German editorialists ponder the July 7 terrorist attacks in London, while looking back at March 11 and Sept. 11 and looking forward to the curbing of civil liberties the alleged al-Qaida attacks are expected to cause.

Terror. All German papers are full of reports on it, advice to prevent it and fear of what it means for our world. Thursday's bomb attacks in London have rocked Europe out of its complacency and residents of various capitals are now terrified of what city might be the next victim. So far, the bombs -- which ripped through three trains in the London Underground and transformed a double-decker bus into twisted wreckage -- are known to have killed 37 people and wounded 700 others. Police are still investigating what detonated them, but so far they have found no evidence of suicide bombers.

For the influential weekly newspaper, Die Zeit the first response is fear -- that suddenly the threat of terrorism, which many -- including to some degree, British intelligence agencies who in early June downgraded the threat of a terrorist attack from its highest to its second highest level -- had returned. "The attacks are getting closer. First, in the 1990s terrorist bombs exploded in Arabia, then in 2001 in New York and Washington, last year in Madrid and now in London. What's next? An attack on Germany at next year's World Cup soccer championships? ...German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is right: The attacks on London were also an attempt to undermine a G8 summit whose goal is to overcome hunger and poverty in Africa."

Unfortunately, says the paper, the fight against terrorism will affect and indeed, already has affected, the daily lives of us all. From increased airport security to biometric identity cards, the threat of terrorism is slowly encroaching upon us and as such, "even before we know just how many victims there are, two things are clear: the enormous vulnerability of the Western economy and the fragility of Western freedom. ...The Western countries will have no choice but to limit freedoms to protect themselves from the well-coordinated terrorist efforts seen in Madrid and now London. Today it is the democrats who have to cut freedoms -- not in the name of a totalitarian power, but in order to preserve our way of life. ...Here is the horrible paradox: We pay with freedom to preserve our freedom. But it doesn't serve freedom to willingly shackle ourselves" And, says the paper, such reduced freedom should not be considered normal forever, but just a temporary measure to fight a lethal enemy. "The least that we can expect from our governments is the rigorous limitation of all new security laws. They must expire in a few years without being renewed automatically. If not, then terrorism will have succeeded in hitting its target."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung takes quite a pragmatic stance, saying that as terrible as the attacks were they could almost have been expected. "The terrible irony of what has happened is that the city, which only the day before had celebrated its successful Olympic bid, should now be confronted by such an atrocity and bear such sorrow. However, in no way is it a coincidence that London became a target for a terrorist attack. This multicultural city is not only a place where international banks and corporations have their headquarters, but also where nearly all radical Islamic groups have an official presence. Of course, in many cases, it is tough to detect connections between the groups and hubs of terror in the Middle East. Because Blair's Britain is America's close ally in Iraq, London has always stood high on the list of cities threatened by Islamic terror."

Germany's leading financial daily, Handelsblatt sees the explosions as a personal attack on Western values and ways of life. "It's not only the obvious American connection that was targeted by the bombings. The values of the G8 nations and their moral fabric were also attacked," it says. That is what is so perfidious about the bombings in London: Just as the richest nations on this earth had at last pulled themselves together in the concerted fight against poverty, the terror hit. ... This revealed just how far Islamic extremism lies from the occidental concept of the world. The chasm, found here is no longer simply a big misunderstanding." The hardest part, says the paper, is knowing what to do next. How to fight? "The sobering fact is: If there really can't be communication among us, how then can we protect ourselves? ... We may have prevented many potential terrorist attacks. However, in principle the West still stands faced with an unsolved problem, of how such elusive violence can be answered by free and open societies."

The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung insists that remaining stoic is the answer. "The only chance that we have, is not to let ourselves be affected by the horrors that assail us. Interior Minister Otto Schily said: In Germany there is no heightened danger. That is the truth. The attack in London doesn't change the fact that Germany has also long been one of the possible targets for a terror attack. The fact that the government of Chancellor Schroeder and Foreign Minister Fischer spared us taking part in the Iraq war, doesn't change anything either. Terror doesn't ask questions of culpability. It's about punishment. It's about fear and hatred. An attack on a Frankfurt airport or on a central square in Berlin would be just as profitable for Islamic terrorists as the bombs in Madrid. We are threatened and we are now no more, or less, than before the London attack. We have, above all, the uncertain feeling that the danger is getting nearer."

The center-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung focuses on the perpetrators and on their misplaced logic of attack. "The angry Islamists recruit their assassins because they can promise them a more dignified and fulfilled life. Why do so many Muslims intoxicate themselves with the defeats and weaknesses of the Western, affluent, predominantly Christian world? Because they have a deep feeling of inferiority, disadvantage, and lack of dignity. Conversely they don't feel any indignation at the suicide attacks against their brothers in faith in Iraq. These dead don't engender any emotion, they aren't even suitable as symbols for a new dignity and hope." The paper belittles the acts as ones that "awaken cheap hope, and channel anger, they give a sense of community, a feeling of strength." It insists that the only way to get out of the rut is for Islam to help itself. It needs to "free itself from this anger: through education, through enlightenment, through modernization, through rejection of violence," it says. "On Thursday, the G8 Club of globalizers was reminded that it has an immense political mission to fulfill. Up until now, when it came to anti-terror politics, the eight and their allies didn't speak with one voice. The experience gained in Gleneagles hopefully taught them a lesson."