Munich-1972: the tragedy that forever changed the Olympic Games

Since its inception, the goal of the Olympic Games has always been peace, even wars stopped during the competition. So it was a long time, until in the middle of the twentieth century they began to mix politics with sports competitions, and then they decided to use the resonance, which was always accompanied by the Olympiad, for terror and bloodshed.

5 September 1972 for the first time in history a terrorist act occurred in the capital of the Olympiad, right in the Olympic Village.

The Black September grouping, whose founder is considered to be Ali Hassan Salameh, thus decided to achieve, in their opinion, the good goals that they set for themselves.

Well-intentioned ...

The idea of ​​a terrorist attack on the summer Olympics-1972 in Munich arose among the leaders of Black September, after the International Olympic Committee refused to participate in the Games to representatives of Palestine, they write "Arguments and Facts".

The eight Black September fighters armed with automatic weapons and grenades were tasked to capture members of the Israeli delegation in the Olympic Village, who were then planned to be exchanged for Palestinian militants in detention. The action was aimed at attracting attention to the state of Palestine.

The implementation of the plans of terrorists contributed to the situation prevailing in Munich. The organizers of the Olympiad tried to minimize the presence of police agents and special services at the Games facilities and in the Olympic Village. For Munich, it was extremely important to demonstrate peacefulness - after all, the gloomy status of the “cradle of Nazism” hung over the city. Another good intentions that played a cruel joke.

They knew about the attack in advance

The situation in which virtually anyone could get into the Olympic Village worried the representatives of Israel. However, they received assurances from the organizers that they were completely safe. Apparently, the FRG authorities focused on preventing the actions of neo-Nazis, not paying attention to warnings about the possibility of terrorist attacks by Palestinian groups, which came from agents in the Middle East, but the FRG ignored these signals.

Yes, and the declassified documents of the Israeli special services indicate that the Israeli government knew in advance about the impending attacks, writes with the BBC.

From the reports of the head of the General Security Service (SHABAK), declassified at the end of August 2012, it follows that between June and September 1972, the then Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir received daily detailed information on the intentions of Black September activists to attack Israeli objects abroad.

Separate warnings related directly to West Germany.

Attack at sunrise

In 4: 30 in the morning of September 5 8 fighters of "Black September", carrying with them bags of weapons, easily overcame the fence of the Olympic village, being on its territory. The atmosphere was so tranquil that several athletes who saw people climbing over the fence helped them drag the load.

Two of the group of terrorists pre-reconnoitered the territory (according to some information, they worked in the Olympic Village as ancillary workers). In general, they knew where to go, and led the rest to the building where the Israelis were housed in five apartments, writes Booknik.

The first person to face the terrorists was the judge of the wrestling tournament Yosef Gutfreund. He raised the alarm by waking his comrades, and tried to prevent the militants from entering the apartment. Judge Moshe Weinberg, who was wounded in a skirmish with terrorists, hurried to help him. Threatening with weapons, Weinberg was forced to show other apartments where the Israelis lived. Weinberg went to the trick, taking the militants to where the Israeli fighters and weightlifters lived. He hoped that they would be able to resist the terrorists, but the athletes were caught sleeping.

At first, the terrorists took a 12 man hostage, but when the athletes were led to the floor below to unite with the coaches, one of the fighters, Gadi Tsabari, was able to escape. He was helped by a wounded Weinsberg who distracted the terrorists and paid for it with his life. His body was thrown into the street at the entrance to the building - to intimidate and confirm the seriousness of intentions.

The rest were taken to one of the bedrooms, where the weightlifter (and the Six-Day War veteran) Yosef Romano tried to attack one of the terrorists. He was shot and left to bleed on the floor. As a result, 9 people were taken hostage by the militants of Black September: shooting coach Kehat Shore, athletics coach Amitsur Shapiro, fencing trainer Andre Spitzer, weightlifting judge Yakov Springer, wrestlers Eliezer Khalfin and Mark Slavin, a GHF and Mark Slavin; and Zeev Friedman, as well as the previously mentioned Joseph Gutfreund.

Talks

The terrorists set the conditions for the release of the hostages: before 12: 00 5 September, release and secure the safe passage to Egypt of 234 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, two German radicals held in West German prisons, and 16 prisoners held in prisons in Western Europe. If the requirements are not met, the terrorists promised to kill one athlete every hour.

The fact that the conditions of the terrorists could not be fulfilled in full, it became obvious almost immediately: the Government of Israel, which in principle refused any negotiations with the terrorists, announced that it would not change its position this time. In return, the Israelis offered the FRG the help of their special forces in conducting an operation to free the hostages.

The German government refused the offer, trying to resolve the situation through negotiations. Militants were offered high-ranking German hostages in exchange for Israelis, but were refused. The German negotiators managed to postpone the deadline for meeting the requirements for several hours. In 18: 00, the terrorists changed their minds, demanding an airplane for departure with hostages to Cairo. German authorities agreed to provide the aircraft, although it was initially a trap - the Egyptian government did not agree to accept the terrorists. The German authorities planned to neutralize the militants at a NATO air base in Fürstenfeldbruck, from where the plane was to fly. Iroquois military helicopters were to deliver to the base of the hostage terrorists.

Operation failure

However, the hostage rescue operation was not prepared. In Germany at that time there were no special groups to combat terrorists. 5 snipers who did not receive special training for action in such circumstances, as well as ordinary police units, were used as neutralizing forces for the militants.

