Massacre in Munich: The Olympic Terror Attacks of 1972 PDF

Massacre in Munich: The Olympic Terror Attacks of 1972 in Historical Perspective David Clay Large Historically Speaking, Volume 10, Number 2, April 2009, pp. 2-5 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hsp.0.0022 For additional...

Massacre in Munich: The Olympic Terror Attacks of 1972 in Historical Perspective David Clay Large Historically Speaking, Volume 10, Number 2, April 2009, pp. 2-5 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hsp.0.0022 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/262183 [ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] 2 Historically Speaking April 2009 MASSACRE IN MUNICH: THE OLYMPIC H ISTORICALLY PEAKING S TERROR ATTACKS OF 1972 IN HISTORICAL April 2009 Vol. X No. 2 PERSPECTIVE David Clay Large CONTENTS Massacre in Munich: The Olympic 2 Terror Attacks of 1972 in Historical T Perspective hanks in part to Steven Spielberg’s film Records from Bavarian archives relating to the David Clay Large Munich (2005), the name of this fine preparations for Munich ’72 make clear that the We Have Seen the Enemy and It Is Not 6 Bavarian city no longer conjures up only planning process was dominated by the imperative David McCullough happy images of the Hofbräuhaus and Oktober- of thoroughly distancing these Games from those Edward Gray fest—or even the much less happy connection to infamous “Nazi Games” of 1936, and indeed from the infamous Munich Agreement of 1938, which all associations with the Third Reich. Of course, The Importance of Studying 10 made “Munich” a there was good rea- Ordinary Lives: An Interview with byword for appease- son why the city of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich ment. These days Munich in particular Conducted by Randall J. Stephens “Munich” is indeli- The planning process was had to worry about Why Dryasdust? Historians in Fiction Beverley Southgate 12 bly associated with the brutal murder of dominated by the imperative Nazi associations. It had been the birth- The Ends of the Earth and the 14 eleven Israeli of thoroughly distancing place of Nazism and “Heroic Age” of Polar Exploration: Olympians during the site of Hitler’s A Review Essay the 1972 Summer these Games from those infa- first (unsuccessful) Katrin Schultheiss Games. grasp at power, the The death on mous “Nazi Games” of 1936, “Beer Hall Putsch” Champlain’s Dream: An Interview with 18 June 8, 2008 of of 1923. Once David Hackett Fischer famed ABC sports- and indeed from all associa- Hitler came to Conducted by Donald A. Yerxa Fighting Bad History with Good, or, 22 caster Jim McKay prompted wide- tions with the Third Reich. power, he named his adoptive German Why Historians Must Get spread recollections hometown the on the Web Now of Munich ’72, for it “Capital of the Marshall Poe was McKay who anchored ABC’s coverage of the [Nazi] Movement,” and it remained Nazi Party Adieu to Lebanon 24 surreal hostage-taking drama at the Olympic Vil- headquarters throughout the Third Reich. Hitler Fred S. Naiden and Kenneth W. Harl lage and the horribly botched rescue effort at himself maintained an office in the newly built nearby Fürstenfeldbruck Airfield, which resulted in Führerbau in Munich’s Königsplatz, site of the John Muir’s Passion the death of the remaining nine hostages (two had Munich Conference of 1938. Just up the road John Muir and the Religion of Nature 27 been killed earlier at the Village). Later, McKay from Munich lay Dachau, home to Nazi Ger- Donald Worster published an autobiography in which he opined many’s first concentration camp. Munich Olympic that the Munich murders represented “the end of organizers were careful not to call attention to the John Muir’s Passion for Nature: 29 an age of innocence for sport.” Of course, that fact that the ’72 Games took place on the site of An Interview with Donald Worster Conducted by Donald A. Yerxa wasn’t quite right; high-level sports, including the the former airfield where British Prime Minister modern Olympic Games, have never really been Neville Chamberlain had arrived to attend the Mu- Civil Rights Historiography: