just liked it.
ED LARSON
I wonder if they think he's like a poser or the best.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He actually did become a minor folk hero in his little community.
ED LARSON
Oh interesting.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the man who was annihilated was named Bernd Brandes and his desire... Because it's more, it's Bernd instead of 'burnt'.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, Bernd.
MARCUS PARKS
It's Bernd. And his desire to be consumed and Armin's desire to feast upon flesh matched about as perfectly as one could hope in situations such as this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, man. It's just kind of incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You never know when you're gonna meet your soulmate. You never know where you're gonna be.
MARCUS PARKS
It wasn't a perfect match. We're gonna get into it. It wasn't a perfect match.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, what's perfect? Are marriages perfect? No. Are they great? Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So they found it. They found themselves. Just like Jack and Rose.
ED LARSON
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of blood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Fuck yeah! (metal guitar riff)
MARCUS PARKS
So after a period of back and forth on email, Bernd arrived at Armin's local train station with an aggressive attitude towards being killed and eaten as soon as possible but not necessarily in that order.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What if Bernd did show up with just two hamburger buns? Just like what does this look like? Is it my new hat?
MARCUS PARKS
Now as far as how a specimen such as Bernd Brandes came to be, he was born in Berlin in 1958 as the perfectly normal middle class son of two doctors.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now those doctors, did they spend a lot of time massaging his body with nice, delicious herbs and like a sake in order to sort of like marble him through?
MARCUS PARKS
We're gonna do this the whole time?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just saying. This is how you make the perfect-
MARCUS PARKS
So you're starting at the very beginning, you're starting with his birth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're just saying that it was-
ED LARSON
Well when he was first marinated.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Exactly. That's where they start these Kobe beefs. That's where they serve them, straight out the pussy.
MARCUS PARKS
But when Bernd was five years old, his mother accidentally killed a patient during a procedure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dropped an anvil on him.
ED LARSON
That anvil therapy is so dangerous.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's so dangerous. It's only in Europe.
MARCUS PARKS
Well soon after while on vacation, his mother crashed her car into a tree which killed her instantly. While it was ruled an accident, Bernd's father always believed it to be a suicide because she couldn't live with the guilt of a patient's death. But the stress of Bernd's mother's death at such a young age and the subsequent transference of his mother's guilt, this became a pathology in which Bernd believed that he had to atone for his mother's failings and her death through his own annihilation and suffering. Or at least that's what's speculated.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There really seems to be, I don't know, but a pretty big connection to mommy issues and cannibalism.
MARCUS PARKS
Well I mean-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ed Kemper. He also did weird cannibalistic acts. He had problems with mommy, right.
MARCUS PARKS
I would say that most, what do you call them? Not fetishes. A lot of them are associated with mommy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They come from mommy.
MARCUS PARKS
It's not just cannibalism.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because mommy's got the tits. But sometimes daddy's got the dicks and if you like the dicks then daddy might give you the fetishes.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But remember Daddy wasn't around.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It didn't help him. But yeah, a lot mommies around are really not doing their best.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Especially if you're like, yeah, like Jeffrey Dahmer, he had issues.
ED LARSON
He had a bad mommy?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he had a bad mommy. Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well yeah. But a distant mommy.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he had a mommy that was incredibly depressive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And that affected him in many ways.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And his parents had a horrible relationship. And then they just abandoned him when he was about 16 and that's when he started killing men.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's because he sucked.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You see and that's the thing is that the kid sucked. So yeah, they were right.
ED LARSON
Yeah. My parents pretty much abandoned me at 17. I didn't kill anybody.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No!
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. Same here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Except for audiences around this country. Go to eddietunes.com and go and have him come to your local church, your local funeral home.
ED LARSON
I'll play anywhere.
MARCUS PARKS
But what's most interesting about this is that both Bernd and Armin develop their fantasies at around the same age, although Armin seemed to have been born with it while Bernd's was created by outside forces. But we got a really interesting email at Side Stories this week from a person who actually does have this like cannibalism fetish.
ED LARSON
Oh.
MARCUS PARKS
And they said that through speaking with other people who have the same fetish, they're like you're kind of just born with it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it does seem-
MARCUS PARKS
They just all say like... And they said a lot of people get it though, like when it does get kind of baked in later on, a lot of people get it from Pinocchio.
ED LARSON
Really?
MARCUS PARKS
Like when Pinocchio gets swallowed by the whale.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Some of them say like yeah, when I watched that when I was a kid, it made me really horny.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Getting swallowed by the whale?!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but that's vore. Then we're in the world of vore too. Because vore is something else entirely. Vore is the idea that you are sexually attracted to the idea of being entirely consumed, that's Bernd kinda.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In his own way. He does like that kind of... Because his is the opposite swing, right, where Armin is all about the kind about looking at people as food but Bernd looked in the mirror and sees pizza.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like he literally is like I'm so hot, I shouldn't exist.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
And he had no strings to hold him down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Eddietunes.com.
MARCUS PARKS
Great Pinocchio joke. Fantastic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is funny.
ED LARSON
Do you know he only lies once in the whole fucking movie?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know, yes. It's because he's inherently on his, Pinocchio, he learns the lesson early, he's a pure spirit.
MARCUS PARKS
Nevertheless, while Armin was obsessed with consuming his entire life, Bernd had a lifelong obsession with being consumed. And it wasn't just like, we'll get into it later, it wasn't just that it made him horny.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was everything.
MARCUS PARKS
There was a lot of shit going on with Bernd-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Including like not being okay with being gay, like having a lot of issues with being gay-
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Having issues with like self love and self hatred and all that. Like Bernd, he's a fascinating individual but he's got some problems.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's got problems.
ED LARSON
Yeah. He seems oddly self aware.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He is.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, he's I think one of the most incredibly self aware people that I've ever read about.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Very in touch with himself. But just like Armin, Bernd was an average human being to most outside observers. He was the head of his department at Germany's largest engineering firm and he had a string of unsuccessful relationships with women. Finally though at the age of 40, he accepted that he was gay. By the end of 1999, two years before his fateful meeting with Armin, Bernd was even in a healthy relationship with a man named Rene, and together they built a happy life in Berlin, even though Bernd chose to keep his sexuality a secret from his coworkers. But what's fascinating about Bernd, and I do find Bernd an absolutely fascinating individual.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, we are very sickenedly curious about Bernd.
MARCUS PARKS
Is that while many people with a pathological need for self destruction sometimes channel that into addiction or risky behavior, Bernd channeled his need completely into sexual fetishes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was all day and I get it.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm horny too, I'm horny as a damn jackrabbit. And I'm not this horny.
ED LARSON
So him and Rene were just banging and banging and banging and banging and banging?
MARCUS PARKS
Well I mean he engaged in the services of various sex workers.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
He would go up to three times a day.
ED LARSON
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Three times a day.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
That's expensive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean he was the head of his fucking team.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, dude.
ED LARSON
You never know. You never know who's doing what.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, do you think he had to have one of those mouse twitchers to let them know that he was at work while he was like going and getting sounded and getting his butthole destroyed?
MARCUS PARKS
Well he would go to play out his extreme BDSM urges in which he would be whipped and his fantasies could be taken to their limits. Eventually though the play acting wasn't enough. His biggest fantasy, the one that came ahead of total annihilation was castration.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But not the old school castration.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not like the balls.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean it's the full magilla.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
It's if guillotine was a mouth.
MARCUS PARKS
And it was his hope that one day he would watch himself be castrated by another man before that man consumed him completely. Now at first Bernd tried paying sex workers to bite off his penis, once even going so far as to offer a man named Victor 10,000 marks to do so. Victor of course declined.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So Bernd turned to the internet in the hopes that he could find someone willing to go all the way.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's say you're in that scenario, right. At this point, you're spanking this guy, what else are we doing to this guy, right? We're doing a bunch of weird shit, beating the shit out of him.
MARCUS PARKS
Not weird. BDSM, totally normal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, that's right. But I mean like at this point you're victor.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're tired. He's hard. Now until this is bite on your penis... Because like bite on it, bite on it.
MARCUS PARKS
Bite on it and bite it I think are two different things.
ED LARSON
Bite through it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But there's no way-
MARCUS PARKS
That preposition is really important.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It does not start with bite my dick off. You know it starts with-
ED LARSON
Kissing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) You ever see corn on the cob? You ever see American film? Corn on the cob American film, American blue jean? Right? And then he goes like (German accent) ja, ja, me know. I know. Me know.
ED LARSON
Matrix, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Matrix, ja, ja. Matrix. Nibble on the outside. Nibble on the outside. And so it starts with like, like this? He's like oh yeah. Little bit more. Now you know American big man, big man, big gun, big buckle. I'm going home to to Texas, big hand. Right? Bite into it now, like a hot dog. Like a frankfurter, like they do! And then the guy has to go like what? Nah, nah, dude. I'll suck the hell out of this.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like I will suck this dick.
MARCUS PARKS
That's what I'm here for, bro.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude, I'm here, man. I've been probably sucking.
ED LARSON
(German accent) Yes but how many licks does it take to get to the center?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Center of a what? Center of a huh?
ED LARSON
(growling)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But yeah, it's gotta be really tough then because the guy... Like 10,000 Deutschmarks is a lot.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I mean I would imagine it was a negotiation. (German accent) 2000, 4000, 7000, 10,000!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
10,000, bite it off!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I'd probably have said yes at first and then you know...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then you realize it's not just saying it.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's the thing. Is it a cop?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Oh god, the cop's gonna go in there. How fucking sick?
ED LARSON
You know you have to tell me if you're undercover.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, the guy's already gotten full BDSM for hours and then he says bite your dick off and he's like this is the police, I'm gonna arrest you. Jesus Christ.
ED LARSON
What investigative reporter found Victor?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Victor declined. So Bernd turned to the internet in the hopes that he could find someone willing to go all the way. This pathological need was so strong that Bernd was actually the one who contacted Armin Meiwes. After seeing Armin's Post looking for a young well built man who wanted to be eaten, Bernd replied to see if Armin was truly serious about the offer. The only thing Bernd fibbed about was that he told Armin he was 36 when he was actually 43.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And we do have a little snippet of their conversation.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because it was actually released in Harper's which is fucked. Where he they do a lot of play. And the first it talks about... Because he's going as Antrophagus and Bernd is going as Cator99. Now we know that Antropagus-
MARCUS PARKS
Phagus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Antrophagus, he would like taste his own blood, he would poke himself with a needle and taste his own blood and he said it was delicious. But then it did get more advanced.
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) "Cator99: Then I hope you won't wilt, that you can really see it through without a problem."
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) "Antrophagus: 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.
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) "But there’s not so much in it as there is in muscle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) "Antrophagus: Yeah, but the penis is principally a spongy material filled with blood."
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) "Cator99: For both our sakes, I hope that’s true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German giggling) Hit it, Rob! (Rammstein plays)
MARCUS PARKS
And so after he and Armin agreed that Friday, March 9th, 2001 would be the day, Bernd spent the preceding weeks wiping his hard drives of anything that might lead police or his boyfriend Rene to Armin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because a part of their conversations were obviously Armin being like what his real issues were, which is I don't wanna kill somebody against their will.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And Bernd is like great, love that, with you. And then he's like my main issue truly is that like how do I do this without getting in trouble? I'm definitely gonna get in trouble. It's why I didn't want to do this in the first place and essentially Bernd is like that's why we gotta make sure that there ain't nothing left of me, baby.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because he wanted to go bones and all, much like the Timothee Chalamet Dingdong movie. Which is actually pretty good.
ED LARSON
It was fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I liked it.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Bernd then wrote a will leaving everything to Rene as his only clue that he was probably dead and not just missing after he left home on March 9th, knowing full well that if all went according to plan, if Armin were to truly wipe every vestige of Ben's physical presence off this earth, Rene would never have any idea what really happened. And it wasn't just like covering Armin's ass, it was also a part of Bernd's wishes-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fantasy.
