The Hamburg cell: How the Hanseatic city became the center of the 9/11 investigation

As the long day of September 11, 2001 came to an end, the world mourned the deaths of thousands. People went to bed with the dystopian images of the white cloud of dust rolling through New York and were shocked by this new Islamist terror. But no one in Hamburg had any idea that the following day their own city would come into the attention of the world. And how embarrassed the local security authorities would soon be in front of them.

On September 12th at 10:18 p.m., the US authorities sent a list of 19 suspects to Germany. Two of them reported their residence in Hamburg: Mohammed Atta, who flew a Boeing 767 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., and Marwan al-Shehhi, who rammed a second passenger plane into the South Tower a few minutes later. Investigators also suspected that another terrorist, the Lebanese Ziad Samir Jarrah, had a connection to Hamburg. Jarrah had piloted the third plane bound for Washington, only for it to crash into a field in Pennsylvania thanks to a revolt by courageous passengers. Other men from Hamburg are said to have helped in this largest terrorist attack in world history. The investigators called it a “Hamburg cell.”