Two innocent. The modern Olympics in particular were nich Conference, or that the Königsplatz, where politicized from the outset. Before 1972 the the Olympic Torch was welcomed following its Perspectives Games were often used for propagandistic and relay run from ancient Olympia—a ritual invented Reconsidering the “Long Civil Rights 31 ideological purposes. Here we might recall Hitler’s by the Nazis in 1936—had recently served as the Movement” Eric Arnesen famous exploitation of the 1936 Berlin Olympics; heart of Nazi Munich. the Arab boycotts of the 1956 Melbourne Games With all this very much in mind, the Munich The Lost Decade of Civil Rights 37 in protest against the Anglo-French and Israeli planners determined that visitors to their Games David L. Chappell Suez Canal invasion; and the “Black Power” would encounter, instead of any associations with demonstrations by two African-American athletes the bad old past, an alternative set of images mir- Letters 41 at the 1968 Mexico City Games. roring the “new Munich” and the “new [West] And yet McKay was correct to posit Munich Germany”—images connoting parliamentary as a kind of watershed in modern sport, especially democracy, peace, civilian rule, and, above all, laid- Olympic sport, because the supposedly peaceful back good times. Not for nothing was the unoffi- and brotherly Olympic festival had never been vi- cial motto of Munich ’72 “the Carefree Games” olated quite so brazenly or cruelly before (or— and the official mascot a cuddly little dachshund, Cover image: A poster for Clay M. Greene’s 1896 play, The thankfully—since). In fact, the challenge of who clearly didn’t bite. Romantic Spectacle, Under the Polar Star. Library of Congress, ensuring that there would be “no more Munichs” Whereas Berlin in the summer of 1936 had Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number, LC- at ensuing Olympics drastically changed the com- pulsated with national pride and military assertive- USZ61-1020]. plexion of the Games. ness (Hitler had just remilitarized the Rhineland),  April 2009 Historically Speaking 3 Munich ’72 deemphasized nationalism and all Most of the “danger fields” identified in the things military. Instead of a sea of swastika ban- early 1970s by the security planning team for the ners and other national flags, visitors to Munich ’72 Games related directly to the ongoing Cold found ranks of Olympic banners colored in War and West Germany’s domestic terror scene. placid pastels—the vivid reds and blacks of Nazi West Germany had emerged as America’s clos- days having been explicitly verboten. Forbidden, est ally on the European continent and Munich too, at least from the Olympic venues, were itself was a hive of anticommunist activity, some 656 Beacon Street, Mezzanine arms-bearing police and soldiers; Munich’s of it sponsored by Washington. The Bavarian Boston, MA 02215-2010 Olympic security forces (“Olys”) carried nothing capital served as the headquarters of Radio Lib- ph. 617.358.0260 fx. 617.358.0250 but walkie talkies, and they wore leisure suit-like erty and Radio Free Europe, which broadcast an- [email protected] uniforms in a pale blue said to resemble “the ticommunist and anti-Soviet propaganda to www.bu.edu/historic azure skies over Bavaria.” In marked contrast to Eastern Europe. Not surprisingly, the Olympic the monumental neoclassical Olympic architec- security team feared that pro-communist agents PRESIDENT ture of 1936, Munich ’72 featured modernist from the Eastern Bloc might strike at these Mark M. Smith structures meant to create “an atmosphere of hated media targets during the Olympic Games. DIRECTORS/SENIOR EDITORS, openness, transparency, and clarity.” This notion Even neighboring East Germany was suspect HISTORICALLY SPEAKING of transparency found lit- Joseph S. Lucas Donald A. Yerxa eral expression in the futur- istic Olympic Stadium’s SECRETARY/TREASURER tent-like glass roof, the Jeffrey Vanke Games’ primary architec- ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, tural icon. Whereas Berlin’s MANAGING EDITOR, Olympic Village had been THE JOURNAL OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY