Terrorism: 25 years after 9/11, Hamburg keeps Islamist scene under watch

Nearly 25 years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Hamburg continues to confront the fact that three of the four hijacker pilots had lived and studied in the city. Memorial plaques honoring the victims were installed outside the former U.S. consulate on the Außenalster only in July 2025.

At the unveiling, Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher said the city’s shock had deepened when it became known that some of the attackers had lived there, studied there and helped prepare and carry out the attacks. Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah came to Germany in the 1990s. Atta, al-Shehhi and Ramzi Binalshibh, described as the Hamburg cell’s “banker,” shared a home at Marienstraße 54. Other members of al-Qaeda’s network, including Jarrah, were also said to have visited.

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The shock and dismay were all the greater when it became known that some of the attackers had lived in Hamburg, studied here, and helped prepare and carry out the attacks.

Atta, who was born in Egypt in 1968, piloted the American Airlines Boeing 767 that struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower. Al-Shehhi, born in 1978 in the United Arab Emirates, piloted the United Airlines aircraft that hit the South Tower. Jarrah, born in Lebanon in 1975, studied aircraft engineering at a Hamburg university after first taking a language course in Greifswald. He piloted the hijacked United Airlines plane that crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers revolted. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks, including 11 Germans.

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The events of September 11, 2001, are part of the history of Hamburg University of Technology.

Atta and al-Shehhi were enrolled at Hamburg University of Technology, where they met in an Islamic student group. A university spokeswoman said the attacks form part of the institution’s history and that the university had addressed that fact. Asked whether the university now pays particular attention to extremism, she said, “Extremism and every form of violence and misanthropy have no place at Hamburg University of Technology.” She added that the former group was a student initiative, not an activity run by the university leadership.

The article also recalls that the danger of Islamist attacks has repeatedly emerged in Hamburg in recent years, including a plot thwarted shortly before the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

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Extremism and every form of violence and misanthropy have no place at Hamburg University of Technology.