On September 11, 2001, al-Qaida Islamist terrorists drove two hijacked vehicles into the World Trade Center in New York, one into the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth machine crashes in Pennsylvania. Around 3000 people died. The attacks have changed the world sustainably. Here are five personal stories of people in the middle of it.
Reinhard Karger
9/11 Diary: The last sunrise between the towers
He came to vacation - and experienced an inferno. In September 2001, Reinhard Karger visited his brother in New York. One morning, when he went outside for a cigarette break, he suddenly found himself in front of the burning World Trade Center - capturing the unbelievable in depressing pictures.
Thomas Noller
9/11: The volcano on the 93rd floor
Thomas Noller lived and worked in New York City for five years and loved this city like no other. But on this wonderful, late summer Tuesday morning in September 2001, the absolutely unthinkable happened.
Marcel Winterhalder
9/11 in New York: "I saw what nobody wants to see"
Bank employee Marcel Winterhalder moved to the US in 2001 to get to know the day-to-day work of his American colleagues. What he experienced was the total state of emergency.
Getty Images
My September 11: Nothing works anymore
Wild yelling, hectic flashing and screaming again and again - everyday life in the Munsteraner Spielothek, where Michael Wildberg worked as a student. One day , he remembers the day New York's planes crashed into the World Trade Center. And the gambling house fell silent.
Marcel Winterhalder
September 11: Imagine it's war
The news struck him with all his might: After two aircraft had brought down the Twin Towers in New York, Karl Wilhelm Meier feared a war that he would not escape. His fear did not materialize, but his belief in humanity was shaken.