MARCUS PARKS
His fantasy that he'd be completely erased from earth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. He wanted to disappear.
ED LARSON
Marcus, how would you get rid of the bones?
MARCUS PARKS
How would I get rid of the bones? You know what I was actually thinking about this and he talked a little bit about like grinding the bones down. And one thing that I've never figured out why no one has ever really done this, you know a dremel?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Like why don't you just get a dremel and just little by little, just (buzzing) shave all the bones down?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a lot of time.
MARCUS PARKS
It is a lot of time.
ED LARSON
You gotta wear an N95 for that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a lot of fucking noise.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a fair amount of noise but it's not as much time as you think. Remember I used to work with bones all the time.
ED LARSON
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
I used to shave them up for the Patreon. Not as much time as you'd think.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I would do, honestly what I would do is if I'm already cooking them, I'd boil up as many bones as I could in big batches, I'd boil them up into kind of honestly sort of a broth to soften them up as much as I possibly could. And then yeah, I would probably break them into little sections and then slowly but surely grind them up into dust and then you kind of litter them out into the forest.
ED LARSON
Well you gotta be careful when you're littering it, you don't want a situation... Who was the guy in Indiana again?
MARCUS PARKS
Herb Baumeister.
ED LARSON
Herb Baumeister. He broke them up pretty good but he still got caught.
MARCUS PARKS
Honestly it's probably best to put them out in the city then.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You take it to Berlin, man. You take it to the local club in Berlin. Those people don't know what they take. These guys fucking, they don't know what they're snorting. Yeah, you just fucking start selling that shit as fucking yayo. And they're asking you like oh what kind of cocaine is this? And you can be like (German accent) oh, it's my brand new, it's called Jurgen. Like it's amazing.
ED LARSON
Yeah, sell it at the vampire club in Berlin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. That's huge!
ED LARSON
Go on a Rhine River cruise and start dumping them.
MARCUS PARKS
Now after Bernd and Armin met at the train station and had their immediate moment of connection-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) Kiss me beneath the milky twilight, lead me... Just seeing each other that first time, that must have been so romantic.
MARCUS PARKS
They fell into planning how Bernd's slaughter was gonna go, step by step, almost from the minute they got into Armin's car. But while Armin was understandably focused on getting to the cannibalism as soon as possible, Bernd was more interested in the castration aspect and the following action of not only having his penis eaten but for him to also eat his own penis.
ED LARSON
All right. It's in the contract.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what he wants. It's the job.
ED LARSON
It's the rider. Yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yup. We know. This is the negotiation. The negotiation begins now.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah because just like Armin needed the person he ate to consent to the act fully, Bernd needed someone else to castrate and destroy him to fulfill his fantasy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He must have read 'The Art of Negotiation'.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Doing it himself, it seemed, would be no better than masturbation. It's like how you can't give yourself a massage.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. Absolutely not.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
It's so aggravating because I've tried.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
And it just doesn't work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no.
MARCUS PARKS
Doesn't work at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it even works less with the cut off, disembodied hands of a dead woman.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like it's just not the same. I flop them and I slap them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, doesn't work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nothing.
ED LARSON
Just put them on the ground, roll around a bunch, nothing works.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nothing. It's not doing it.
MARCUS PARKS
Well furthermore, Bernd seemed to see this entire scenario as a sort of reverse domination which played with Armin's intense need to eat him. As we'll see, Bernd was in charge of every moment leading up to his eventual demise, even goading Armin along when Armin faltered. In fact Armin never wanted to participate in any sort of conscious castration or anything that felt as if he was hurting Bernd unnecessarily. After all, Armin wouldn't torture a pig before slaughtering it for meat and he saw that Bernd's death, in practice at least, was the same thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like we're at the DNC, like arguing about different forms of leftism. You know what I mean?
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is what it's like. It's about fighting on the inside. What does it mean? Who is the more pure cannibal?
ED LARSON
Listen, I'm a good guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't wanna do this, buddy. Because this is why this case has caught so much interest and why everybody is really... Honestly there's so many people interested in this because of this very, the center of their relationship is so interesting. They did sort of find the perfect quote unquote the "give and take".
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because really, like Armin did not want to hurt him. He was really anti the idea of... It's what his whole thing was before about how like I wish I could just get the meat, I just want the meat. And it's hard to just get the meat. It's actually-
ED LARSON
It's impossible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's impossible. It's very, very difficult to get.
ED LARSON
Yeah. For such a black and white issue, it's incredibly murky.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. No, this story is incredibly murky.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And even like it goes into issues of consent and like-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Euthanasia.
MARCUS PARKS
An euthanasia. Like who can do that? It's very, very, very fascinating. And how their fantasies match up kinda but not really. Because since Bernd was in charge of everything from beginning to end, he made a stipulation before they even met that none of this could happen unless Armin agreed to castrate him first before killing him. And Armin, still used to taking orders just like from his mother, he agreed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It also was his sexual... That was a part of the game, the negotiation and all of the allowances are part of the game. Armin was obsessed with... Remember what we talked about last episode? The idea that he wants to be chosen, he wants to be needed.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He wants someone to need and want him to do a thing for him. He wants the meat to say 'eat me' and they only do it in the Arby's commercials. It doesn't really work like that.
MARCUS PARKS
Eat me!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Eat me! He's desperate for the thing to go 'eat me' and the thing is going 'eat me' but now Bernd is saying eat me (German accent) but first thing's first, the dick, it must go! You know what I mean? So he has to do it. He's like all right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Because it's a different sort of fetish because Armin wants to see another man as livestock, he wants to see him as a pig.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But also in love with him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wanting it. He wants to want, the pig has to want to die.
MARCUS PARKS
Now that's not to say that Bernd was a selfish lover. He had fully complied with Armin's request to fast for the two days prior to their meeting. Because as Bernd put it, he wanted to be the best meal Armin ever had. Now on the way home from the train station, Armin and Bernd picked up painkillers and a bottle of schnapps as a part of their plan. After the castration, Bernd would take a cocktail of sleeping pills, cough medicine, and schnapps. Then Armin would stab Bernd's throat to bleed him out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Fucking thumbs up, bro!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good plan.
MARCUS PARKS
After Bernd's body was drained, Armin would butcher the body in such a way where the maximum amount of Bernd's body could be consumed while the inedible parts like the skin, bones, and innards would be destroyed completely.
ED LARSON
You don't think you'd eat the skin?
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No, absolutely-
ED LARSON
Char it up. I've eaten some pork skin. Chicharrón!
MARCUS PARKS
We've all eaten pork rinds. I mean they're fantastic.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't think pork rinds, like that's a very Southern thing. I don't think that made it over to Germany.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com. Do we believe that human skin is something that can chicharrón?
ED LARSON
I think so.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And as we know, the whole thing would be filmed on videotape from beginning to end so Armin could relive the experience whenever he wanted.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And if you're feeling especially wild and wooly today, a couple of extraordinarily graphic stills that are said to be from the video can be found from a quick Google search. Although I can neither confirm nor deny their authenticity. All I know is that I couldn't find an alternative explanation as to where these stills are from if they're not from Armin's video. Nobody's out saying like oh that's from this movie-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Or it's just a drawing or whatever. They look very, very real.
ED LARSON
Do we have them? Can I see them?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The pictures are in the book. These are all in the book too.
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was reading a book on it.
ED LARSON
He's wearing a chef's hat, that's cute.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's one, yeah. That's more of a funny kind of a character thing there. But the meat laying on its side there and the dude slit in a half. Yeah, that's-
ED LARSON
Oh that's a dude slit in half!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a dude split in half. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh my god!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See humans are just meat. That's kind of the worst part about this story.
ED LARSON
And the head is gone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because the head is actually in the corner watching him. We'll get there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
And then what's that there on the bottom? It's that a leg?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's an arm and a chest.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's an arm, you can see his nipple there.
ED LARSON
Oh. Yeah. Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I mean honestly-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you still have no problems with this but you almost threw up from the chorizo video.
ED LARSON
The chorizo video is fucking disgusting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can't believe that you are looking at an actual human corpse.
ED LARSON
If he was eating it and throwing it up, I would have a problem with that.
MARCUS PARKS
To know what we're talking about, please go see the latest Marcus Mandate on the latest episode of Last Stream on the Left which I think is now posted to our YouTube channel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now it seems like Bernd's desires came not only from a sexual urge but also from a deep well of self hatred. It's as if-
ED LARSON
All right, you can take them down, Rob.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Take down the pictures. Please, take them down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I made them my desktop. I love it. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Like I said, his desires also came from a deep well of self-hatred, as if the governor on his Freudian death drive had popped a gasket while also becoming fused with his sex drive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a bad combo.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever it is, man.
MARCUS PARKS
For example, when Armin asked Bernd why he wanted to do this, I mean really why, Bernd said that it was because he hated himself, hated his sexuality, and hated his extremely high sex drive. He called himself a worthless piece of meat and bones, adding that he'd just had it. But even though his need to be consumed came from a very negative place, the hours Bernd and Armin shared before Bernd was killed sounds like the nervous beginnings of an intense relationship that has begun online then suddenly jumps to real life. It feels like an episode... Like have you ever seen Before the 90 Days, the 90 Day Fiance spin off?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
It's basically a show about online dating where people see like they how they start-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Meeting each other on the internet and then they meet for the first time. It feels a lot like that.
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, if you ever had one of those things where you're calling, you've never met but you're calling each other like Pookie Butt or you're being really, really romantic on the internet.
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) Hello my love, yes, my love.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, my love. And then you meet in real life and then you gotta meet like Bernd's fucking coworkers. You know what I mean? And that's always like a problem and you gotta meet Armin's mom because Armin's mom doesn't like you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Armin's mom lives in the closet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
You got too many guinea pigs in the house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. Dumb shit. Because I guess also when Bernd came in the room, one of the first things he did is that he took off all of his clothes and he says (German accent) because I want you to admire your dinner. Which is again, it's very in a very bad way.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
It's bad but he seemed like he was having a great time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a date. Yeah, it's romantic. Yeah. And then he's just sitting there just so excited.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's really kind of the crux of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Is that the entire time, this all happens over the course of it seems about 14 hours.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is 'The Notebook'.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It really does seem like Bernd the entire time is loving it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's in love.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He is absolutely loving... Like this is what he's always wanted.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) Kiss me.
MARCUS PARKS
But on the other hand-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) Under the milky twilight.
MARCUS PARKS
But you also sometimes get that with people who just finally decide-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To commit suicide.
MARCUS PARKS
That they're going to die by suicide. Oh he seemed to be fine. It's because he's finally made the decision.
ED LARSON
Man, just thinking about Rene. Like it's already bad enough when your significant other cheats on you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wanted to cum so bad he went and became somebody's dinner.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like that's worse than going like... Imagine if he had went straight. You know what I mean? That would almost be worse.
MARCUS PARKS
Well once they got back to the house, Armin gave Bernd a tour of the farmhouse and made him coffee using the fine china meant only for special occasions that had not been touched since Waltraud's death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) I must tell you something, Bernd. You will find this most exciting. I haven't used these plates since my blessed mother's funeral. Also if you're in his house, if you're in that Tudor house, nothing is not served on a dead mother's items.
MARCUS PARKS
Well after coffee they retired to the bedroom where they had sex and explored each other's bodies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Lick lick. (giggles) This is salty, this is sweet. Down here, I kiss your feet.
ED LARSON
So they were being clean though the whole time and he wasn't allowed to eat anything. But then he gave him a bunch of coffee and that's just gonna make him fucking shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey buddy, he's gotta stay awake to get his dick cut off. It's a long, honestly it was a long train trip. And they're really very distracted so I imagine he's very tired.
