KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany -- Twenty-five years after first responders climbed the stairwells of the World Trade Center towers, hundreds of U.S. service members, German first responders and community members took steps of their own to ensure their sacrifice is never forgotten.
Approximately 400 participants gathered at Fritz-Walter-Stadion in Kaiserslautern for the fourth annual September 11th Memorial Stair Climb, climbing 68 stadium stairs 30 times — 2,071 individual steps equivalent to the 110 flights of the World Trade Center towers.
The climb brought together U.S. Air Force and Army service members, members of the German Bundeswehr, American and German firefighters and emergency medical personnel, Rheinland-Pfalz police officers and German high school students to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
For U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Trevor J. Derr, 37th Aircraft Maintenance Unit superintendent, the event began with a much smaller climb four years ago.
New to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, in 2022 and unfamiliar with local commemorative events, Derr and his daughter decided to walk and ruck 9.11 miles around the installation. During their route, they passed a man who realized the significance of the date.
“Oh yeah ... I forgot that’s today,” Derr recalled him saying.
The words stuck with him.
“With tears in my eyes, I looked at my daughter and told her, ‘This is why we do this,’” Derr said.
Determined to create something that would keep the memory of September 11th alive within the Kaiserslautern Military Community, Derr approached 1. FC Kaiserslautern with the idea of hosting a memorial stair climb at Fritz-Walter-Stadion.
The club agreed.
Four years later, what began with a father and daughter walking around Ramstein has grown into an event drawing hundreds of participants from the U.S. military and surrounding German communities.
For Derr, the growth carries particular significance this year.
He was in his final week of Basic Military Training when the attacks occurred. Now, 25 years later, many of the youngest Airmen climbing beside him were not yet born on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Many young first responders [and] military members entering the ranks today have no personal memory of 2001,” Derr said. “If we do not pass down the firsthand accounts, the lessons learned and the emotional reality of that day, the legacy risks becoming an abstract date.”
Each participant carried a physical reminder of that legacy up the stadium stairs.
In the years leading up to the event, organizers collected patches from fire departments, rescue squads and police agencies across Europe, North America and as far away as Australia. Before beginning the climb, each participant received a patch and lanyard to carry with them.
Derr said the patches become particularly meaningful as fatigue sets in.
“When our climbers hit that mental and physical wall, I tell them to pause, look down at the patch in their hands, and hold the lanyard around their necks,” he said.
The temporary discomfort of climbing stadium stairs, Derr said, offers only a glimpse of the physical burden first responders faced as they moved upward through the World Trade Center towers.
“What we go through while climbing the stairs doesn’t compare to what they went through,” Derr said.
But the climb is about more than recreating the physical distance.
Thousands of miles from New York City, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Americans and Germans climbed together, transforming an American day of remembrance into a shared act of commemoration.
Fritz-Walter-Stadion provided the infrastructure needed to accommodate the full climb and hundreds of participants, but Derr said 1. FC Kaiserslautern's involvement has gone far beyond providing a venue.
Since the event's inception, the club and local German leaders have supported fundraising efforts and helped the event grow, while German firefighters, police officers, military members and students have joined their American counterparts on the stairs.
For some participants, the climb also reflected the deep ties between the German and American communities that have called the Kaiserslautern area home for generations.
Polizeikommissar Kai Fauss participated in the stair climb for the first time this year.
With an American mother and German roots, Fauss said the event carried a personal significance while also representing the close relationship between the two communities.
“Having an American mother, I’ve always felt a personal connection to both Germany and the United States,” Fauss said. “Seeing German and Americans come together to remember those who lost their lives shows the friendship we have here. We live and work alongside each other every day, and events like this remind us that we also stand together when it matters most.”
For Derr, seeing the two communities climb together is part of what makes the event meaningful.
“A portion of today’s participants, both American Airmen and German students, were either infants or not yet born when the attacks occurred,” he said. “Watching German police officers, American Airmen, local firefighters and German teenagers climb these steps shoulder-to-shoulder bridges every generation and nationality.”
The significance begins before participants take their first step.
During the opening ceremony, the German and American national anthems echo through the stadium. “Amazing Grace” plays on bagpipes as the stadium's video screens display portraits of the 343 New York City firefighters who died on Sept. 11.
Derr said looking across the stadium and seeing American Airmen and Soldiers standing beside German firefighters, police officers and students is the moment that affects him most each year.
“Watching two nations unite thousands of miles from Ground Zero to honor the fallen, my emotions take over,” Derr said. “I cry every single year.”
Then the climbing begins.
Thirty loops. Two thousand seventy-one steps. One hundred ten flights.
As participants tire, strangers who have already finished cheer for those still climbing. Derr said the most difficult stretch comes between approximately the 18th and 23rd loops, when legs grow heavy and fatigue begins to take over.
That is when perspective matters.
“You realize the inside the World Trade Center towers, the men and women climbing were facing unimaginable heat and structural collapse, yet they pressed on to save lives,” Derr said. “That thought instantly breaks through the pain.”
Twenty-five years after Sept. 11, Derr knows fewer people will have firsthand memories of where they were when the attacks happened. Eventually, remembrance will depend entirely on generations who know the day only through the stories passed down to them.
That, he said, makes actively remembering even more important.
“‘Never Forget’ cannot remain a passive slogan,” Derr said. “It has to be an active, living commitment.”
At Fritz-Walter-Stadion, that commitment is measured one step at a time.