From Reise, Reise · 2004 · Track 2
Mein Teil
«My part»
More from the album · Reise, Reise
In context
A real case of consensual cannibalism, read in the newspaper and brought into the rehearsal room. The song doesn't judge: it sets out the fact, a kitchen proverb, and leaves the listener to work it out.
- True crime
- Cannibalism
- Double meaning
- Origin
- Second track on “Reise, Reise” (2004). Bassist Oliver Riedel recounted that one of the members brought the newspaper with the story of Armin Meiwes to rehearsal: Meiwes was convicted of killing and eating a man who had agreed to it after they made contact online in 2001.
- The German key
- “Mein Teil” means “my part” — my portion, my share — but in colloquial German “Teil” also works as a euphemism for the male member, which is precisely the part that made the case notorious. The whole song rests on that double reading, and the chorus drives it home by taking the saying “you are what you eat” literally.
- What the band has said
- The band has not offered a moral reading of the case; it treated it as material, not as a denunciation.
- Live
- With Flake inside a cooking pot and Till threatening him with a flamethrower, it is one of the most recognizable stagings in the live catalogue.
Our reading
This is Rammstein in its most characteristic mode: a true-crime story, a household proverb and no explicit position. The discomfort lies not in what the song says but in what it refuses to say.
The archive's interpretation, not an official account.
Original (German)
Denn du bist was du isst
Translation
Because you are what you eat
Verse cited for the purpose of analysis.
The case
In March 2001, two men in their forties met in Rotenburg an der Fulda after making contact online. One agreed to be eaten by the other. Armin Meiwes killed and dismembered his victim and consumed the remains over ten months until his arrest in December 2002. He was first sentenced to eight and a half years for manslaughter; the case was later reviewed and he received life imprisonment for murder.
The song’s origin is as domestic as the case is extreme: bassist Oliver Riedel said one of the members brought the newspaper to rehearsal with the cannibal story in it.
The wordplay
The title is deliberately ambiguous. Mein Teil means “my part” — my share, what is due to me — but Teil also works in colloquial German as a euphemism for the male member, which is the part that made the case notorious. The whole song rests on that double reading, and the chorus caps it with the saying “you are what you eat” used literally.
This is Rammstein at its most characteristic: a crime-page fact, a kitchen proverb and no explicit moral position. The listener does the judging.
The video
Directed by Zoran Bihać. It is among the most disturbing in the catalogue: Christoph Schneider in drag, Till with a knife-tipped microphone, Flake dancing ballet in a hallucinatory state. It does not reconstruct the crime — it translates it into images.
Recognition
It was nominated for the Grammy for Best Metal Performance at the 48th awards (2006), losing to Slipknot’s “Before I Forget”. It is one of the band’s few international nominations.
Translation and notes by Rammstein Colombia, for the purpose of analysis. The full original lyrics belong to their authors.