Subject : GUNTER HAMPEL WITTNESSREPORT nEW YORK SEP 11 ,2001

GUNTER HAMPEL : wittness report New York Sept 11, 2oo1

NEW YORK 11 th of .September 2001

WITTNESS-REPORT

3.Report, Wednesday, 7 a.m.Sept.12th 2001

Yesterday I wrote down my first impressions. Latest News are, I am now below

14 th street in Manhattan ,in a “frozen zone”, meaning , you can’t get out

or in, unless you live here and have a kind of a proof that you do. Manhattan

is closed.

The frustration, that something like that could have happened, is

enormous, so far we all had believed that mighty America could defend us from

those kind of attacks.

The Achilles-heel of a great machine, a country with the greatest, most

curageous soldiers in the Army,Navy and Airforce of this age is vulnerable,

like in Vietnam, by terrorist and out of nowhere single and fast attacks.

When you see your enemy it is already to late for you..

Since it is common politics in the USA, to never let you know too much

about the u.s. politics in foreign countries,(in contrast to German

Television, where you see in pictures and words about any country of this

world, the condition under which each country lives etc.) hardly anyone here

in New York can actually try to understand the reasons, why it is happening,

what is happening., and everyone is occupied to get revenge.

Young men, around me on the streets want to enlist spontaneously to lead

an heavy felt revenge attack , only, at this time nobody knows against WHOM.

1st. report, around 11 am ,Sept. 11 .,2oo1

WAR

I was as close as 12o yards , on my bike. Hardly any cars driving on the

streets. Empty streets, except people were standing around in bundels on

sidewalks, parking lots, anywhere from where you had a chance to see the

World Trade Center.

As a former architect I have shot a lot of photos and Videos during the

last years, whenever I found a streetcorner from where I discovered a view

onto the Twin Towers , as we New Yorkers say.

Now those views aren’t anymore.Now I hear armyplanes securing the air space

above. One hour too late

.

Just minutes ago I had wittnessed with my eyes and senses and feelings the

bursting and shattering of the trademarks of american power-the world trade

center, falling and splitting into ashes..

The waves of dust and pressure and the yelling of people next to me on the

streets made me believe to feel and hear the death-cries of the many

thousands of people, inside the towers, which were falling to their deaths at

this very moment.

My family is o.k. It only appears to me, that this could be the beginning of

a most dangerous WAR. Like Vietnam. Or worse. There doesn’t seem to be a

particular battlefield anymore.

What happened today is worse than Pearl Harbour

.Then it was military against military action. This were “innocent people”

Let’s pray.

2.Report, around 9 pm,Sept 11,2oo1

Today: horror …,the devil grins his most scornfull laughter out of

poisining sulfur-clouds into my face. His poison-cloud-body stretches far up

seeable in the blue sky above the whole, from which he seemed to have risen.

His floating gestalt consists of the many thousands of bodies which he

just devours, which are still , 8 hours “after”, burning beneath.

whummmmmmmmms, another 42 store building just went down and adds new

fuel, adds new rubbel,burning plastic-stuff , mixed with ugly dirt to the

disappearing,discharging, devil out of the latest gap between New York’s

teeth . .

Realizing my limitations I was mezmerized in having to watch, 15o meters

away from me how that devils stranglehold crashed the building. Just like ,

that..

We all just stood there. Watcher of a play, what we humans until now had

seen in the movies only, Agamemnon or that great one, the one Emmerich made

with Will Smith…Independence day.

I had been on the way to my lawyer, that why I was up so early. The

closer I was getting to her office, the stranger

my usually mostly already challenging bike-ride became: I heard an explosion

and followed the staring people’s eyes, which had grouped grapes-like

together on odd parts of the streets, to stare , seemingly being totally out

of their mind about what they saw, onto the World Trade Center.

Someone was absendmindedly saying to me, that just an airplane had

crashed into one of the towers , when suddenly another airplane appeared out

of the deap blue ,shining , sunny sky and drew itself into the other tower

and exploded inside with black and very red flames.

Immidiatly everything started to burn, next, above and underneath the

whole, the ingoing , exploding airplane had cut.

Parts of the building, people, parts from the airplane fell very gentle,

almost like feathers out of the tower, down.

(Everything was so hot from the explosion, even the metal was burning into

ashes)

I rushed forward to get a better look. Until now I couldn.t have imagined in

my wildest dreams, that the towers were anywhere in danger. As a student of

architecture and still a fan of the unbelievable architecture which had

developed here in New York, I had loved the two towers ( we New Yorker call

the world trade center TWIN-TOWERS, but dig this : symbolic: two times a 1.so

we have an 11, and what date do we have today ? September 11 th.)

loved the towers because of it’s ingenious construction.grand structur. A

masterpiece.I have often stood and compared my music with that particular

skyline, I have put that even on my CD, 2 years ago, Sept 9, 1999 (another

symbol),well, the architect had planned it so, that even when it burns, the

structure would still stand and only the inside would burn out. He also had

designed it, that even an airplane could have hit it or a helicopter could

fall on the roof, and stuff like that, but that one day, there would be

living a human to become a kamikaze pilot and would from all places in the

world dive midway, like a bomb into his buidling on purpose, with an airplane

filled with 158 scared and screaming, their death in front of them ,people

,plus how many gallons of burning, exploading Kerosin. ……….

