SPIEGEL:
Mr. Schwere, where were you at the time of the attack?
Severity:
At home in Brooklyn at breakfast.
From the window I saw a huge cloud of smoke on the horizon, as if a factory were on fire.
Two or three minutes after the second attack, I climbed onto the roof and documented the scene with my video and photo camera.
Both towers were on fire, there is no such thing as a coincidence, it had to be an attack.
If I had already known that two planes had flown in, I would have gone straight away.
But that was no longer possible, all tunnels and bridges to Manhattan were closed.
SPIEGEL:
When did you go out to take photos?
Severity:
The northern half of Manhattan was not reopened until the early morning of September 13th.
I went straight on and spoke to the photo director of the New York Times Magazine beforehand about whether you could get in there with a special pass.
Impossible, she said, I would have to try on my own.
I got through the first lock with the information that I am a photojournalist.
Only people who lived there were allowed further south - me too, because the photo agency I worked for was three blocks away.
At the third cordon, my international press card didn't help me either.
SPIEGEL:
Was there a rush, media hype?
Severity:
No, no chaos either.
Some people tried to convince the police that they had to go in there to look for friends, for example.
SPIEGEL:
And you?
Difficulty:
First I climbed over the fence in a parking lot and reached the last restricted zone with media people who had come in with a special New York ID - but so far away that you couldn't see anything at all, very disappointing for a photographer.
SPIEGEL:
You didn't give up.
Difficulty:
In a park behind bushes I climbed over a fence again, four blocks from Ground Zero.
Except for the helpers and the fire brigade, nobody came in there.
I heard that they arrested photographers who tried anyway, and that their cameras and footage were taken.
Fortunately, that didn't happen to me.
I was only warned twice to leave the premises.
SPIEGEL:
By then you had already taken a few photos.
Difficulty:
The most impressive thing for me was the deserted streets in downtown.
And that there were absolutely no more colors.
Everything was covered with white dust, you could no longer look through the window panes of the houses.
Around Ground Zero it was like a ghost town, like Pompeii.
I ran through the streets like on a carpet, the dust was so thick.
The air was also full of dust, which penetrated every pore and tasted strange.
Everything smelled of powdered concrete, burnt paper, metal, and melted plastic.
Burned-out cars were parked everywhere, the doors to shops, bars and restaurants were open, curtains drifted from broken shop windows.
Really spooky.
SPIEGEL:
What did you see when you were standing in front of the ruins of the World Trade Center?
Difficulty: In
front of me, about five stories high, lay the remains of building seven, melted in the heat.
It looked like a melted chocolate cake with a white layer of sugar.
Like a war painting, that shocked me.
And behind it stood the gigantic ruins of the collapsed towers.
Countless rescue workers climbed around between the smoking remains.
They tried to find survivors.
SPIEGEL:
Didn't you think of helping?
Difficulty:
I would have been the 2001 th helper.
My job is to take photos.
Enlarge image
Photo: Frank Schwere / Matrix / DER SPIEGEL
SPIEGEL:
Did what you saw have a photographic aesthetic for you?
Severity:
No, not in the sense that a disaster is pretty to look at.
The changed skyline had something fascinating about it.
I felt like I'd seen something like this before.
You feel like you're in a movie, like Steven Spielberg's, and you perceive scenes that you don't think are possible.
For me, images from disaster films mixed with reality.
If you are right in the middle of it, you quickly realize what it all means: that a great many people must have died.
SPIEGEL:
Did you still just take photos?
Severity:
In the two days before, there had been constant pictures of helpers, firefighters and survivors.
So I was reasonably prepared for Ground Zero and wanted to record everything for posterity.
It all depends on the right perspective.
When I took the photo that the »Spiegel« later printed as the cover picture, I knew: it was going to be an icon.
The remains of the south tower looked like a cathedral.
The shot looks almost biblical, plus a slight shimmer of the setting sun.
SPIEGEL:
Was there something voyeuristic about your work?
Severity:
No, I don't think so.
I went there to capture a historic moment.
If you will: for all of humanity and future generations.
However, I was surprised that the photos attracted such attention.
My pictures are distant, they don't show screaming, desperate people.
So I don't think I can be accused of emotional exploitation.
Nobody did either.
I am a photographer and felt just as committed as the photographer August Sander, who documented the bombed post-war Cologne.
