On this day, September 5, 1972, Palestinian extremists killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympics.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

RETROPOLIS

50 years after Munich Olympics attack, victims’ families are compensated

By Diane Bernard
September 5, 2022 at 8:00 a.m. EDT

Fifty years ago Monday, on Sept. 5, 1972, Palestinian extremists infiltrated athletes’ dorms at the Munich Summer Olympics, an attack that resulted in the murder of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches and a German police officer and set off an international crisis. ... It also led to five decades of complaints from the athletes’ families that German authorities had botched the response to the attack and concealed key details from them. ... Now, after years of legal wrangling, Germany has agreed to give 28 million euros to the families of the murdered Israeli athletes, the Israeli and German governments announced on Wednesday.

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Portraits of five of the Israelis held hostage by Palestinian terrorists at the Olympic Village in Munich on Sept. 5, 1972. In the top row, from left, are Joseph Romano, weightlifter; Amitzur Shapira, athletics coach; and David Berger, weightlifter. In bottom row, from left, are Andre Spitzer, fencing coach; and Kehat Shorr, marksmanship coach. (AP)

Billed as “the Happy Olympics,” the 1972 Munich games were the first to be broadcast internationally on television. Looking to shed its Nazi past, West Germany aimed to project a harmonious image to the world, to erase memories of the 1936 games in Berlin that were used as a platform for Hitler’s propaganda. ... Swimmer Mark Spitz won a record-breaking seven gold medals, a feat that remained unsurpassed until Michael Phelps won eight in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The USSR’s Olga Korbut, dubbed “the sparrow from Minsk,” became an international celebrity after stunning performances on the balance beam, floor exercises and uneven bars.

But in the early morning on Sept. 5, the image of unity was shattered when Palestinian militants with submachine guns stormed the apartment where 11 Israeli athletes were housed. The activists were members of the Black September group, which sought to bring attention to the Palestinian cause. ... Black September leaders thought the Olympics, with an international TV audience, would put their politics on the map.

The eight guerrillas immediately killed two athletes, and nine others were taken hostage, handcuffed and beaten. The Palestinians demanded Israel, West Germany and other nations release more than 200 political prisoners. If the demands weren’t met by a certain time, the terrorists would kill one hostage per hour until all the prisoners were released.

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By Diane Bernard
Diane Bernard is a contributor to Retropolis and a former multiplatform editor for The Washington Post.

[lapucelle]

1. Never forget.

[H2O Man]

2. Recommended.

I remember that horrible time.

[Behind the Aegis]

3. 'Ultimate survivor' of Holocaust and Munich Olympics attack returns to Germany

They call him the ultimate survivor: Shaul Ladany lived through a Nazi concentration camp and escaped the massacre of 11 fellow Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

Decades later, the 86-year-old is back in Germany to visit the two places where he narrowly avoided death.

Mr Ladany, who was born in 1936 in Belgrade, the former Yugoslavia, brought family members to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany on Saturday to show them the place where he was imprisoned by the Nazis as an eight-year-old boy.

After that, the spry octogenarian will participate in a joint German-Israeli ceremony in Munich on Monday marking the 50th anniversary of the attack on the Olympians by Palestinian terrorists. He still holds a world record from the Games.

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