The cargo aircraft had taken off from Leipzig/Halle Airport with two pilots on board at 05:37 to perform a flight under instrument flight rules (IFR) to Stuttgart Airport. The captain was Pilot Flying. The approach to runway 25 at Stuttgart was flown using the instrument landing system (ILS). The autopilot was turned off on final approach when passing approximately 400 feet above airfield elevation, and the final portion was manually flown. The reference speed (Vref) for this approach was 126 knots. At 06:16, according to the crew, the aircraft touched down normally in the touchdown zone, the autobrake system responded, and the ground spoilers deployed automatically. Then, “unexpectedly and rapidly,” the longitudinal pitch of the aircraft increased, temporarily to about 10ø. Further coasting and braking with thrust reversal and autobrake system and taxiing to parking position again proceeded normally. Damage to the rear fuselage underside was noted. Further, the crew stated that there were no fault indications during the entire flight. The landing was described by her as otherwise smooth; no ground contact of the tail of the airplane was perceived. The trim had been driven to eight units by the auto-flight system; usually this would be six units. The flight data recorder records show that when the main landing gear touched down, the longitudinal pitch of the aircraft was about 6ø. Two seconds later, the longitudinal pitch began to increase, reaching a maximum value of 11ø after another four seconds. In the following approximately five seconds, the longitudinal pitch then decreased to almost zero.