The "German Cannibal" scene at the start of the film is based on the real life case of Armin Meiwes, a 42 year old computer technician from Rotenburg, Germany, who caused a worldwide scandal in 2003, when it was reported that he had killed and partially ate 43 year old Bernd Brandes, an Engineer from Berlin. While the facts of the crime were gruesome, the difficulty German prosecuters had in actually charging Mr. Meiwes with ANY crime was the truly shocking part of the tale. Because the two men had met in an and internet chatroom devoted to Gay cannibal fetishism in which Mr, Brandes had clearly expressed his desire to be killed and eaten, Mr. Meiwes was shielded from murder charges under laws that were originally enacted to protect doctors who assist terminally-ill patients commit suicide. At the time, cannibalism was not explicitly forbade in any statute, and it was unclear whether a crime had even been committed under existing German law, a situation that many both in Germany and abroad found absurd and macabre. These real-life events also inspired the song "Mein Teil" by the German Industrial band Rammstein.
The Rotenburg case (from 1996) also inspired Belgian Flemish writer Yves Petry for his novel 'De Maagd Marino' (the Virgin Marino) in 2010. He won the Libris Literature Price for this novel.