I do not think the architekt could have forseen that scenerie.

Me too, as a wittness, in front of whose awake but unbelieving mind this

all happened, in real, without music in the back or explaining commentators.

I had never thought, that the towers, even when they burned out, wouldn’t be

there any more, they were simple THE symbol for the unbelievable power and

energy and potential and might of mankind, to conquer and to move things. I

live here since 3o Years and see the towers simply every day, sometimes more

than once, I live with them the way you do live when it comes down to

streetcorners,names,and buildings: They are there, you go into them, or pass

them. BUT THAT I AM STANDING IN FRONT OF THEM

( (you remember all the King Kong Movie, where we watched him climbing up

the tower ?)

And SEE with thousands of others, millions of other people

how one floor after the other starts to burn, above and inside.

Inside hell was loose. Tounging flames , which burned the outer shell or

let it sail downward in flaming pieces. People jumped out of the devastating

heat into their death, driven also by the poisoned burnig gases.

And then happened the incomprehensible;

For a second the left tower wrapped itself into a coat out of

white-gray-brown dirt, as if a magician had thrown a magic blanket on top of

it and under this coat of dirt the tower was falling into itself, grumbling

and earthquake like.. The ground on which I stood, trembled, rumbled. Women

fainted, fell down, some kneeled to pray and a screaming outcry, mixed with

pain and “ oh my god(s)”broke out the thousands of bystanding people. In

addition there was this pain, I was able to feel many thousands of people in

front of my eyes tumbling, in pain, to death.. Downwards.

From downunder the dirt-fumes rose again, like a ball which had hit the

ground, and still grows skyhigh after 12 hours with the smirking visage of

lucifer.

Brave Police and firefighters plus many important people drove closer to the

rubble. The stinking dirt and the hitting debries made me leave.

But like being hypnoticed I turned my bike around again.. I had still 3

pictures in my aps-camera

When the first tower was coming down I was too shaken to take pictures. I am

used to a lot of heavy stuff I saw in my life, but this was history in the

making. This here is WAR and not a MOVIE

I saw how more heat was starting to develope in the still standing tower.

The air above the tower vibrated .Like

a flickering film the hot air was winding itself around the tower. I said

loud :

“This one will come down any minute”

The undescribable pain which had befallen all of us lamed us, thousands of

people. Hypnotised we saw how the still standing tower , but bleeding out ,

with it’s last strength raised itself for a moment, much different than

the first,probably by the enormous heat, and then collapsed, insofar the

inner part of the tower, with the heavy antenna first fell into itself first

and then down, making a mushroom, like an atomic explosion, this incredible

sound like a dying dinosaur, the shriek of the yelling people, the on the top

of their loungs yells by the police..I had only one thing in mind, to get out

of here as fast as I could, all my memories of WW II came back, I hit the

pedals of my bike and shot out, like Jens Armstrong , of the danger zone.

When I hit Canal Street, the chinese had already closed down all their

stores. I hit home and got my son on the phone, to make shure he was

allright., and now I am hanging here in New York.

I am supposed to go on tour in Europe on September 25 th, when the plane is

going and things are hopefully , kind of getting back to normal.

Now I am living in the FROZEN ZONE. Everyone living underneath 14 th

street is in it. No one, who doesn’t live here is not allowed to enter, no

cars, no busses, no subway is stopping here.

It never was so quiet here in all the 25 years I am living here.

I consider, that there will be more attacks. Probably not anymore the

tactic with the hi-jacked airplanes. Something else and extremely

unexpected. They probably send pidgeons with chemical or BIO weapons, or

they gonna strike at extremely unexpected places and areas.

At the moment the world economy, most communications are striken by the

terrorist..

All stores have closed, no subway. I have never seen , so many people

doing miles by foot , above the ground in NYC.

1/2 hour later suddenly a stream of cars, everyone who has a car seems to be

leaving town, and now it is empty here, like in a Science fiction movie…..

I had enough impressions and experiences for one day. And my court day

has been moved to January…..

PS. We are still under shock. Us, the survivors, we hope, that this does not

lead to more eskalation of revenge and re-revenges period, instead we hope,

that no one in the future has to rely on actions like terrorism again. We

have to think out other ways. We hope that Governments and people inform each

other in that way that before such actions lead to murder and wars, will be

solved verbaly and we all realize that we all are brothers and sisters. Let

us all build the future that way. To begin with something let’s start a

better education and information worldwide for everyman/woman…..and create

the desire in people to learn,..and.....and........and...............

Gunter Hampel

composer,vibraphonist,bassclarinetist,flutist

GuntHampel@aol.com

www.gunterhampelmusic.de

more to come .. if you like to print this article and/or the followups in

progress

contact GuntHampel@aol.com