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.

Failed rescue

The kidnappers demanded transportation to Cairo. The authorities feigned agreement and at 10.10 p.m. two helicopters transported both the kidnappers and their hostages to nearby Fürstenfeldbruck airbase, where a Boeing 727 aircraft was waiting. The kidnappers believed they were on their way to Riem, the international airport near Munich. The authorities planned an assault on the kidnappers at the airport.

Related Topics:
Cairo - Fürstenfeldbruck - Boeing 727 - Riem

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Five German snipers were chosen to shoot the kidnappers, none of whom had any special training. All had been chosen simply because they shot competitively on weekends. http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2002/0902/munich/story5.html. During a subsequent German investigation, an officer identified as "Sniper No. 2" stated: "I am of the opinion that I am not a sharpshooter." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/05/world/main520865.shtml

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The snipers were positioned at the airport but the authorities were surprised to discover that there were eight kidnappers. No tanks or armored personnel carriers were at the scene. According to John Cooley, either one or two Israeli officers assisted with the operation. Both Simon Reeve and Serge Groussard, author of The Blood of Israel, name Mossad chief Zvi Zamir and Victor Cohen, one of Zamir's senior assistants, as the Israeli officers at Fürstenfeldbruck, but as observers only. Zamir has repeatedly stated that he was never asked by the Germans for advice or assistance at any time during the rescue attempt. There is no concrete evidence to back up a New York Times report that Israel's Defence Minister Moshe Dayan was also present.

Related Topics:
Mossad - New York Times - Moshe Dayan

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A dummy jet was on the tarmac, with five or six armed German police inside, dressed as flight crew. They were to overpower the terrorists who would inspect the plane, and give the German snipers a chance to eliminate the terrorists remaining at the helicopters. At the last minute, as the helicopters were arriving on the tarmac, the German police aboard the airplane abandoned their mission, without contact to or from any central command.

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The helicopters landed just after 10:30 p.m., and the four pilots and six of the kidnappers emerged. While four of the Black September members held the pilots at gunpoint, Issa and Tony walked over to inspect the jet, only to find it empty. Knowing they had been duped, they jogged hastily back toward the helicopters, and at approximately 11:00 p.m., the German authorities gave the order to the police snipers positioned nearby to open fire.

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According to Simon Reeve, the German rescue operation was a disaster:

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There was instant chaos. The four German members of the chopper crews began sprinting for safety in all directions. Issa and Tony began running back towards the helicopters, as the third sniper near Wolf opened fire on them. His first shot missed, ploughing into the tarmac near Issa, who steadied himself and then began sprinting in a zigzag towards the helicopters. The sniper fired again, hitting Tony in the leg. He collapsed on the tarmac (Reeve 2001, p 113).

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The five German snipers did not have radio contact with each other and were unable to coordinate their fire. Later it was discovered that one of the snipers never fired a shot, and yet another sniper was positioned directly in the line of friendly fire, without any protective gear. None of the rifles were equipped with either scopes or night-vision devices. In the ensuing chaos, two kidnappers standing near the pilot were killed, and a third was mortally wounded as he fled the scene. The three remaining exposed kidnappers scrambled to safety, and began to return fire and shoot out as many airport lights as they could from behind the helicopters, out of the snipers' line of sight. A German policeman in the control tower, Anton Fliegerbauer, was killed by the random gunfire. The helicopter pilots fled, but the hostages, who were tied up inside the craft, could not. A stalemate developed. During the gun battle, wrote Groussard, the hostages secretly worked on loosening their bonds. Teeth marks, mute evidence of the hostages' determination, were found on some of the ropes after the gunfire had ended.

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The Germans had not arranged for armored personnel carriers ahead of time, and only then were they called in to break the stalemate. Since the roads to the airport had not cleared, the carriers finally arrived around midnight. According to Cooley, at four minutes past midnight, by now into September 6, one of the kidnappers jumped out of the easternmost helicopter. He turned and sprayed the hostages with gunfire, killing Springer, Halfin, and Friedman, and wounding Berger in the leg (he would ultimately be the last hostage to die, succumbing to smoke inhalation). The kidnapper then pulled the pin on a grenade and tossed it back into the cockpit, where it detonated. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/05/world/main520865.shtml While the first helicopter was burning, writes Cooley, the surviving kidnappers kept fire trucks at bay by shooting at them.

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Before the fire from the first helicopter explosion could reach the gas tank of the western helicopter, Issa and another kidnapper emerged from behind it and began firing at the police, who killed the pair with return fire. The five hostages in the second helicopter died of gunshot wounds during the battle. A police investigation indicated that one of their snipers, and a few of the hostages may have been shot inadvertently by the police. However, a Time Magazine reconstruction of the long-suppressed Bavarian prosecutor's report indicates that a third kidnapper (Reeve identifies Adnan Al-Gashey) strafed the remaining five hostages—Gutfreund, Shorr, Slavin, Spitzer and Shapira—with fatal gunfire. http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2002/0902/munich/story5.html In some cases, the exact cause of death could not be established because the corpses of the hostages in the eastern helicopter were burned almost beyond recognition in the explosions and subsequent fire.

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Three of the remaining kidnappers lay on the ground, two of them feigning death, and were captured by police. Jamal Al-Gashey had been shot through his right wrist, and Mohammed Safady had sustained a flesh wound to his leg. Adnan Al-Gashey had escaped injury completely. Tony, the final kidnapper, escaped the scene, but was tracked down using dogs and tear gas 40 minutes later, and was shot dead after a brief gunfight. By around 12:30 a.m., the battle was over.

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Initial news reports, published all over the world, indicated that all the hostages were alive, and that all the terrorists had been killed. Only later did a representative for the International Olympic Committee suggest that "initial reports were overly optimistic."

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Jim McKay, who was commentating for the Olympics that year for ABC, had taken on the job of reporting the events as Roone Arledge fed them into his earpiece. After the botched rescue attempt, he came on the air with this statement:

Related Topics:
Jim McKay - Roone Arledge

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Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They've now said that there were 11 hostages; 2 were killed in their rooms yesterday morning, 9 were killed at the airport tonight. They're all gone. http://www.americansportscastersonline.com/mckay5questions.html

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