On this day, Zeljko E., a Kosovar Serb, enters a Hamburg, Germany, police station and says he wants to turn himself in. He tells the police that he has robbed a business and stolen piles of paper written in Arabic, with the hopes of selling them. A friend of his told him that they relate to the 9/11 attacks. The 44 pounds of papers are translated and they prove to be a “treasure trove.” The documents come from Mamoun Darkazanli’s files, which were not in Darkazanli’s apartment when police raided it two days after 9/11. “It makes for a great story. A petty thief pilfers files containing critical information about the largest terrorist attack in history and dutifully turns them over to the police. [But German] agents do not buy this story for a minute; they suspect that some other Secret Service was trying to find a way of getting evidence into [their] hands. The question is, whose Secret Service?” Some German investigators later suggest that the CIA was responsible; there are also reports that the FBI illegally monitored Darkazanli after 9/11. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 10/27/2001; Der Spiegel, 2002, pp. 166-67; Chicago Tribune, 11/17/2002]
July 23, 2003: Survey Finds Fifth of Germans Believe US Government Behind 9/11
The German weekly newspaper Die Zeit publishes a survey by the respected organization Forsa which finds that 19 percent of Germans believe the US government, or elements within it, were behind the 9/11 attacks. 31 percent of those under 30 are found to believe this. [Reuters, 7/23/2003; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), 9/9/2003; Daily Telegraph, 11/20/2003] Several popular books are on the market in Germany, questioning who was behind 9/11. [Wall Street Journal, 9/29/2003; International Herald Tribune, 10/1/2003] In response, the newsmagazine Der Spiegel runs a major cover story rebutting some of the theories proposed in these books. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 9/8/2003] A senior German government official dismisses the poll result, saying:“There’s a group of people in every country who will believe any nonsense.”
[International Herald Tribune, 10/1/2003] In June 2005, a popular German crime show on German state television (ARD) will air an episode involving the premise that the Bush administration ordered the 9/11 attacks. [Washington Times, 6/9/2005]