MARCUS PARKS
This of course is when events left 90 Day Fiance territory and entered into something closer to a chapter from the book 'Apocalypse Culture'.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Armin began asking for reassurance again and again that Bernd wanted to be eaten.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) You can get out of it any time. If you want to go, you can. Here's the pot. Do you want it? Does it look delicious to you?
ED LARSON
Safe. Seems oddly responsible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
He is very responsible with this from beginning to end. And Bernd of course told Armin that he not only wanted to be eaten, he needed to be eaten.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Look at these chicken legs! Look at these sausage arms!
MARCUS PARKS
They then fell into a conversation not unlike two men who share an off kilter hobby, bemoaning the fact that cannibalism was illegal while discussing their favorite cannibals. Bernd's favorite was Colorado's own Alfred Packer, who ate the remains of five compatriots after getting stranded in the San Juan mountains in the winter of 1874.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
American boy!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See, America is still inspiring people across the world.
ED LARSON
Yeah, even old school Americans.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. You remember Cannibal the Musical?
ED LARSON
Yeah. Oh that's what that is?
MARCUS PARKS
That's Alfred Packer, yeah.
ED LARSON
He might be my favorite.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. (singing) The sun is warm as a baked potato!
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) Baked potato! A horse is a horse, of course, of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) You know exactly what I mean.
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) When I say it's a shpadoinkle day!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And this is their biggest shpadoinkle day. This is Bernd's shpadoinkle day.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's so excited about today.
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) Ah let's build a snowman!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love that song.
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) We can make him tall, we can make him not so tall! I love that fucking movie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Love it.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the conversation about cannibalism turned romantic quickly. Armin remembered that he looked into Bernd's eyes and said, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) "I want to stab you to death, gut you and carve you up. Then I'll eat you."
MARCUS PARKS
And before long-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) From soup to poop. That is what I make you. Oh you started as a man but soon you be a little fart.
MARCUS PARKS
It definitely gives a new meaning to the phrase 'soup to nuts'.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, it does.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well before long they decided that it was time to get down to business.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
They made their way to the slaughter room.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah! It's time to get funky.
ED LARSON
You're so excited.
MARCUS PARKS
You're incredibly excited about this. You're convinced that this is like a romantic getaway instead of like-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is!
ED LARSON
It is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is!
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
A man is like committing suicide and you're like (singing) Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take ya-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) To Bermuda, Bahama-
MARCUS PARKS
This isn't a trip to the fucking Bahamas.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) Don't you want to eat the man? Whoa, whoa. Sha-la-la-la-la don't be scared! I just see all of this, like all of the haunted or like the weird dumb shit in his mom's house all singing like anthropomorphized, like wigs.
MARCUS PARKS
Like Beauty and the Beast.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
You got a little teacup and everything.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're like (German accent) ooh he's finally found love. The rooms will be complete!
ED LARSON
(German accent) Once he eats every inch of him, I will not be a clock anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I can finally go back to being a full grown pedophile man. Yeah, I can go back to what I like to do which is ruining a lot of children instead of being this stupid clock.
ED LARSON
Some candlelight?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's my buddy, the candelabra, he also used to be a pedophile. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well they made their way to the slaughter room where Armin turned on the video camera. That, by the way, is why we know so much about this story and what transpired between Armin and Bernd. Quite a bit of their interactions that day were taped. And not just the nasty parts. In the beginning, Armin and Bernd sat in the slaughter room and looked at the shadows the lighting in the room created on the walls. And like two kids staring at clouds, they called out what animals they saw in the forms created by the meat hooks and various other accoutrement that would soon be used to butcher Bernd.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Tell me, what does this remind you of, Bernd?
ED LARSON
(German accent) Is it a seahorse?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) No. Guess again.
ED LARSON
(German accent) Hook fish!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Yeah. You're funny. What does this look like, Bernd?
ED LARSON
(German accent) Ooh!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Ja, ja, ja.
ED LARSON
(German accent) It looks like your anus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Ja, it is.
MARCUS PARKS
And so after just a few hours of getting to know you time and sporadic sexual contact-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ping-ping! Ping-ping-ping-ping!
MARCUS PARKS
They decided that it was time to begin the event that both of them had wanted for almost their entire lives. Now naturally Bernd's castration fantasy had to come first. So he looked Armin in the eyes and told him that he wanted to give him an appetizer for the feast ahead. In other words, it was finally time for Armin to bite and chew Bernd's penis off his body until nothing remained, not even a stump.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you know Armin was definitely nervous.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because he didn't want to fuck it up.
MARCUS PARKS
No. Well he didn't want to do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, he had a hard time. I get it. It's hard to rip a penis off with your mouth.
MARCUS PARKS
And so Armin knelt before Bernd's extraordinarily erect penis and opened his mouth while Bernd shouted on camera, (German accent) "Bite into it! Please! Just bite it! Hard!" But when it came time-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh. Ugh.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. When it came time for Armin to do what Bernd asked of him, he found that he didn't have the stomach for it, so to speak.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) You were telling me about the corn nibble before.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Can I start with the little nibble?
ED LARSON
Yeah because he's more of a butcher.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He just wants the meat.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He just wants the meat. Hurting someone else is not in his pathology at all. And frustrated, Bernd continued to scream, saying, (German accent) "No! You have to do it! Damn it! You can't stop now! Bite it!"
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) I'm biting. I'm biting, Bernd. Is this our first fight? Are you yelling at me or are you yelling at the situation? You know what they say, couples need to not fight each other, fight the problem.
MARCUS PARKS
Well at that point Bernd got physically aggressive, grabbing Armin's hair so he could force Armin's head back towards his penis. Now Armin was able to give him a gentle bite. But even while Bernd urged him on, Armin could not bite hard enough to even draw blood. That's when Bernd fell into despair and decided this just isn't gonna happen. He's like Armin, you're too nice, you're too weak, I should have realized this earlier. I'm gonna go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is like when you've been dating somebody for six or seven years-
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you think they're like oh we're going in this big fancy vacation, he's gonna ask me to marry him. This whole time, he's gonna ask me to marry him. And then each time he like kneels over you think that's gonna be the moment. He doesn't do it.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then you're finally at the last dinner and he brings you a little box of jewelry and you open it up and it's a fucking necklace. That's the feeling.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just the you're just never gonna commit. You're just never gonna be a real man.
ED LARSON
Oh while I'm down here I'll just wash your knees.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My knees are clean!
MARCUS PARKS
While shame and disappointment filled both of them, Bernd weakly said he just wanted to feel his penis being mutilated, that was it. Is that really too much to ask?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it's not.
ED LARSON
It's really not, dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it's not. Your partner is like... I mean what you give is what you get back.
MARCUS PARKS
And for the first time these two men found that their fantasies were somewhat at odds and there seemed to be no way to solve it. Their fantasies were just different. I mean for Bernd it was all about being destroyed. He hated himself, he hated his sexuality. He wanted himself gone off the face of the earth. Eating was just like a part of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
That was how he could see himself being completely and utterly destroyed. But for Armin, he wanted a pig.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. He wanted meat.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he wanted meat.
ED LARSON
I see Bernd as Willem Dafoe and Armin as Christoph Waltz.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep. Yep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it tracks.
MARCUS PARKS
That's exactly it. That is exactly it. And so after Bernd decided that it just wasn't gonna work, he asked Armin to give him a ride to the train station so he could buy a ticket back to Berlin. Always the pleaser, Armin turned off the video recorder and drove Bernd to the train station in silence.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) I know you were saying that you don't want to listen to anything but would you want to listen The Shins?
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) It's just a mood and it's the mood I'm in right now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) That's the mood I'm in right now.
ED LARSON
I picture ta-ta-ta.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) I love this song. I wish they would change our national anthem to this song.
MARCUS PARKS
They're driving in silence and all of a sudden on the radio is (singing) 99 luftballons. And they just start singing along together. But just after Bernd bought his ticket, Armin pled his case and convinced Bernd to give him another chance.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Take me in, baby.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Saying that he could absolutely castrate him and eat his penis while he was still conscious if only he'd let him prove it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) In your eyes, the light, the heat, your eyes! I feel complete.
MARCUS PARKS
And let him he did. The compromise they came to was that Bernd would take a ton of sleeping pills and cough syrup to make himself pass out. And while he was unconscious, Armin would be able to psych himself up so he could do what Bernd asked. And that would have to be good enough for Bernd.
ED LARSON
It'd probably be easier to bite off a flaccid penis than a hard one too.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's no longer biting, it's cutting now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the compromise.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But once they got back to the house at around 6 pm and be washed down 20 sleeping pills with a bottle of cough syrup and half a bottle of schnapps all on an empty stomach-
ED LARSON
He's lucky he lived!
MARCUS PARKS
He was still awake.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I think Bernd had a bit of a substance abuse problem.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Me thinks so as well.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because Bernd took all of this down and still got to almost totally enjoy getting his penis cut off. And that was not the game.
MARCUS PARKS
So Bernd ended up getting what he wanted. And he was led to the slaughter room and laid down on the bed as Armin prepared for the castration. Now Armin knew that he couldn't bring himself to chew the penis off but he figured he could probably cut it off with a knife.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So after grabbing a kitchen knife and a cutting board, Armin-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's good to make sure he protect the table.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These are nice tables.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everything's antiques.
MARCUS PARKS
Armin turned on the video camera as Bernd became erect with anticipation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Something about like a guy tied to a chair...
MARCUS PARKS
He's not tied. He's just fucking-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's just sitting there just naked in a chair and then Armin comes out with the chef's hat on and he's got the kitchen knife. And just there's something about a guy smiling and just sitting in a chair like... I've never done that.
ED LARSON
As soon as the camera comes on, he's ready to perform.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've never seen that. Yeah, he said I'm ready to fuck!
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm ready to fuck now!
MARCUS PARKS
But again, Armin was unable to sever it but not for lack of trying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God.
MARCUS PARKS
Armin swung his knife down to chop off Bernd's penis-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But it bounced off because the knife wasn't sharp enough.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh. (German accent) Your penis is so strong.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And as we know there's nothing more dangerous than a dull knife.
ED LARSON
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Once it gets in, you gotta pull it out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
So after Bernd screamed at him to go get a sharper knife, Armin tried again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Okay, okay. This one will do, this will do it.
MARCUS PARKS
This time however Bernd got exactly what he wanted. As Armin swung the knife down successfully again and again on the tough penile tissue, Bernd wiggled, screamed, and literally squealed like a pig.
ED LARSON
So it's hard to cut a cock off.
MARCUS PARKS
It's not easy. No, it's tough tissue.
ED LARSON
Yeah. Is there cartilage in there?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I do honestly feel like it's a lot about will.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because Lorena Bobbitt did it with scissors. Scissors are actually much easier to do it.
ED LARSON
Garden shears, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just gonna get into this really deeply.
ED LARSON
I mean that's what the show is.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I feel that.
MARCUS PARKS
It's what they're here for.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The key is that the way he was doing it, and I feel like this might not be an exaggeration, he kind of sort of did it when he covered his eyes and went like (German accent) ah, ohh, ah, ohh! He was just kind of chopping at the dick.
ED LARSON
Which is so much worse than fucking doing it right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I think you're supposed to honestly pull it taut then go at it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like you really need to pull it tight and then go at the very, very base.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah but if it's really hard, just pulling it out is not gonna be good. What you're gonna have to do is you're gonna have to get like two fingers and press it down on the cutting board. And then I would say a serrated knife is gonna be a lot better-
ED LARSON
Ugh!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep, yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Than just a regular kitchen knife.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It grips.
ED LARSON
Man, Armin-
MARCUS PARKS
Like a bread knife.
