September 5, 1972: The Munich Massacre

September 5, 1972, 50 years ago: The Munich Massacre takes places, bringing terrorism into the modern era.

The Olympic Games were being held in Munich, in the Federal Republic of Germany -- a.k.a. West Germany. It was the 1st time the Games were held on German soil since 1936, when Germany was controlled by the Nazi Party and Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

But all signs pointed toward the host nation, a democratic and capitalist nation, handling things properly. There were no incidents between German officials, or Olympic officials, and the athletes, coaches and support staff from Israel, which had founded itself as a nation in 1948, after the defeat of the Nazis in World War II.

But that founding resulted in great bitterness with the people calling themselves "Palestinians." With the support of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, they launched a war against Israel, but when it became clear that the war was a stalemate, a settlement was reached. Another war was launched in 1967, and, this time, there was a clear result: Israel won it in 6 days.

King Hussein I of Jordan decided that further wars against Israel were not worth it. On September 16, 1970, he responded to an Islamic fundamentalist group called the Fedayeen and its attempt at a coup by declaring martial law. Thousands of Palestinians were expelled from the country, and some were killed.

In response, a new terrorist group was formed, named Black September for this event. They waited for their chance to make a big statement. They decided that the 1972 Olympics were it, as the whole world would be watching.

At 4:30 AM, Central European Time -- 10:30 PM, September 4, U.S. Eastern Time -- eight Black September operatives snuck into the Olympic Village, wearing tracksuits so as to blend in. They found the Israeli team's quarters at Connollystraße 31. They broke in. Yossef Gutfreund, an Israeli but an official, a referee for the wrestling matches rather than an athlete or a coach, tried to distract the operatives so that others could escape. Only one did, weightlifting coach Tuvia Sokolovsky. Gutfreund was knocked out and taken prisoner. Weightlifter Yossef Romano and wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg tried to fight them off, but were killed.

The gunmen took and bound 9 hostages: Gutfreund, wrestlers Eliezer Halfin and Mark Slavin, weightlifters David Berger and Ze'ev Friedman, track and field coach Amituzur Shapira, fencing coach Andre Spitzer, sharpshooting coach Kehat Shorr, and weightlifting judge Yakov Springer.

One Israeli athlete who managed to get away before being seen by the gunmen was racewalker Shaul Ladany, a survivor of the Nazis' concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. He got word to American officials.

Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel asked for help from other countries: "If we should give in, then no Israeli anywhere in the world shall feel that his life is safe... It's blackmail of the worst kind." King Hussein called it a "savage crime against civilization, perpetrated by sick minds." But he was the only Arab, and the only Muslim, public figure to denounce the action which had already left 2 men dead. President Richard Nixon did not take any direct action, but asked the United Nations to do so.

Black September demanded the release of 234 Palestinians jailed in Israel, and also those of the founders of the infamous West German terrorist group Red Army Faction, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. Meir refused to negotiate.

The hours dragged on. ABC, covering the Olympics for the United States, kept going back and forth between Jim McKay, their Olympic anchor, and Peter Jennings, who headed their international news desk in London, and who was in Munich because, even before the terrorists struck, that was where the news was for the moment. McKay would receive a special Emmy Award for his coverage, and his coverage Munich is often given as a reason why Jennings ended up as the anchor of ABC World News Tonight after the death of Frank Reynolds.

By 4:30 PM (10:30 AM, U.S. Eastern), Munich police had the complex surrounded. At 6:00 PM (12:00 noon, U.S. Eastern), the terrorists demanded transportation to Cairo, the capital of Egypt, a country they believed would be friendly to them.

The West German authorities reached Prime Minister Aziz Sedki of Egypt (not President Anwar Sadat), and he told them that his country did not want to get involved. So the West German authorities lied to the terrorists, saying that the demand had been accepted.

A bus transported the terrorists and their hostages to Fürstenfeldbruck Airport. A Boeing 727 jet was waiting, but the flight crew were actually Munich police. The terrorists tried to board the plane, but realized they had been lured into a trap, and ran back. At 12:04 AM on September 6 (6:04 PM on September 5, U.S. Eastern), the terrorists' leader shot the hostages with an AK-47. The police started firing, and most of the terrorists were killed within minutes. The ones who got away were all captured by sunrise.

At 3:24 AM on the 6th -- 9:24 PM on the 5th, U.S. Eastern -- Jim McKay gave America the tragic news:

You know, when I was a kid, my father used to say, "Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized." Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They've now said that there were eleven hostages. Two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning. Nine were killed at the airport tonight. They're all gone.

There were demands that the rest of the Games be canceled. Instead, the International Olympic Committee postponed all events set for September 6, and hosted a memorial service in the Olympiastadion, attended by 80,000 people. The callous reaction of IOC President Avery Brundage, a known anti-Semite from his days as U.S. Olympic Committee President in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, led to his being fired.

The remaining members of the Israeli team withdrew from the Games and went home. Mark Spitz, the Jewish American swimmer who had already completed his remarkable feat of winning 7 Gold Medals, also left. So did the Egyptian team, fearing reprisals since it was now known that they weren't helping Black September. So did the teams of Algeria and the Philippines.

During the 1972 World Series, pitcher Ken Holtzman and 1st baseman Mike Epstein, Jewish players for the Oakland Athletics, wore black armbands in memory of the 11 Israelis killed at the Olympics. Reggie Jackson, a black man who had grown up in a mostly-Jewish neighborhood, also wore a black armband, although he was injured and unable to play. Major League Baseball officials, so often behind the times when it came to social issues, allowed it.