I was at work that day. During a brake in the afternoon I walked in the city centre and saw the pictures on TV in other store's windows, the towers yet had not collapsed. Couldn't judge if it was accident or attack, but was assuming the latter. Later I heared the tone and what bystanders were saying. I felt calm, but knew that now the "better new world order" that had been expected and proclaimed after the end of the cold war, irreversible had gone down the drain. Telephoned my father and told him to keep my mother away from the TV for the next two days (she was suffering from reactive depressions). with a ticking brain, what consequences this would mean, I went back to work and told my colleagues who so far had not heared the news, then was sent home for that day for we had too little work only. They looked at me in disbelief and thought I was exaggerating, or plaiyng them some sick kind of joke.
Met a neighbour close by my house, an older, extroverted lady, who even became angry that I still was calm and accepted what had happened as a reality
. She always said "I can'T believe it, it can't be real", and was almost hysteric, in a milder way, and when I told her it had happend for real, it messed up her day completely. Some people are strange people.
For the rest of the day and into the night I did the usual things I do at home, but the TV was constantly running in the background. When seeing the first time how the towers collapsed, I thought "Die werden jetzt ganz schön loslegen." ("This will get them really starting for sure"). That there would be an American reaction was clear to me. But different than many Germans who feared a amok-going shooting-from-the-hip-festival, I expected a planned, prepared, icy-cold, but very massive reaction with some delay, and that it would be a military response, and I hoped they would listen to their military leaders, not to Rumsfeld or Bush. Concerning the latter things, I stand corrected today, unfortunately.