ED LARSON
He prepared so much.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
ED LARSON
But he didn't sharpen the knife? Like he did so much work, he put plastic down, he set up the videotape.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's called the gaps in the lead from fantasy to reality.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. That's true, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And what you're talking about is a thing that's going to come up later on because right now this is at the very, very peak of a very esoteric idea that they thought would never happen.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
ED LARSON
And so yes, up to at this point the sexual game has really just led up to... And in Armin's mind, yes he's been fantasizing about butchering a body but he's never really thought about the A-Z of how do I get to that point? And so now we're in it, we're in the reality of it. And it's like kind of what Ed Kemper talked about. Ed Kemper said that one of the things that first changed his mind about once he first killed somebody was that he thought that killing somebody was really easy. He thought that you'd stab somebody, they'd fall over, and they'd die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
But humans are bags of liquid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
So you stab somebody full a bunch of holes, it actually takes a really long time for you to die, like longer than you think. And it's more physically difficult than you think. And so that changed his mind. So now Armin's living it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so what he gets to do from now on is tell everybody what he's learned along the way.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well finally Armin managed to sever Bernd's penis completely. And as blood gushed from the open wound, Bernd looked down in ecstasy, having finally realized his dream after all these years. So after Armin wrapped Bernd's lower body in bandages, they rushed downstairs together with Bernd's severed penis so they could engage in the second half of Bernd's ultimate fantasy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(giggling)
MARCUS PARKS
And yeah, I do actually imagine them both like giddy little boys that are kind of doing something in secret.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And Bernd's waddling along with his diaper of fucking bandages.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And they're just having a great time. It has the same feeling as a couple of boys like at a sleepover.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I feel like-
MARCUS PARKS
And mom and dad's gone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're about to eat too much Pizza Hut and drink too much soda.
ED LARSON
Oh yeah. We used to do the pass out game. I'm sure it's similar to that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is literally the pass out game.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Armin cut the penis tissue in half.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh did we never give any warnings about this episode or...?
MARCUS PARKS
I mean they knew what was coming.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I'm just saying.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean it's the cannibal of Rotenburg. I don't know what... If you didn't expect it to be fucking nasty, I don't know what you're here for.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
ED LARSON
Yeah, you want to give a trigger warning?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, just so you know, we might have some alternative imagery in this series. That's the warning.
MARCUS PARKS
Armin cut the penis tissue in half and tossed it-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There might be something, there might be something in there.
ED LARSON
That was the last moment for a trigger warning.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The very last possible.
MARCUS PARKS
And he tossed each half on its own plate. And you know what I didn't realize and what I didn't really think about from here, do you think like one guy got the shaft and the other guy got the head or do you think he sliced it-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, hot dog.
ED LARSON
Sliced down the middle.
MARCUS PARKS
Hot dog. Sliced down the middle, okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. That's what I would do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's what I would do too.
ED LARSON
Yeah. Is he a good cook, Armin?
MARCUS PARKS
Well I mean he knows how to follow a recipe.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but he fucked up this dick.
MARCUS PARKS
Well I don't think anyone can really cook dick, that's the whole point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually have seen cooked dick. That Japanese artist that cooked his own dick. He did it but there was enough of that dick to serve, which showed that he did it correctly. And I'm pretty certain he braised it which is a lot of times, honestly they talked about this, this is very similar to eating tripe. It has to be cooked in liquid.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it has to be cooked slowly and the cartilage needs to be broken down. If you're eating dick, it has to be in a ragù.
ED LARSON
Slow cooker.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, a ragù. Well Bernd was so excited that he tried gobbling it up raw. But both of them soon discovered that penises are not meant to be eaten, at least when they're prepared in this fashion.
ED LARSON
You know Armin felt vindicated. He's like see! It's hard to bite through it!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) You with your back penis driving.
ED LARSON
Calling me a pussy!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Oh telling me what I'm doing wrong or doing right. All right? Now you look at it. No, penises are not meant to be eaten, they're meant to be respected. All right? So you remember that.
ED LARSON
They were meant to be sucked and fucked.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Penises aren't meant to be eaten, they're meant to be Supreme Court judges.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah! Come on, guys.
ED LARSON
Yeah, I got a little Kavanagh myself.
MARCUS PARKS
And so Armin tossed it in a hot pan with some oil, garlic, and pepper to make it more palatable. But that's when he found the tissue wasn't meant to be pan fried.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Because the penis half shriveled in the frying pan and turned black.
ED LARSON
Like a shrimp.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep. Both men tried chewing the charred remains of Bernd's penis but finally gave up and threw them away. And really your training as a chef here really is coming in handy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really is.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But to be honest if I was them,I wouldn't be disappointed because at least you did, you got to chew on it. You did it. And I feel like more so like they have to understand that this really wasn't about eating the penis, this was about the night they got to spend together.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Also what did they think was gonna happen with a penis? It's not gonna stay hard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's exactly what I'm saying. I think that there's a fantasy and now they're seeing what's really coming out of it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well I mean if you look at their conversations, they very much knew all the ins and outs of like what penis tissue was like.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But they still kind of thought in a way that he'd go like rawr!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he'd rip it off like a dog and it would blood spurt and it would come out really hard. I know again this is difficult. And that the penis would sort of stay hard.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually do think that the issue was that he was hard in the first place. I think that if he was flaccid, it would have actually been easier for them because the sponge wouldn't have been inflated and then have all the blood drop out of it.
MARCUS PARKS
I think flaccid would be harder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com.
ED LARSON
Think about like someone's biceps after they workout.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Pumped.
ED LARSON
They get inflamed and pumped and they're hard and shit. That seems like so much easier to just rip off your biceps when you're just sitting around.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Actually it's difficult actually.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay well...
ED LARSON
Semantics. Some-man-dicks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, these are semantics.
MARCUS PARKS
But always wanting to see the bright side, Armin tried cheering Bernd up by saying, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) "Maybe we can eat your eggs for breakfast."
MARCUS PARKS
He did actually tell him that, eggs meaning-
ED LARSON
His balls.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, balls. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Testicles. So now that the whole castration thing was said and done, Bernd-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Trigger warning.
MARCUS PARKS
Bernd sort of settled into his own impending death. Armin drew him a bath in his grimy old bathtub and Bernd lowered himself in, quickly turning the brownish water red with the blood flowing from the gaping wound where his penis used to be. This however did not bother Bernd at all. Almost like a child, he would amuse himself by fiddling with the hole to keep the fatal flow of blood coming.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God.
MARCUS PARKS
And all the while he wanted Armin to assure him that he would eat every part of his body. And whatever he didn't eat, he had to promise to grind it up so no traces would be left of Bernd Brandes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Hey Armin, does it look like without my dick that my balls are sad? Does it look like my balls are lonely?
ED LARSON
I'm surprised he didn't go into shock or anything.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no, buddy. He wasn't shocked. He wanted this.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think it's because he wanted it and this is a literal fantasy. He was experiencing sexual pleasure as it went through.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
According to him. But it didn't sound like it. But it did. But he said it was.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And that's the thing too is that it's not just Armin saying that this is what he told me, it's videotaped.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh they brought the camera into the bathroom?
MARCUS PARKS
No, it's just the conversations they had.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, they videotaped everything. He videotaped as much as he could.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they did the butchering and then he did talk with Bernd and then he also did like a little weird little video diary and he had journals.
ED LARSON
I wonder, how was it lit? I guess we saw a picture of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He had lighting.
ED LARSON
It looked pretty good. Yeah, yeah, probably on a tripod.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It was bright, yeah. It was definitely on a tripod.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
No, he didn't just put it on the table.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Technically it was easier to light with the VHS cameras.
ED LARSON
Oh nice.
MARCUS PARKS
Now after about an hour in the bath, Bernd passed out and Armin thought that it would finally be his turn to fulfill his fantasy. But it would take a while for Bernd to finally bleed out. After a few hours in the bathtub, Armin moved Bernd to the bed in the slaughter room. There Bernd continued to bleed out while Armin nervously read a Star Trek novel in another room.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you think that you'd be able to talk with him about Deep Space Nine? Are you happy that he's a Trekkie? Because anybody who reads Star Trek novelizations-
MARCUS PARKS
Well he's reading Star Trek novelizations. You know what? That's funny. I forget that it's like 2001. So yeah, it could be a Deep Space Nine novelization. I hear some of those are actually pretty good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We should write him a letter.
ED LARSON
He'd probably enjoy to get a letter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We should pick up a card.
MARCUS PARKS
Dear Armin-
ED LARSON
Yeah, I don't want to talk about the penis.
MARCUS PARKS
Is the Dominion War the best Star Trek storyline ever or are you wrong?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, dude! We should fucking harass him!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We Star Trek fucking troll.
MARCUS PARKS
Fuck yeah, bro. What do you think about Dominion War? Is it the best or is it the fucking best?
ED LARSON
Yeah. He's like Dominion War can fucking eat a dick.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. (German accent) I know what that's like as well. Which means I love it!
MARCUS PARKS
The founders vs the Borg? Oh fuck you, the Borg are cooler. Fuck you, Armin!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) I was reading this crazy version, it was Star Trek and it was absolutely crazy, it was amazing. Captain Kirk and Spock, they were in showers together. And all they did was like, it was so funny what they did, it was crazy. I was just like you guys are being crazy. And they started like kissing and having sex with each other. And I was like you guys are being funny. This is the funniest shit. Holy shit, they started fucking and I was like this is hilarious.
MARCUS PARKS
Well after another half hour, Bernd asked to go to the bathroom to urinate. And no, I have no idea how that worked. But after helping-
ED LARSON
It's like a fire hydrant. So it's like when they kick over a fire hydrant, it just starts going everywhere.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I mean maybe he just pointed him, he probably just pointed him towards the bathtub actually.
ED LARSON
Yeah. He was already in it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, he's on the bed now.
MARCUS PARKS
No, he'd been moved to the bed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
And so he had to help him back to the bathroom.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like at this point we're just conjecturing.
ED LARSON
Yeah, I don't have facts here.
MARCUS PARKS
But after helping Bernd to the bathroom and back, Bernd told Armin that he was sure to pass out soon and when he did, Armin should slash his throat and finally end his life. Armin agreed. And when Bernd finally lost consciousness around 3:30 am, Armin changed into the slaughter outfit he'd prepared. Wellington boots, dark blue pajamas, and his mother's bed sheet wrapped around him like an apron which is certainly a statement but not one that I can figure out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. It's layered.
ED LARSON
Yeah. He wanted her to be there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, she'd be so proud. (German accent) I knew you would be impenetrabley Weird. That's why I raised you this way.
ED LARSON
Please supervise!
MARCUS PARKS
After turning the video camera on, Armin walked up to Ben and kissed him before saying a prayer. He then pulled out a seven inch knife and stabbed Bernd's throat several times. It had been 9.5 hours since Bernd's penis had been cut off and it had been less than a day since they'd finally met in person.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Babies having babies.
MARCUS PARKS
That doesn't make any fucking sense at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's hard, man. You can't rush this shit.
MARCUS PARKS
They are two men in their 40s.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) wise men say, only fools rush in.
MARCUS PARKS
They're older than us.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) But I...
ED LARSON
And they did rush in.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, that's what I'm saying.
ED LARSON
Less than 24 hours.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I'm saying.
MARCUS PARKS
Well after finally killing another human being, Armin was filled with emotions and none of them were good. First he was repulsed at himself. Then he despised Bernd for consenting and pushing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) You made me do this!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Then he felt anger, furious about how much he had needed to fulfill his fantasy and at how he'd been unable to ignore it. And finally of course came guilt. But after all that passed, he moved on to the next emotion, horny.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) There we go. About 15 minutes and I'm back to horny. Ja! Very good. For a second there I was worried about myself. I thought that maybe I had lost it, I'd lost that Armin zhuzh.
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) For a second there, maybe all of this had been for nothing. But then I looked down and I was hard as the dickens!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Oh mein groin! Time for daddy's dinnertime! He's just that quick. He goes (weeping) wait a second, burgers and meatballs und ribs und squash. And we've got all sorts of things. And oh! And you've got custard!