Today these are important recordings for posterity.
SPIEGEL:
What are the characteristics of a good photo?
Severity:
You have to be attracted to a shot.
I try to take calm pictures.
A high level of attention can be achieved through silence.
SPIEGEL:
How did you deal with the images in your head?
Severity:
I've thought a lot about what I've seen.
The desperation of people who did not want to burn alive and preferred to jump to their deaths stayed in my mind for a long time and got my pulse racing.
I could see the falling bodies from my roof, so far away that at first I couldn't understand what was falling.
I only found out on the news.
SPIEGEL:
Has your work changed since then?
Severity:
In a way, 9/11 fitted into my photographic area of interest.
As a student, I had already photographed disused mines with a large-format camera and documented deserted ruins and landscapes.
And also the civil war-like confrontations between demonstrators and the police during Castor transports.
After 9/11 I photographed the landscapes destroyed by the hurricanes in Florida in 2004 and New Orleans in 2005, then in large formats the infinite ruins in Detroit.
My aim is to show how the habitats in our world change in a natural and man-made way.
SPIEGEL:
Do you always have in the back of your mind how you have to proceed so that a photo can sell well?
Severity:
No, I'm not a classic photojournalist and I have absolutely no contact with news agencies.
When I take photos, I only think of the documentation and sometimes play with the idea of publishing an illustrated book.
SPIEGEL:
What have you observed with colleagues?
Was there a new trend in photography after 9/11?
Severity:
I don't think so.
For a while, however, many photographers in New York dealt with 9/11 and its aftermath.
The pictures attracted attention in the art scene.
I compare expressive recordings of a historical event like this to historical paintings.
It is legitimate for art collectors to attribute some value to such works.
My pictures have been published worldwide, shown in museums and also acquired by private collectors.
SPIEGEL:
How did you experience the time after the attack?
Severity:
The mood was very tense.
Like when, after a strong earthquake that has claimed many victims, you do not know whether it is really over.
Shortly after the attack, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani called on people to defy terrorism and keep the economy going.
Everyday life returned quickly.
But the constant news about this act of terrorism and the victims, the missing towers in downtown, the temporary memorial in Union Square and the air surveillance by the Air Force - that gave us all a queasy feeling.
Nevertheless, I flew to London eight days after the attack.
The plane was pretty empty.
SPIEGEL:
How has life changed in New York?
Severity:
This liberal city was no longer so free.
Every corner was checked, and police officers were able to carry out bag checks in the subway without a search warrant.
Soldiers with machine guns patrolled all major subway stations.
Most large office buildings introduced ID controls.
You had to register as a visitor at the reception and you were photographed or filmed in a circle painted on the floor.
It also became difficult to take photos in public.
When there were pictures of street scenes, buildings and squares, security guards would often run up and try to prevent me from doing my work.
SPIEGEL:
Did you observe xenophobia after the attack?
Severity:
Many Americans have certainly changed their view of Muslims.
Travelers were detained at airports simply because of their Arabic name.
With the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the president coined the inflammatory slogan of the "axis of evil" to accuse countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq of supporting terrorism.
The gap between the Western world and the Muslims grew enormously at the time.
advertisement
Aust, Stefan
September 11th: story of a terrorist attack
Published by Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt
Published by Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt
Buy for € 6.99
Price inquiry time
08.09.2021 9.09 p.m.
No guarantee
Order from Amazon
Order from Thalia
Order from Weltbild
Product reviews are purely editorial and independent.
Via the so-called affiliate links above, we usually receive a commission from the dealer when making a purchase.
More information here
SPIEGEL:
Americans' self-esteem was more than scratched.
Severity:
Until September 11th, they always considered themselves invulnerable and invincible.
The "greatest nation" in the world, as they called themselves, had only ever waged wars on other continents.
Now she had suddenly been attacked on her own soil.
There were morbid weapons purchases and rampage at schools.
SPIEGEL:
Politically, Obama came a few years later, and then there was a shift to the right.
Severity:
In the end, the fear of being attacked again played into the hands of the Republicans. In their election campaigns they fueled this fear and divided the US. Despite Obama's "Yes, we can," the Democrats were no longer able to unite the population. The tea party movement emerged, right-wing populists vilified Obama's policies as "communist". Donald Trump could only become president because after 9/11 and the Bush policy a large part of the population was ready to help this despot into office.