Massacre in Munich

How terror struck the Olympics in 1972…

Fifty years ago, the world watched in horror as Israeli athletes and coaches were taken hostage in the Olympic Village by a Palestinian terrorist group calling itself Black September, during the 1972 Munich Games in Germany.

The terrorists had dressed as athletes in tracksuits and hopped over a fence. After taking hostage mostly weightlifters, wrestlers and coaches, Black September killed two, then demanded the release of 200 prisoners held by the Israeli government. But Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir refused to be blackmailed…

Negotiations

‘Golda Meir said we could negotiate, but Israel would never release the 200 prisoners,’ says Munich’s then police chief Manfred Schreiber. ‘That decision was binding.’

This Sky documentary reconstructs the events using archive footage and eyewitness accounts. After 21 hours of intense negotiations by German authorities, the hostages were flown by helicopter to nearby Fürstenfeldbruck airfield, where an airliner was waiting, but an attempted ambush by police led to a huge gun battle.

Outrage

Nine Israeli hostages were murdered by their captors as they waited helplessly in the helicopters on the runway and five of the eight terrorists were killed. Israel was outraged by the botched rescue attempt, and even more so when the three surviving terrorists were freed months later from prison in Germany after Black September hijacked a Lufthansa plane and demanded their release.

Golda Meir responded by unleashing a targeted assassination campaign against Black September.

‘They say we must be dead, and we say we want to be alive,’ explained Golda. ‘Between life and death, I don’t know of a compromise.’