ED LARSON
He just turned into Homer Simpson.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Armin was filled with satisfaction because he believed that Bernd's flesh would survive inside him after he'd assimilated it, just like Armin had been imagining ever since he became obsessed with the Sandy Ricks character on Flipper. And so when you-
ED LARSON
I was wondering how you were gonna work Flipper back in.
MARCUS PARKS
Flipper back into it. Yeah, yeah. If you're gonna talk Armin Meiwes, you gotta mention Flipper every single episode.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If is Sandy Ricks is still alive and does cons, can someone for the love of fucking Satan bring this up to him? If somebody, if there is anybody from Flipper still alive-
MARCUS PARKS
Is Luke Halpin still alive?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You have to know that the crime... Oh yeah!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He's still... Oh wow, he's from Astoria!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god, dude. We gotta let him fucking know.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Luke Halpin has to know that he inspired Armin Meiwes.
MARCUS PARKS
Somebody, someone-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Someone has to tell him.
MARCUS PARKS
Someone has told him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No way. I think that they have kept this from the guy that... Oh god, now he's making out with Flipper? Get that disgusting picture out of there. What is this, pornography?
ED LARSON
What are you talking about? That's fine. It's a boy loves a dolphin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It's fine. It's fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He doesn't know what the dolphin's thinking.
MARCUS PARKS
Well you never had pets growing up. So you don't know-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I had many pets. I had dogs.
MARCUS PARKS
You had dogs?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
And hamsters. You guys killed the hamster.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, we had a dog that lived a long time. I had plenty of pets.
MARCUS PARKS
You had dogs?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Valentine was the one I grew up with and then we had Beauty and then we had Raven and we had to give Raven back because Raven attacked the family. But then we had Beauty and then Beauty came with us. But yeah. Then we had birds, we had lovebirds that my father got sexed wrong and then instead of being a female and a male, it was two males and they pecked each other to death. They literally ate each other.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
That's a bad day at the pet store.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. They were having a hard time. They tried to make a go at it for a while but it was hard, it didn't take.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Just show up and he's like I wanna return these dead birds!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well when Armin realized that he was finally going to climax with his biggest fantasy ever, he looked at Bernd's corpse and said, quote, and this is a direct quote, this is on video:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) "I bet you can't wait for me to eat you, can you? Oh you lucky thing. You lucky, lucky man. This is the best thing ever!" It's like he's at the Eras Tour.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And I mean actually well he said it in German so it would be (German accent) "Ich wette, du kannst es kaum erwarten, dass ich dich esse, oder? Oh, du Glückspilz. Du glücklicher, glücklicher Mann. Das ist das Beste!" (Rammstein plays) I know I didn't get that perfect but it's not bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it is so much worse in German.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is so much more like...
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It feels more, I feel like it more in the room when you do the German.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh, du Glückspilz?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, du Glückspilz!
MARCUS PARKS
Du glücklicher, glücklicher Mann. You lucky, lucky man.
ED LARSON
Did you watch the video?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can't.
MARCUS PARKS
There is no video. There's only the stills.
ED LARSON
Do you think they just destroyed it?
MARCUS PARKS
I think they probably did. Because they made sure-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I bet you it's in the Crime Archives.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it might be somewhere.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There has to be a copy of it probably somewhere in some archive. Like I bet that we could, if we went and did some form of whatever their version of a FOIA is in Germany, we could probably, I think we could probably get it.
MARCUS PARKS
No, if someone could have gotten it by now they would have gotten it by now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well or it's just difficult to find because it's literally a snuff film. So I don't think that it's available in normal avenues. I mean you'd have to go tor, you'd have to go to the deep web to get it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well those stills came from somewhere.
ED LARSON
Netflix.
MARCUS PARKS
Ba-bmmm! Well after caressing Bernd's body, trying to memorize the features of what was no doubt his soulmate-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Aw.
MARCUS PARKS
Armin hung the corpse feet first in the Gein configuration to put the body in a position where it could be emptied of fluid. If you've ever seen the crime scene photos of the body of Bernice Worden, just like that.
ED LARSON
I've seen a pig thing.
MARCUS PARKS
You've seen a pig?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the same as an animal getting-
MARCUS PARKS
Look up Bernice Worden real quick, you need to see this one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's literally halal style butchering. So what he did is he hangs it up-
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you slit the throat so all the blood can come out into a bucket.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And then he made a cut in the neck from ear to ear so it could all drain out into buckets upon buckets of blood.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. She was hung up like that. Yeah, it's not good.
ED LARSON
That makes sense.
MARCUS PARKS
If you go down a little bit, that's it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's bad.
ED LARSON
Oh that one?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Same.
ED LARSON
The same way.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, exact same way.
ED LARSON
Now was this photo available to him?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, maybe.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He read all, he was completely obsessed with true crime and he was on the internet. So it was utterly, it was definitely available for him.
MARCUS PARKS
When they say like the Gein configuration, I think that was, I'm not 100% sure but I think that was kind of a term in the cannibal-
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
It was kind of like well if you're gonna kill someone, you're gonna use the Gein configuration.
ED LARSON
Oh see I thought that was something you made up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. No. That is unfortunate. The internet did do that. They also, we found out what Dolcett Girls means. I completely forgot that it's when you take a woman and you spit roast her, you put her on a rotisserie. It's normally artistic representations of this.
MARCUS PARKS
Normally, huh?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Normally, yeah. And then you put the spit through her vagina, out her mouth, and she's supposed to like it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Oh yeah, that's right. Amber-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And she's cooked over a fire.
MARCUS PARKS
Amber was obsessed with it for a bit, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Go figure.
MARCUS PARKS
Once the body stopped bleeding, Armin sliced at the neck muscle and ligament then twisted the head off where the spinal cord met the skull. Deciding that Bernd would want to quote "join in on the fun", Armin placed Bernd's head on the butcher table, getting very comfortable with the macabre nature of his task very quickly. After skinning the corpse, shivering in pleasure as the tissue made a pronounced ripping noise when it was pulled off, Bernd finished his joke from earlier in the kitchen. After tearing Bernd's scrotum away, he addressed Bernd's head and said, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) "I bet you're sorry you won't be able to join me eating these for breakfast, aren't you, Bernd?" Funny guy!
ED LARSON
Yeah, sometimes they don't always... It's like when I write a joke before the show and then I try to do it during the show and it falls flat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well again, (German accent) "Ich wette, es tut dir leid, dass du nicht mit mir zum Frühstück essen kannst, nicht wahr, Bernd?"
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh. Again, it's just the German makes it so much worse.
MARCUS PARKS
It really does.
ED LARSON
It does.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I mean I know I'm getting all the intonations wrong.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it works.
ED LARSON
It's such a strict language.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is. Strict people.
ED LARSON
Not these guys.
MARCUS PARKS
Well next Armin tied off the anus with twine to prevent-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, hey.
MARCUS PARKS
Just so everyone knows we just came back from a break.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I had to poop.
ED LARSON
Henry-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I had to go take a shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
ED LARSON
Tied off his anus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no. Mine is still loosey. It's just empty.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. To prevent it from contaminating the rest of the body. Then let out sigh of pleasure as he began removing Bernd's innards.
ED LARSON
Can I ask, how would you tie an anus with twine?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Basically you cut it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then what you do at the very end-
ED LARSON
Do you cut the butt meat off and then tie it?
MARCUS PARKS
You cut the tube out and then you pull it up and you tie it off.
ED LARSON
Okay, okay, okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
Like a water balloon kind of.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Exactly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, you separate it from the end because the sphincter is what connects it to the end of the skin. So you pull out the tube, you cut a hole around it and you pull it out and you tie it off and then you cut the whole thing in half.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Because remember-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Trigger warning.
MARCUS PARKS
When you eat something, from your mouth to your butthole is one continuous tube.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a tube.
ED LARSON
Ah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's why you can eat a marble and shit it out. It's that easy.
ED LARSON
Down the tube.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's what I do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But just as Armin was really getting into it, he heard something click behind him. The video recorder had run out of tape. So right in the middle of butchering a human being, Armin had to stop, change, and get showered before driving into Rotenburg to buy another.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude, how many of us who've worked at various, like I worked at Eckerds. When you work at a retail store or a late night gas station or a pharmacy, you've met five of these guys a day. Like these guys are, it is wild to me to think that he's just... Because then he's like (panting).
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's just like covered in sweat at the thing.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Being like (German accent) I need these tapes. Honestly I could use some gum.
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) Did you know that you are meeting me on the best day of my life?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Today has been-
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) Do you know how much of a happy boy I am?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Do you want to give $1 to save children with harelips?
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) I'll give 10! 20!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Everybody is good. It's Christmas Day!
ED LARSON
(German accent) Buy the biggest goose!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Find the biggest goose you can find! I love it. Oh wonderful, a boy named Goose.
ED LARSON
This is definitely a good advertisement for digital.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
So after buying the tape and returning home, it was finally time to butcher the meat. After removing the arms from the shoulder blade, he chopped the hands off and broke apart the elbow.
ED LARSON
It really would be the funniest iCloud commercial.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just like ugh, ain't it better in the Cloud?
ED LARSON
Sorry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he comes back and a bunch of ravens are eating his... He's like fuck!
MARCUS PARKS
He then split the body and removed the backbone, which seems to be the step shown in the supposed stills that leaked. But after chopping off the feet, Armin cut the meat from the torso, pelvis, and legs into filets, steaks, bacon, and a big rump roast.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It wasn't that big.
MARCUS PARKS
Big enough. I mean could you eat the entire thing in one sitting?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just saying I saw that meat, dude. I saw that cattle. He ain't got that badonkadonk.
MARCUS PARKS
You wouldn't think I would have one but I got one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh we talked about this, yes. But I saw the other man's butt.
MARCUS PARKS
You saw his butt?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's not that big.
MARCUS PARKS
How did you see his butt?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's in all the fucking horrible pictures of his dismembered body.
MARCUS PARKS
You only see it from the front.
ED LARSON
Yeah. And it looks a lot different when it's just on a plate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm sorry, guys.
ED LARSON
Yeah. He probably had a fine ass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just take this all back. I'm sorry. I should not be, I'm sorry.
MARCUS PARKS
But after every bit of edible flesh was removed, all while Armin literally salivated over every cut, he broke his final promise to Bernd. Instead of disintegrating every inedible bit of Bernd's body, Armin dug a hole in his garden and buried Bernd's skin, bones, and inedible innards. The head would eventually be buried as well but for the time being it was kept in the freezer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was chilling out.
MARCUS PARKS
Goddamnit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's funny. That's funny. But yeah, he's-
ED LARSON
Henrytunes.com.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come on. But because it takes an extreme heat to burn bones.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I think that's what it was.
MARCUS PARKS
Like 3000 degrees.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't think he did it to hurt Bernd, I think that it just was very, very difficult for him to do and he realized he had to bury them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now after the burial, Armin returned to the slaughter room to cut the hunks of human flesh into reasonable portions. Then he wrapped each piece in butcher paper and neatly labeled them rump, steak, bacon, or filet. But besides just the sheer joy of achieving his lifelong fantasy, Armin said that he was also excited that he'd be saving big on his grocery bill.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh yes. That's where my head goes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's in all of us.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's in all of us.
ED LARSON
You can't afford not to do it.
MARCUS PARKS
Because the only thing he'd have to buy for a long time, vegetables and pasta. That's it.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now while Armin waited a couple of days for the meat to cure properly before he cooked his first human steak, because he had researched the best way to do this, he fantasized about the meals he would make with Bernd's flesh. Hamburgers, ribs-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Meatballs, stir fry. Really anything you could do with pork.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's a lot of stuff that he can do.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, Armin. Yeah, There's a lot of stuff. Okay?
MARCUS PARKS
He also experimented with the pieces that didn't really have an animal counterpart, like the hands and feet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah they do. Chicken feet, hog foot.
