WDR documentary 'September': A moving reconstruction of the attacks on September 11, 2001

Hardly a day in history has been reconstructed as precisely and described as often as September 11, 2001. Countless personal accounts and fates have been told since then. It is all the more astonishing that the WDR documentary September by director Johan von Mirbach is able to recount the events so movingly. (The film will be shown on September 11th, the 25th anniversary of the attacks, at 8:15 p.m. on Das Erste.)

It sheds light on the entire month of September in New York: the days before, the attack itself and the time after. He describes how politicians - in the USA and around the world - reacted and how the terrorists proceeded. Contemporary witnesses such as the then New York Governor George Pataki and Joschka Fischer, then German Foreign Minister, have their say. Lars Klingbeil, who was an intern at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in New York in 2001, also reports. But it is above all the stories of private individuals who were in or near the World Trade Center during the attacks that are most touching.

The days before the terrorist attacks seemed perfect. The city seems lively, glamorous and euphoric - just like a place where dreams come true. Perhaps the film idealizes this image a little, but that is precisely what reinforces the tragedy of what follows.