Munich massacre

The Munich massacre occurred at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September, now known to be an operational cover for Yasser Arafat's Fatah. The attack led directly to the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes, five of the eight kidnappers, and one German police officer, and was followed by a series of Israeli revenge assassinations of the principal planners.

Demands

The group demanded the release and safe passage to Egypt of 234 Palestinians jailed in Israel, and an additional two in German prisons. Israel's response was immediate and absolute: there would be no negotiation. The German authorities, under the leadership of Chancellor Willy Brandt and Minister for the Interior Hans-Dietrich Genscher rejected Israel's offer to send an Israeli special forces unit to Germany. The German police who took part in the operation had no special training in hostage rescue operations.

Related Topics:
Egypt - Israel - Willy Brandt - Hans-Dietrich Genscher - Israeli special forces

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According to journalist John K. Cooley, the attack was a particular nightmare for the Germans because the hostages were Jews. Cooley writes that the Germans offered the Palestinians an unlimited amount of money if they would release them. They also offered to substitute high-ranking Germans for the Israeli athletes. Both offers were refused (Cooley 1973).

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Execution deadlines shifted first by three hours, and then by five more as German authorities attempted to negotiate. German police chief Manfred Schreiber and Ahmed Touni, head of the Egyptian Olympic team, negotiated directly with the kidnappers, repeating the offer of an unlimited amount of money. According to Cooley, the reply was that "money means nothing to us; our lives mean nothing to us." The Tunisian and Libyan ambassadors to Germany also helped try to win concessions from the kidnappers, but to no avail.

Related Topics:
Egyptian - Tunisia - Libya

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A small squad of German police was dispatched to the Olympic village. Dressed in Olympic sweatsuits and carrying machine guns, these were members of the German border-police, untrained in any sort of counter-terrorist response, and without specific tactics in place for the rescue. The police took up positions awaiting orders which never came.

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In the meantime, camera crews filmed the police actions from the East German apartments, and broadcast the images live to television. With televisions on, the terrorists were able to watch the police as they prepared to attack. Footage shows the terrorists leaning over to look at the police who were in hiding on the roof. In the end, the police left the premises.

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