MARCUS PARKS
But those aren't-
ED LARSON
Yeah but chicken's way different.
MARCUS PARKS
Way different.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The hog knuckle.
MARCUS PARKS
Way different.
ED LARSON
Hog knuckle's probably similar.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know a hog knuckle like that? You don't fucking cook it up?
MARCUS PARKS
You're being deliberately obtuse.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't think so. I'm helping.
ED LARSON
I think a human foot is way different than a fucking pig hoof.
MARCUS PARKS
Or a chicken foot, you fucking idiot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A chick foot! People eat chicken foot.
MARCUS PARKS
No, I mean like you have to look up recipes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Because you could look up like a monkey meat recipe to see how you could cook a hand.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, I bet.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But also did you see that guy that lost his foot? There was a guy that ate the meat off of his foot and stripped the meat from between the whatever, not the tendrils, whatever it's called.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
ED LARSON
Yeah. But that was in 2012!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right. I forgot this was pre-cancel culture.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's the thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm sorry, this was all old days back when you could do whatever.
MARCUS PARKS
But the human foot is unique in the animal kingdom. The nearest thing, strangely enough, is the elephant, whose bone structure closely resembles that of a human.
ED LARSON
Interesting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you wouldn't turn a human foot into like a side table like you do with an elephant.
MARCUS PARKS
No. Couldn't do that. You could turn it into a paperweight.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cute.
ED LARSON
Yeah. I would imagine skinning it and putting it in the slow cooker would be the best way to do a human foot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All of this.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think all human meat would be best braised.
ED LARSON
There's gonna be a lot of bones though.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
ED LARSON
There's so many bones in the foot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Make a broth out of it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But we eat bony fish, fish are full of bones.
ED LARSON
It'd be like goat kinda maybe.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, like goat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's pork broth.
MARCUS PARKS
I actually thought of it more as like a frog's leg.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah sure.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm hungry.
ED LARSON
I'm actually starting to-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we're all like this.
ED LARSON
It's crazy!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's because we're monsters and I like meat.
MARCUS PARKS
But when it came to meat, Armin made the closest comparison he could. He thought it'd be kind of like curing a Parma ham.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So Armin tried drying a hand and foot in the oven but when they shriveled, he ground them into flour like an actual ogre.
ED LARSON
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. In the ogre's house.
MARCUS PARKS
And you can do that. You can grind human bones to make your bread.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. There was a famine in the 1500s in which people did that.
ED LARSON
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not good, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
No, it's not good for you but you can do it.
ED LARSON
Wow, that's so impressive kinda.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Humans are amazing.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. The other foot he boiled whole, then plated it with ketchup and herbs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ketchup.
MARCUS PARKS
Placing the presentation-
ED LARSON
Mustard! We're in Germany!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The guy is a fucking weirdo.
MARCUS PARKS
He wants the blood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He wants it to look like blood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's a fucking... He's again-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's weird.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he's not doing it to eat it, he's placing the presentation.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
He put it in front of a pot of boiling water because he wanted to make it look like steam was rising from the foot.
ED LARSON
Oh all right.
MARCUS PARKS
This is an artistic effort. He had no desire to eat the foot but just being able to play with fresh human remains was pleasure enough.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Did you never play-
ED LARSON
Well I lost all respect for him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I know. Yeah, I honestly do feel like now we're just playing with your food.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well I mean he's doing what he can until the meat's cured.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah and he's jerking off a lot.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Boil it in beer. That'd be fucking good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well to the point of pleasure, Armin masturbated endlessly about the slaughter room experience.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I'm saying. Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Watching the tape over and over again while he did so.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All of this was while he was masturbating. You can pretty much assume that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Well hopefully he washed his hands.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, it's his own supply.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But after two days passed, Armin decided the Bernd was finally ready to eat. Now Armin obsessed over the details of how his first meal of human flesh would go. After setting the table with candles, a vase of flowers, and his mother's fine china, Armin briefly considered playing music but decided against it because he wanted to focus completely on the meal. Using a recipe he found on one of his cannibal sites, Armin seared the human steak to medium rare, then plated it with porcini mushrooms, Brussels sprouts and he called it princess potatoes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know what that is.
ED LARSON
Tiny little fingerlings probably.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're probably a very macabre German way of saying fingerling potatoes.
MARCUS PARKS
Those are my favorite potatoes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Me too.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Roasted, they're incredible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I love them. I love them with chicken.
ED LARSON
Some rosemary.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the pairing wine was a South African merlot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually-
MARCUS PARKS
He always had red wine with his meat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He loved it.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was a vampire.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And just before Armin dug in, he said a prayer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Thank you for the world so sweet, thank you for the food we eat. Thank you for the birds that sing, thank you god for everything. Amen.
ED LARSON
So do you think he believed-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub. Yay god.
ED LARSON
Do you think he believed in god?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, only god would have provided this bountiful meal for him.
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) Danke für die so süße Welt, danke für das Essen, das wir essen. Danke für die Vögel, die singen, danke Gott für alles. Amen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ah! (Rammstein plays) Yeah!
MARCUS PARKS
And as expected, Armin found the steak to be absolutely delicious. He said that as expected, it tasted like pork but he was surprised that it tasted somehow, in his words, stronger.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. He said (German accent) harsher.
MARCUS PARKS
But Armin was not having this meal alone. For company, he brought Bernd's head out of the freezer and he talked to it as he ate his meal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm gonna say for our audience, he was still alone.
ED LARSON
Yeah. No, he didn't feed anyone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, that's alone. That's actually more alone than being by yourself.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually it really is.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And when he was finished, Armin decided that nothing had ever been so delicious. And of course the more he ate, the more sexual satisfaction he gained. By the time he was done with the meal, he was panting with sexual tension, on the verge of orgasm just from the act of eating. But after the first meal was said and done, Armin said he felt powerful, as if he'd absorbed all of Bernd's skills, attributes, and character. It's just how he had imagined it being. He felt stronger and more intelligent, he was the recipient of a true religious experience. But from what his neighbors said, Armin remained the same weird, lonely dork he'd always been throughout the 10 months he ate Bernd's flesh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But think about on the inside.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He really is walking around like he is Super Saiyan.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like there's energy like flowing out of him and everywhere he goes. That's why there's a little bit of is the brain reacting to human meat in a way that we're not really supposed to eat it?
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because a lot of talk about euphoria that they experience when they eat human meat. But it also kind of sounds like they're on drugs. And a lot of times it leads to other massive issues in your body. We're not supposed to eat it. It's bad for us.
ED LARSON
You're not supposed to eat dolphin meat either.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. But the key is, which is honestly he's extremely lucky in the fact that if you are gonna eat human meat, it must be cooked well done. Like you cannot eat raw or medium rare.
ED LARSON
Well he had medium rare.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, he's very lucky because you can get a thing called Kuru or any one of the other type of prion diseases which takes about a decade to kill you and it leaves you completely immobile, covered in your own shit, laughing to yourself and maniacal. So basically it's rabies plus locked- in syndrome.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not good.
ED LARSON
What's the pork one? Tricklesinos?
MARCUS PARKS
Trichinosis.
ED LARSON
Trichinosis.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. But I believe that that was a play by big chicken.
ED LARSON
No, it's real!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Big chicken came for pork. No, big chicken-
ED LARSON
There's worms!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Big chicken came for pork. Pork is not as bad for you as we think it is because big chicken set up a bunch of shit because they wanted to sink pork because chicken wanted to be the number one white meat.
ED LARSON
You don't need to convince me, I'm not your doctor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I'm telling you this. Technically pork is not white meat, pork is red meat.
ED LARSON
Of course it is!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They lied to us! I'm saying it all came from the chicken industry! All of this comes from beef and chicken lying on pork.
MARCUS PARKS
All right.
ED LARSON
All right. Fucking Polack.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Armin used Bernd's meat in every meal, eating strips of bacon with his eggs in the morning, steaks and roasts at night, and worst of all meatballs at work for lunch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the worst.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah. You don't want... Someone had to smell it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Someone had to smell it.
ED LARSON
He put it in the microwave.
MARCUS PARKS
He sat right next to another guy that fucking serviced ATMs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh. But then what is he fucking hard as the dickens eating Bernd meatballs while he's in the fucking lunch room while everybody's just sitting around him and he's just going (moaning).
MARCUS PARKS
I would imagine after a while it just became normal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A secret smile?
MARCUS PARKS
Like a secret smile, yeah.
ED LARSON
What his job again? IT.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well he was a computer technician, he serviced ATMs.
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. So he was probably next to a guy who was eating human meatballs. Yeah, I'm certain the other guy has just got done killing his daughter.
MARCUS PARKS
And he also knew a lot about computers. Actually there was another listener who wrote that said that Armin Meiwes, one of his relatives knew Armin Meiwes. Like he was the guy in Rotenburg like if your computer broke, you call up Armin. And Armin will come over to your house, he'll stay for way longer than you want him to.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, clicking through and meandering on.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He'll just sit until you kind of go like well, time I guess that I'm gonna let you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm gonna let you go.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, let me let you go. Let me let you go is literally the nicest way to say get the fuck out of my house.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm gonna let you go now. That's a very Texas thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm gonna let you go now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm gonna let you go. But this is now really where it turns, exactly what we were saying that now the fantasy has been completely realized and he's been eating it to the point truly what you're saying, it got boring. Not boring but run of the mill.
MARCUS PARKS
Routine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's now his life. But his fantasy was fulfilled and he kind of just this all went away. In his own mind oh Bernd just disappeared. But now we're gonna see that now reality is going to come fiercely rushing into Armin's life.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well not for another year and a half.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean it's the idea of it's going to, this is the beginning of what's gonna happen.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
How long did he eat Bernd for?
MARCUS PARKS
10 months.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But while Bernd Brandes the meal was making Armin the happiest boy in Rotenburg, Bernd Brandes the man had been missed right away. See Bernd hadn't told his boyfriend Rene about any sort of trip out of town, business or otherwise, anything that might explain his sudden disappearance on Friday, March 9th, 2001. Finally Rene called the police on Monday who were as usual not concerned about a missing gay man. Rene spent the next few days calling the cops but was consistently told that they were sure Bernd would be home soon. Hitting a dead end with the police, Rene called a Berlin newspaper who recognized there might be something to Bend's disappearance, especially after Rene found the will. That's when he knew something's fucking... Something's weird here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Something's weird.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know what this is but something is fucking weird. Soon after a photo was run in De Berliner Zeitung, I think it's The Berliner Times, a missing persons report was finally filed. Meanwhile Armin was starting to slip when it came to keeping his mouth shut.
ED LARSON
He's proud!
MARCUS PARKS
While everyone else still saw him as the same old boring weirdo, he nevertheless developed a strange kind of confidence that almost got him in trouble.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is a common theme among cannibals. So the reason why, because like every video I was watching was all (British accent) it's the final taboo, according to every British thing.
MARCUS PARKS
(British accent) It's the final taboo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(British accent) The final taboo.
MARCUS PARKS
(British accent) Cannibalism.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And so it's like this idea of on one hand you have a secret shame. With a lot of cannibals what's different is that they truly have a sense of superiority. And that in some ways Armin believes that his born pathology meant that he was always a step outside of humanity and evolved. Like he kind of viewed himself as I just understand a pleasure that no one else can understand. Very cenobite-like.
ED LARSON
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. And that he walks around with this confidence, with like a pep in his step like he just slept with Pete Davidson. But it's not really. But then we find out no, it actually is gross.
MARCUS PARKS
Well one night while he was out drinking with an old school friend, Armin said that he was looking for a man who was quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) "Ripe for the slaughter."
MARCUS PARKS
Understandably confused and shaken by the statement, the friend called Armin the next day and asked what he meant by the whole 'man ripe for the slaughter' thing. Armin of course-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(maniacal laughter)
ED LARSON
(German accent) That whole business?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) You're crazy. I say anything at night. I like saying crazy shit, man.
