1972 : Israeli athletes killed at Munich Olympics...9/5/72

// added September 05, 2009 // 10 comments //

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On this day in 1972, at the Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, a group of Palestinian terrorists storms the Olympic Village apartment of the Israeli athletes, killing two and taking nine others hostage. The terrorists, known as Black September, demanded that Israel release over 230 Arab prisoners being held in Israeli jails and two German terrorists. In an ensuing shootout at the Munich airport, the nine Israeli hostages were killed along with five terrorists and one West German policeman. Olympic competition was suspended for 24 hours to hold memorial services for the slain athletes.

After being founded in 776 B.C. in ancient Greece, the first modern Olympics were held in Athens in 1896, with 13 countries and 311 athletes competing. The games were meant to foster peace and bring people together. Germany had hoped that the 1972 Olympics would be a celebration of peace, as it was the first time it had hosted the games since 1936, when Adolf Hitler, who used the games to promote his Aryan master race theory, was in power.

The Munich Olympics opened on August 26, 1972, with 195 events and 7,173 athletes representing 121 countries. On the morning of September 5, Palestinian terrorists in ski masks ambushed the Israeli team. After negotiations to free the nine Israelis broke down, the terrorists took the hostages to the Munich airport. Once there, German police opened fire from rooftops and killed three of the terrorists. A gun battle erupted and left the hostages, two more Palestinians and a policeman dead.

After a memorial service was held for the athletes at the main Olympic stadium, International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage ordered that the games continue, to show that the terrorists hadn't won. Although the tragedy deeply marred the games, there were numerous moments of spectacular athletic achievement, including American swimmer Mark Spitz's seven gold medals and teenage Russian gymnast Olga Korbut's two dramatic gold-medal victories.

In the aftermath of the murders at the '72 Olympics, the Israeli government, headed by Golda Meir, hired a group of Mossad agents to track down and kill the Black September assassins. In 2005, Steven Spielberg made a movie, Munich, about these events.
  1. groups:
    News
  2. tags:
    Israel,  Terrorism,  Olympics

10 comments // 1972 : Israeli athletes killed at Munich Olympics...9/5/72

  • thepatient
  • privateibber
    • 0
      privateibber  
    • thepatient:

      Ain't it the truth? The killing also went on for many years. The German people have a great collective guilt for this. It's has been and is constantly documented. They own up to what happened there. For this I have great respect for them. The German's who were involved in Munich were side men.
      Munich, Munchen was the recruiting center for the first collaborators of the madman. He went to the beer halls. Not to the universities. For this reason we must have education. As a very wise man once said: "If you don't want to pay for education and you think it costs too much...then try ignorance and see what that costs."

    • 5 months ago
  • privateibber
  • hombre76
    • 0
      hombre76  

    • Yes and then after your Israeli Musaud hunted down a bunch of people who they then Murdered in cold blood like cowards in ambush or from afar with explosives (that tactic sound familiar?), all with out trial or due process. Truly like the criminals Israel and its government is.

    • 5 months ago
  • allIknowis
  • bombastinator
  • freecrack
  • Kylsport
    • 0
      Kylsport  

    • Well, now that Yassar Arafat is gone too, I would say go with God for all of them, but that is only wishful thinking. Arafat never admitted, much less apologized for the Olympic '72 killings.

    • 5 months ago
  • kennymotown
    • 0
      kennymotown  

    • Well this time I have a personnel experience in this, I was stationed in Germany and even got tickets for a couple of the events (Olympics). I remember this whole episode well, having been there. I do remember we even got alert orders and were lined up at the ammo dump ready to go to the middle east if things got fired up.

    • 5 months ago
  • samthesixth
    • 0
      samthesixth  

    • I remember watching on ABC when I was a kid. I think it was Jim McKay narrating. I haven't thought about it in years.

      Thanks for the reminder.

    • 5 months ago
cyman01
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