When asked what the Germans are most afraid of, the threat of terrorism currently "only" ranks 16. 20 years after the 9/11 attacks, this is an encouraging sign. Does it express that the extremists' primary goal of unsettling free societies is only very limited. On the other hand, in a cosmopolitan city like Frankfurt, it is evident that the concern that a general suspicion against Muslims would spread as a result of the attacks in America and in the following years by other Islamist-motivated groups in Europe has not been confirmed.
In this respect too, Frankfurt is similar to the great New York model.
After the shock and horror had been overcome, the majority of society became convinced that what matters is not religion, but the respective people and their willingness to be part of the community.
Horror scenario surveillance state
Such a peaceful coexistence based on mutual respect is anything but a matter of course in view of the deep uncertainty that the attacks of September 11th, but also the attacks of the following years caused by changing groups in Europe. Because the feeling of being able to live essentially carefree is based on the trust that the fundamentally shaken democracies have developed strategies in recent years to at least limit the dangers. Make no mistake: abstractly, the threat is still high, also in Germany, especially in a prosperous metropolitan area like the Rhine-Main area.
Narrowing down the risk will probably take many years and a great deal of effort. In the meantime we have got used to the fact that “threats” - that is, people who are believed to be capable of such acts of violence - live among us and, in some cases, have to be observed around the clock. And the discussion about how digital tools can be used to uncover terrorist plans no longer has the excited tone of earlier years. Even cooperation with the secret services of friendly countries, without which some attacks in Hesse probably would not have been able to be prevented, is now largely accepted.
The change from a rule of law to a surveillance state, painted on the wall as a horror scenario, has not materialized. Instead, two decades after the attacks, the prevailing awareness in Germany is that security and freedom are not opposites, but must complement each other if one does not want terror to gain the upper hand.