MARCUS PARKS
And of course he told him forget I said anything.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Okay! (laughter) I meant big tits on a man.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now after five months, Armin had gone through two thirds of what he'd butchered off Bernd's body. So he was anxious to make sure he got another man lined up so he wouldn't have to go a day without a meal featuring human flesh.
ED LARSON
I'm like that with weed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I don't like to run out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I get real mad when I run out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I don't wanna run out. I just wanna make sure I have it even if I'm not smoking, I wanna make sure it's there.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm like that with nicotine patches and gum.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So he returned to the cannibal chat rooms to search for a new candidate, posting ads very similar to what had caught Bernd. This time however he narrowed the age bracket by five years. No longer up to 30, it's now 25. Because I think he was a little miffed that Ben had fudged his age. One of those ads read, quote-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well he also, one thing he said is that he does believe the meat was worse because he was older than he thought he was.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So he does want them, he wants them tight.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So here's the ad. (German accent) "Slaughter boy salt. Are you between 18 and 25 years old, healthy and with a normal build? Do you want to end your life but you want something decent to come out of you? Then come to me. I will slaughter you and worship your body in delicious schnitzel and steaks. Those interested should apply with details of age, height, und weight. Ideally with a photo. Franky, the master butcher.
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) Der Metzgermeister.
ED LARSON
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Armin did get a couple of responses but none were willing to agree to a meeting. Deciding that a bigger net catches more fish, Armin again raised the age ceiling to 30.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's hard to be single.
ED LARSON
Yeah, too much to live for at a young age.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. This brought responses from multiple men who came very close to being Armin's next meal plan. And they definitely would have been killed if Armin was a more aggressively violent person.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was waiting for another Bernd.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was waiting for somebody else who was just as aggressive about it. Because it really was, we're not blaming him, but there was a 50/50 edge here.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it wasn't even aggressive, it was more that they had to submit.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that dude created urgency.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was like I want it and I want it now. And Armin wanted to feel that pressure because that was giving him sexual drive.
ED LARSON
And also he probably figured they were everywhere since first time out was Bernd.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he got one.
MARCUS PARKS
Well actually before that he had met a couple of guys in hotel rooms.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they just weren't that serious, guys aren't serious.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well the first guy after Bernd, his name was Stefan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Stephan.
MARCUS PARKS
Stephan. Yeah, Stephan, yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He came to the farmhouse where Armin stripped him naked, strapped him to the slaughter bench, and marked his skin with lines to signify different cuts like ham and filet like it was a fucking Looney Tunes short.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And again, it's all fun and games until the saws come ou.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because yeah, this sounds like kind of fun.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But then it finally dawned on Stephan that Armin was for real.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He immediately became Steven Urkel.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He went back, he changed.
MARCUS PARKS
He begged to be set free and Armin did so. And after they shared a frozen pizza, Stephan went home and never talked to Armin again.
ED LARSON
They didn't cook it or nothing.
MARCUS PARKS
Fucking chop it up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like it's crunchy. Now do you think that like... How do you go on with your life? How does Stephan like literally go back to work next day and be like what did you do last night, Stephan?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's just being like (German accent) well we played a little game of fake operation. Like what do you do? How do you... Do you just say like (German accent) you know what? Friday was nuts.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
What do you do? Later on you testify at his trial.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
Yeah, it's a secret until then.
MARCUS PARKS
The next guy to come out was also a bust, although this one was more interested in the BDSM side of things.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Armin locked him in the wooden cage he'd built in the slaughter room-
ED LARSON
To make him a veal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And tossed the guy scraps of meat all while the captive man again squealed like a pig.
ED LARSON
Do you think he fed him?
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No, no, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, that's his meat, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
That's his meat. He's not gonna waste that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Eventually the man asked to be set free and he also went home. The next-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just the fucking idea, the guy being in the dog cage, he's going (oinking) oh I'm a piggy, I'm a fucking piggy. And eventually he's like you know what, man?
ED LARSON
I gotta call my wife.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I'm tired. I gotta go.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm finished!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Oh yeah, it's I'm finished! Yeah, you know what actually? I gotta get out of here.
MARCUS PARKS
The next two who visited the house were rejected by Armin because one was too fat-
ED LARSON
Fuck you!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that spoiled his fantasy of a lean cut of meat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know. But hey, bro, fucking guess what happens when you throw out whatever bait you got? You get whatever fish gets on the boat.
ED LARSON
You wish you could have this fucking brisket, Armin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, man. You wish you could fucking eat my dick. I dare you to try to eat my dick.
MARCUS PARKS
And he said the other one was too stupid and that spoiled the-
ED LARSON
Fair enough.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he loved the idea that he's absorbing something positive from the other person.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He's absorbing their attributes. And I think he truly believed that if he ate a stupid person, he would himself become stupid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually have a weird theory about cannibalism that I do think that there is something to the concept of DNA memory and that there is something to the concept of there is something that can get passed if you do eat human meat. Because Armin Meiwes did say that Bernd was much better at English than him and his saying that my English improved a massive amount after I ate him was like-
ED LARSON
That's from all the Flipper.
MARCUS PARKS
But you know what? I did notice that his first posting and his second posting-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It got better!
MARCUS PARKS
His English is so much better in the second one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
The first one's like broken and you barely understand what he's trying to say.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nah, he worked it out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's learning.
ED LARSON
I feel like if you're eating people, you can't be this choosy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I actually think it's the opposite. If you're not gonna get caught, you gotta be choosy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean that's the thing is that if you're gonna do this, it's gotta be worth it. Yet another guy was rejected because he wanted Armin to incinerate his genitals with a flamethrower. And while I don't know this for sure, I think it's probable that Armin didn't want to get in the whole rigmarole of another guy who had a castration fantasy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) It reminds me of my ex.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But also I honestly think it was about the flamethrower.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's really intense for Armin.
ED LARSON
Yeah, the barn's very flammable.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the one who came the closest to going through with the slaughter was a guy named Dirk, who took the fantasy-
ED LARSON
Of course.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Who took the fantasy all the way to being strapped to the slaughter table with the knives out. But at the last second, Dirk backed out and since Armin needed the person to want to be killed, he let Dirk go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you think that makes him, like his dick go down? Do you think that they're in this-
MARCUS PARKS
When the guy starts... Of course it does.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you think that he just then doesn't cum? Like they won't just jerk each other off or suck each other off?
MARCUS PARKS
I think no, they have frozen pizza and they go home.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
ED LARSON
It's the same reason you like having sex with a woman who enjoys it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
ED LARSON
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. Meanwhile Armin had been bragging on his cannibal forums, again using the name of Franky, writing that he'd actually eaten a person unlike all you fucking posers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fucking posers! Fucking goddamn Reddit strikes again, it's another one.
MARCUS PARKS
(mocking) I've actually eaten human flesh.
ED LARSON
The rest of you are just shannibals.
MARCUS PARKS
In this, I'd imagine Armin figured he was safe because his confessions were mixed in with so much obvious fantasy. And really if not for one person, Armin would have been safe. As I said, it took 10 months for Armin to make his way through 44 lbs of meat, human meat. And no one-
ED LARSON
That's it, huh?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, 44 lbs. that's what you get.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well that's what he got and that's what he got through.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
How much did he weigh before before he killed him?
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
But he seemed to be about my size.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually I think he was about 160 lbs if I remember correctly.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And no one even came close to connecting Armin to Bernd's disappearance. It wouldn't be until December of 2002, more than a year and a half after Bernd's death, that die Polizei would come knocking on Armin's door.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not even a mention of 9/11 by these guys. Not even a fucking mention. Didn't knock his boner down a second, he's eating human meat on 9/11. He's sitting watching 9/11, eating Bernd and just going like (German accent) goddamn, we might get into a real bit of a ruckus with that. This goddamn Saddam Hussein.
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) Wow, interessant. See the police had been led to Armin through a curious university student who came along one of Franky's posts and emailed antrophagus@hotmail. com. The student however was soon met with extremely elaborate descriptions of cannibalism that seemed realistic enough where the student deleted his account out of fear. With these emails in his possession, the student informed the Federal Criminal Police of Hesse and quite suddenly the cannibal forums had an uptick in new users that were all of course undercover cops.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is the only time I feel bad for police.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When they have to do shit like this and they're just like yeah, eat me, daddy. Yep, yeah. I'm your freshly, I'm your freshly shucked turkey. I'm ready to be stuffed, filled with stuff, filled with spices and I'm ready to be consumed. Yep.
ED LARSON
I feel like you would have been such a good cop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I would have been great for this, being like then we'll get the gravy and oh big pile of me, don't you want it? Aren't you ready for it? Just so... Oh yeah, I'd be a slut for this.
MARCUS PARKS
Well many cops answered Armin's ad, they're going at him from all angles.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But now he's just being like (German accent) okay, now you guys are just lying.
MARCUS PARKS
And it took them two months to identify Franky the cannibal as Armin Meiwes the computer guy. After identifying Armin, police arrived at his farmhouse in Wüstefeld to ask him a few questions and search the house. Armin of course cracked after just 20 minutes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
20 minutes.
MARCUS PARKS
When the police straight up asked Armin if he'd ever eaten human flesh, Armin said, and this is true:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) "I may have."
MARCUS PARKS
Following Armin's confession... Just (German accent) I may have.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) I may have.
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) Perhaps.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(giggling)
ED LARSON
And that's when you beat him to death with a shovel.
MARCUS PARKS
Following Armin's confession, police searched the disgusting farmhouse and discovered the remaining packages of Bernd's meat in a false bottom in Armin's freezer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And how they knew it was different was that according to the police, there was like one of them was a lady police officer and she was like (German accent) I am a housewife and I know what meat is and this is not normal meat.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
They did not however find the videotape of Bernd's slaughter and butchery. Now incredibly the police did not arrest Armin on the spot. Instead they took his 16 computers, 200 hard drives, and 300 videotapes, all just chock full to the brim with pornography and torture.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Enjoy!
MARCUS PARKS
And just like the gore. Just the worst shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's like (German accent) ah yes!
ED LARSON
(German accent) It's in there somewhere!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Hope you like the search!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. They had to see what they could see. They had to watch all of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And they also took the frozen meat. Armin meanwhile was left alone to panic. After a while he called his half brother Ingbert just to talk it through. But it was his sister-in-law, Ingbert's wife, who answered the phone. Since Ingbert wasn't home, Armin decided that the first person he was gonna confess to was this poor woman he barely knew.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly that does make sense.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
(German accent) Okay, listen. The cops are here, they took all my human meat. I know we barely know each other.
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) I know we only met once at the wedding.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who is this? I haven't updated my contacts.
MARCUS PARKS
Now at first this woman figured that Armin had been caught with child pornography.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. First of all being like let me guess, child porn? As soon as he calls.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh the cops took all your hard drives? Tell me more. But when she asked him straight up did they catch you looking at child pornography? He instead said oh no, I killed someone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a relief.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I would much rather you be a murderer.
MARCUS PARKS
And then he hung up the phone.
ED LARSON
As long as it's not a child murderer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, sure.
MARCUS PARKS
There you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Still again, is that weird? I'd rather you kill him than eat them and fuck them.
MARCUS PARKS
That's real fucked up.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well...
ED LARSON
I guess I don't have a preference.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm gonna go ahead and say I don't have to choose.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think that's right. I just do.
MARCUS PARKS
Well realizing that he now immediately needed legal representation, Armin drove into Rotenburg and found the lawyer who'd formally represented him in his DWI cases.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a whole different procedure.
MARCUS PARKS
The thing is dude wasn't even a criminal, he was a divorce lawyer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean that's who you'd call. I feel like if there's a divorce lawyer that's gonna handle you being a cannibal... I just feel like that's who I would call
MARCUS PARKS
So this guy did not take it well when Armin told him that he'd killed eating someone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Goddamnit, Armin. I can't get involved in something like this.
