Hamburg reviews 9/11 hijacker ties and campus legacy 25 years after attacks
Nearly 25 years after the September 11 attacks, authorities and universities in Hamburg are reviewing the city's connection to the al-Qaeda cell that helped carry out the strikes.
Remembrance at the former consulate
Hamburg is reviewing its connection to the September 11 attacks as the 25-year mark approaches. The city inaugurated its first official memorial plaques in July 2025, placing them directly in front of the former United States consulate building at the Aussenalster. The markers honour the victims of the strikes, which claimed nearly 3,000 lives across the United States, including 11 German nationals.
At the plaque dedication in July 2025, Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher reflected on the city's reaction after the conspiracy became public.
Shock and dismay were all the greater when it became known that several of the attackers lived in Hamburg, studied here, and helped prepare and carry out the attacks.
The Marienstrasse network
Three of the four suicide pilots who seized commercial airliners on September 11, 2001, arrived in Germany during the 1990s and settled in Hamburg for their education. Mohammed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, and Ramzi Binalshibh, who served as the cell's financial coordinator, lived together in an apartment at Marienstrasse 54 in Harburg. The residence functioned as an operational meeting point for al-Qaeda members.
Atta, born in Egypt in 1968, took control of American Airlines Flight 11 and crashed the Boeing 767 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Alshehhi, born in 1978 in the United Arab Emirates, had arrived in Bonn in 1996 on a military scholarship before moving to Hamburg. He piloted United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
Ziad Jarrah, born in 1975 to a wealthy Lebanese family, moved to Greifswald in 1996 for a language course before moving to Hamburg in 1997 to study aircraft construction at a Fachhochschule. Jarrah took control of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania following a revolt by passengers.
- Alshehhi arrives in Bonn on scholarship and Jarrah begins language course in Greifswald
- Jarrah begins aircraft construction studies at a Hamburg Fachhochschule
- Hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center and crash in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people
- Hamburg installs memorial plaques outside the former US consulate on the Aussenalster
University roots and institutional response
Atta and Alshehhi were enrolled at the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) in the Harburg district. The two men met on campus within a student Islam working group (Islam-AG), which operated as a student-led initiative. University officials noted that the university administration did not oversee the ideological activities of the student group during that period.
University leadership has confronted the connection between the campus and the attackers in the years following the plot. A spokesperson confirmed that the events remain an acknowledged chapter of the school's past.
The events of September 11, 2001 are part of the history of TU Hamburg.
When addressing whether the institution maintains special oversight on extremism today, the university remained general while emphasizing its strict opposition to political violence.
Extremism and any form of violence and misanthropy have no place at TU Hamburg.
Security vigilance across northern Germany
Following the revelation that key operatives resided in northern Germany, local security services in Hamburg increased tracking of radical networks. German authorities noted that intelligence sharing has remained active since the attacks, citing a tip from United States agencies five years ago that aided regional counter-terrorism investigations.