The "Snipers" were police officers who loved to host shooting competitions. They did not have radios, helmets, or body armor, and their weapons, the Heckler & Koch G3, were not equipped with telescopic or infrared sights and were no better suited for this task than themselves.

According to the authors of the documentary One Day in September, all police participating in the operation were forbidden to talk about it on pain of losing their pension.

In a Boeing-727 plane prepared for terrorists, they were waited by police officers disguised as pilots. However, a few minutes before the appearance of helicopters with militants and hostages, for some reason they left him.

Another fatal circumstance was the fact that during the negotiations the German authorities did not manage to establish how many terrorists held hostages. The crisis headquarters proceeded from the fact that there are no more than 5.

The terrorists, who were in the hands of not only the Israelis, but also the 4 helicopter pilot, arrived at the base, found that the plane was empty. Realizing that they were trapped, the terrorists engaged the police forces. Snipers could not immediately destroy all the militants - 2 terrorist was killed by their shots and 2 were injured. One of the German policemen was killed in return fire.

“It seemed that the German side simply could not stand their nerves, that they wanted to end this whole story as soon as possible. They didn't do the minimum to save people's lives. Even when the shooting started, no one moved anywhere, but simply sat in cover and shot. It was real chaos,” said Zvi Zamir, the then head of the Mossad, who flew to Munich.

According to him, it was the only chance, the German side did not even offer an alternative plan. Immediately the head of the Mossad added that he had witnessed with his own eyes what a stupor, he said, were the German security services.

Armored personnel carriers were called in to help the police. With their arrival, the militants panicked, opening fire on the hostages, and then bombing the helicopters with grenades.

Of the 8 terrorists, 5 died, three were taken alive. No one survived from the Israeli hostages.

Short memory

After the death of Israeli athletes, the Olympics were interrupted for a day, but the proposal to stop it completely did not find support.

A mourning ceremony was held at the Olympic Stadium, where there were 80 000 people and 3 000 athletes. The USSR national team did not attend the ceremony (as decided by Moscow), and representatives of the 10 Arab countries refused to lower their national flags in memory of the dead Israelis. Among those present at the ceremony was the cousin of Moshe Weinberg, shot, Carmel Eliash - he had a heart attack right in the stadium and he died.

Among the dead Israelis were 2 former Soviet athlete. 24-year-old Riga-born Eliezer Halfin was engaged in free-style wrestling with 10 for years, in the USSR Junior Championships he reached the 4 place. He emigrated to Israel in 1969, continued his sports career and won the right to compete at the 1972 Olympiad.

A native of Minsk, Mark Slavin was just 18 years old. In 1971, he became USSR junior champion in Greco-Roman wrestling and was considered one of the most promising young athletes. Mark emigrated to Israel with his family in the spring of 1972, and immediately got a place in the Olympic team of his new homeland. However, the brilliant future of the athlete crossed the shot of a terrorist.

6 September 1972, when the Olympic competitions resumed after the 24-hour break (the only one in the history of the Olympic Games), a group of spectators unfolded a banner on the podium with the words “17 dead already forgotten?”.

For a few seconds, the guards took away the banner and turned these people out of the stadium.

Diplomacy

6 September 1972 of the year in 3: 10 in the morning local time a diplomatic telegram arrived in Israel: "All the hostages died."

A day later, at an emergency meeting of the government with the participation of Zvi Zamira, it was decided to establish a special commission that investigates the reasons for the failure in ensuring the safety of Israeli athletes.

Golda Meir asked the ministers not to shift all responsibility onto the German side, so as not to aggravate the already negative emotions that prevailed at that time in Israeli society.

The special decree of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, also declassified among numerous documents, spoke of the need to preserve extremely correct behavior in relation to West Germany.

A few weeks later, Golda Meir was presented with a detailed report from a special commission led by Pinchas Kopel. The key recommendation is that in the future you should never rely on the security measures of the host party, no matter how convincing they may be.

This recommendation is still in force today when it comes to ensuring the security of the Israeli delegations going on foreign trips.

Retribution

Already at the end of November 1972, the three surviving terrorists were released by the German authorities at the request of the militants who captured the plane of the German company Lufthansa.

When Germany freed the surviving terrorists, Israel took retribution into its own hands. The operations "Spring of Youth" and "The Wrath of God" were designed to hunt down and destroy everyone who was involved in the preparation of this and other terrorist attacks. Future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (disguised as a brunette), future Commander of the Northern Military Mission Amiram Levin (disguised as a blonde) and Yoni Netanyahu, Binyamin Netanyahu's brother (not disguised) participated in one of the “Spring” operations.

According to the head of Black September, Abu Iyad, it was on the night when Operation Spring of Youth was conducted that he and Yasser Arafat were going to visit the head of the Fatah military intelligence service, Muhammad Yusef Najaf (killed in his own house) and miraculously escaped death.

During the operation “Wrath of God”, several civilians, not related to terrorism, were killed. This caused a flurry of criticism of Israel. The death of the waiter Ahmed Buchiki in Norway was especially often recalled - agents confused him with one of the leaders of Black September, Ali Hassan Salame.

For 20 years after the attack, the German authorities refused to make public any official information about the tragedy. After Xenumx, the widow of the deceased athlete Andre Spitzer, appeared on television and demanded at least some information about the circumstances of her husband’s death, an anonymous German source contacted her and transmitted 1992 4 about various acts relating to the terrorist attack on the Olympics. The families of the hostages again sued Germany and after a number of vicissitudes received compensation in the amount of 000 million euros. However, the Minister of Internal Affairs did not fail to add that it was “not a confession of guilt, but only a humanitarian gesture.”

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