MARCUS PARKS
Once the lawyer recovered from the shock of the confession, he told Armin to turn himself in because everyone here, everyone's way out of their depth, Armin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Ja. Ja, I can understand. I'm an expert level case. I'm me, I'm unique.
MARCUS PARKS
And Armin agreed. After showing up to the police station, Armin gave a full statement admitting to killing and eating a person named Bernd Brandes. And news of his unnatural acts soon spread throughout Rotenburg and eventually the entire world. This was a worldwide case.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Newspapers!
MARCUS PARKS
Everyone knew about Armin Meiwes.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Billboards!
MARCUS PARKS
Now Armin's trial began about a year after he confessed. And as in all German trials involving a death, this is interesting, their justice system is very different-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Weird.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. A panel made up of three judges and two civilians would decide Armin's fate.
ED LARSON
Oh.
MARCUS PARKS
We just got jury system for basically everything.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Jury of your peers. Germany, different crimes, different panel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Could it be like two guys? Could it be like Carrot Top and like somebody? Is it just randoms or is it-
ED LARSON
I imagine it could be.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean I didn't really look into it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. We don't gotta get lost in these weeds, we don't know how this works.
MARCUS PARKS
Armin's defense of course was that he was enacting a kind of euthanasia, killing on demand for a person who desperately wanted to die. Basically it was the Kevorkian argument except that while Kevorkian was all about dying with dignity, Brandes was explicitly asking to die without dignity.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. (German accent) What if I want this bad way to go? What if I want everyone to frown when they hear my name?
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) What if dignity went out the window?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. (German accent) This is it. That's where I am, that's what I like.
ED LARSON
I wonder how many people Kevorkian ate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean... Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Armin had been studying the law in jail and found that his earlier assumption that cannibalism was illegal, he found that was wrong. There was no law specifically against cannibalism in Germany. And Armin spoke about this subject for hours in open court. In fact Armin spoke more than his lawyer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's almost like it's what he's always wanted.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
As far as witnesses went, Armin's failed second attempts at cannibalism testified about their near misses with Armin and Armin's half-brother Ingbert also testified. His other half-brother Wolfgang, he'd since become a priest so he didn't want anything to do with this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Listen, I'm already in three other trials. Okay? I can not be... I am full. I am full, Armin.
ED LARSON
They call me Wolfgang Suck.
MARCUS PARKS
Now besides Armin's own admission, there was of course the videotape of the slaughter and butchery, which had to be viewed by the jury panel as well as two attorneys, a few expert witnesses, and the poor court reporter who had to both watch and type out all of the conversations between Armin and Bernd.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So this is where in Last Podcast on the Left history we see that the jury's experienced two extremes in this life. One is the incredible day, on one extreme, when a group of people all got to go look, it's for work, at Jodi Arias's butthole and see great pictures of her naked body and that must have been awesome for them. That's a great day to be a juror.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is the exact opposite of the spectrum because you have a bunch of people that obviously have never seen somebody be murdered openly on film before.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But nevermind the fact... Like you're watching murder and that's bad enough, that's bad. But then you have the guy who's getting murdered screaming (German accent) I wish I could feel it! I wish I could! And he's going yes! Yeah! And you're watching a guy be unable to bite the dick off, a hard dick off a man. It's a long day.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And it's two videotapes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's a long day.
MARCUS PARKS
Remember, he had to go to the store and buy a second one.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a thing where everybody's coming out like with the handkerchiefs, like whew.
ED LARSON
Yeah. No fast forwarding, man. It's like 8-track.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, you've got to watch each minute of it. Yeah, because it's hard. That was like they talk about it's traumatizing. They watched a guy beg to be murdered and it's extremely confusing.
ED LARSON
They'll never be the same.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
And then not only watched him get murdered but then watched the other guy-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Butcher him like he's a fucking lamb that you got at the store.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. But after watching the tape and interviewing Armin, the expert witnesses came away with pretty much the same opinion. They were all psychiatrists. One determined that Armin was mentally well and stable but he needed therapy.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he could use a place to talk.
ED LARSON
A touch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, a little adjustment.
MARCUS PARKS
A sexologist named Klaus Beier who had a degree in sexual medicine, he agreed-
ED LARSON
Is that cum?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is cum.
MARCUS PARKS
That's cum.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's all I know, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Sexual medicine. Yeah, it's cum.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's cum.
MARCUS PARKS
CUM! He said that Armin was not technically mentally ill and so Armin was pronounced fully sane by the jurist panel. Now by the time the second week of the trial was wrapping up, Armin thought that things were going extremely well for him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) I am crushing this. Everybody's loving me.
ED LARSON
I mean he was though!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was.
ED LARSON
As far as like a cannibal trial goes-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, it's going as well as it could. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
This is the best it can go. Yeah. It's definitely going better than Dahmer's trial.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Armin loved being the center of attention and he was the face of cannibalism. And he believed that he'd made his case that he was innocent because Bernd had wanted to die. And really I wonder if it would have made any difference if Bernd had been the one to take the action that ended his own life and was videotaped doing so.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I agree.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But in the end, all that mattered was that Armin was the one who'd stuck the knife in Bernd's throat. And he was convicted of manslaughter on January 30, 2004. One of the judges declared that legally this was manslaughter and not murder because quote "the famous lust for murder, the Lustmord, was not a part of Armin's motivation.
ED LARSON
And he would have killed all the other people too.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of course.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that was the big argument. He's like (German accent) look, I didn't kill all these guys.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
(German accent) It's fine. In other words, this judge essentially agreed that Armin's cannibalistic desires were an inescapable trait of his personality.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just me!
MARCUS PARKS
But he did not kill anyone against their will in order to feed those desires.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) It's not illegal to be me.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. (German accent) Legalize Armin!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as such, Armin was sentenced to 8 years, 6 months. But with good behavior he could have expected to return to his farmhouse in less than 5. This however was not a satisfying conclusion for the German people. Now Germany does have a double jeopardy law in place in which a person cannot be tried for the same crime twice. But unlike the double jeopardy law in America, which I found out is like the most I guess strict in the entire world-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Our double jeopardy?
MARCUS PARKS
Our double jeopardy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Nobody does double... Like with us, it's like if you are fucking convicted... You cannot be tried for the same crime twice. If you're found innocent-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Even if the fucking murder weapon shows up the day after the trial-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it shows that you did it, there's nothing they can do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, can't do anything. But in Germany, both the defense and the prosecution can appeal against the judgment if they disagree with it. And so after Armin's sentence was deemed too lenient and a retrial was had in 2006, he got life in prison.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's probably best.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because he was just gonna cook and eat more people.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't think he would have.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Buddy, oh buddy.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't think he would have found another guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually think that the boost of the trial would have brought the guys to him.
MARCUS PARKS
All his milkshake brought all the boys to the yard. Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
Or he'd just move.
MARCUS PARKS
He could move.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's got a beautiful house.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
No he doesn't. It's disgusting.
MARCUS PARKS
Now while this seems a little unfair by American standards-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's unfair. Yeah, Marcus.
MARCUS PARKS
Bear in mind that Armin is perfectly happy in prison.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
He enjoys the structure, he enjoys the fame, and he likes that other inmates call him der Kannibale.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
This is my boyfriend, Salt Lick.
MARCUS PARKS
Fellow inmates find Armin intelligent and even admirable because he regularly takes the time to help inmates with legal matters or in writing letters when they need help. He's like the Bernie Madoff of cannibals.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's a nice guy.
MARCUS PARKS
As Armin put it, he feels the best and most stable he's ever felt in his life in prison.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) I'm here, I'm in my lane, moisturized, living life.
MARCUS PARKS
It's like it provided him with the family he'd always yearned for. In other words, Armin finally got the hug.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In prison.
ED LARSON
Interesting. And he doesn't have to fix ATMs anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
But not without a sense of humor, Armin once requested for Christmas (German accent) an eight inch bockwurst banger in garlic and white wine, prepared with one of the recipes he'd used to braise Bernd Brandes' flesh. Also not without humor, and this is very funny you know, the German prison officials did give him the sausage but did not prepare it in the way Armin requested it. It's very funny you know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Oh you get a little bit but not all the way that you life, you funny little man. You funny guy.
MARCUS PARKS
Today Armin says he regrets killing and eating Bernd Brandes and even wanted to write a biography trying to deter anyone else from doing what he did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jerkoff. That's fucking, he's full of fucking shit.
ED LARSON
Yeah, no. He was gonna make it wonderful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was just gonna jerk off while writing the fucking book. I think that he is a full on predator.
MARCUS PARKS
By his estimation though, there are about 800 cannibals in Germany which seems high.
ED LARSON
Not for Germany.
MARCUS PARKS
Armin however did not say whether those are active cannibals or merely people with intense cannibalistic fetishes just like him who are all waiting for someone to say yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what they say, there's a lid for every pot.
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) I'm in love with the world, through the eyes of a girl, who's still around the morning after.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What is that song?
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) Say yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Well what a wonderful story. I've loved every fucking second of this. Thank you, Marcus. Good work, Eddie.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good work, Rob. Sorry for making you look at a bunch of horrible shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you, Rob.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you to our research team, Joel and Shaw who also had to read a bunch of horrible shit.
MARCUS PARKS
They did great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But welcome. Thank you guys. Next week, beginning a big series. Can't wait.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Huge four part series. It's a history series. It's one of the... I can't fucking wait for this, I've been waiting so long to do this story. And man, like this story, it is so much more than you think it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. I love this story. I am kind of bowled over about how big this story is.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's great. So can't wait to come back with that story next week. Don't forget to go to our Patreon, patreon.com/lastpodcastonthe left. You can go and watch all of the video episodes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ja!
MARCUS PARKS
Follow us @LPontheleft at TikTok and Instagram.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Go watch us.
MARCUS PARKS
Be sure to check us out at twitch.tv/LPNtv for all the streams we do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're making stuff! Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And you can also check out our YouTube channel for all the streams where they posted after the fact. And come see us on tour, go to lastpodcastontheleft.com to see all the shows. We're coming to Washington DC in July.
ED LARSON
July 13th.
MARCUS PARKS
Can't wait.
ED LARSON
Warner Theater. Come on with it, you fuckers!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Gonna be coming to New York City and we're gonna be doing a show here in LA. But we're also gonna be going to London and Reykjavik in October. And of course we have our big Australian tour coming up here in just a couple of months in August. Can't wait to fucking see you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah! And then hopefully we get to meet some willing people ready to be eaten so we can try that.
MARCUS PARKS
Quite possibly.
ED LARSON
Australia, I bet there's a couple.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I really want to, I think it'd be nice to at least meet some. And then we can just all hang out.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually when we ate raw kangaroo the last time we were in-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was gross.
MARCUS PARKS
I remember thinking like this might be what it's like to eat human flesh because it was fucking disgusting.
ED LARSON
Was it ground up?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No, it was like filets.
ED LARSON
Really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It kind of was like served like sashimi.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
No, that's not the way to do it. I would do it like tartare.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was seared.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was seared and then cold. It was gross.
ED LARSON
Oh weird. That doesn't sound good.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Someone actually, where do we get good kangaroo? Email us sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
In one of the cities that we're gonna be in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, one of them.
ED LARSON
I'm sure Adelaide.
MARCUS PARKS
I was about to say Adelaide is gonna be the town for the kangaroo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Probably.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I'm not getting fucking kangaroo from Adelaide after doing the Snowtown shit.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What the fuck is wrong with you?
ED LARSON
They got a bunch of extra meat going around there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not anymore.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm just saying that's the place.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right, bye, everybody! Hail Satan!
MARCUS PARKS
Hail Gein!
ED LARSON
I got no one to...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come on, man. Julia Child.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah, Julia Child. Hail Julia Child.