located on a military base Scott Hovey miles away from the main Olympic complex, Mu- EDITOR, HISTORICALLY SPEAKING nich’s lay within walking Randall J. Stephens distance of the Stadium. The 1972 Village had a EDITOR, THE JOURNAL OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY chain-link fence around it, George Huppert but said fence was only six and a half feet tall and had BOARD OF GOVERNORS no menacing coils of barb- Carol Anderson Wilfred M. McClay Eric Arnesen John R. McNeill wire running along the top. Charles Banner-Haley Heather Cox Richardson Police dropping in on Olympic terrorists, September 5, 1972. © Bettmann/CORBIS. (“Barbwire,” said a security Chris Beneke Linda K. Salvucci planning document, “would Martin Burke Joseph Skelly David Chappell William Stueck not have been appropriate Peter Coclanis Patricia Sullivan for a peaceful international gathering, nor would here, for, although the German Democratic Re- Jennifer Delton Marc Trachtenberg it have conveyed a true image of today’s Ger- public was participating in the Games for the Pamela Edwards Graydon A. Tunstall John Higginson Cheryl A. Wells many, which differs so markedly from that of first time as a sovereign nation under its own Harriet Lightman Jon Westling 1936.”) Entrances to the Village gates were colors, GDR news media frequently denounced Joyce Malcolm John Wilson manned by Olys who were cautioned not to be the Munich Games as the “Olympics of capital- Scott Marler too draconian—“too Prussian”—about enforc- ist bosses and imperialists” and as a “repeat of ing entry rules. According to the original secu- the Fascist Olympics of 1936.” The Munich Historically Speaking The Bulletin of the Historical Society rity scheme, the fence was to be patrolled at planners also speculated at length over possibili- Senior Editors: Joseph S. Lucas and Donald A. Yerxa night by police cruisers traveling at frequent in- ties of terror attacks from the domestic Left, es- Editor and Designer: Randall J. Stephens tervals in opposite directions. However, once the pecially from the so-called Baader-Meinhof Associate Editor: Scott Hovey Games got underway these patrols were scaled Group, which remained dangerously active de- Contributing Editors: Joseph Amato, Eric Arnesen, Andrew Bacevich, Lauren Benton, Jeremy Black, Thomas J. Fleming, back. “Nothing happens at night,” assured a se- spite the recent arrest and imprisonment of An- Colin S. Gray, George Huppert, Mark Killenbeck, Bruce Kuk- curity official. dreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. Another lick, Pauline Maier, George Marsden, Bruce Mazlish, Wilfred McClay, William H. McNeill, Allan Megill, Joseph Miller, Crucial as Germany’s Nazi past was in shap- worrisome lot was the “Marxist-Leninist New William R. Shea, Dennis Showalter, Barry Strauss, William ing security planning for the 1972 Games, Mu- Left,” which announced in early 1972 that it Stueck, Jr., Carol Thomas, Derek Wilson, John Wilson, John Womack, Bertram Wyatt-Brown nich’s—and West Germany’s—place in would not respect a regulation recently passed by © 2009 by The Historical Society. All rights reserved. All contemporary world affairs also governed what the Bavarian parliament outlawing mass demon- texts © The Historical Society unless otherwise noted. No was done, and not done, to keep the Games strations at the Olympic venues. The fact that portion of Historically Speaking may be reproduced by any process or technique without the formal consent of the pub- safe. Although one would think that a diligent the Munich Games followed closely on an esca- lisher. Direct all permissions requests to www.press.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/permissions.cgi examination of the security situation in 1972 lation of the Vietnam War in 1970-71 seemed would have better prepared Olympic officials for only to heighten the threat from the domestic Historically Speaking (ISSN 1941-4188) is published five times a year for The Historical Society by The Johns Hopkins Univer- what was to come, such was not the case. The Left, which had condemned Bonn as Washing- sity Press, 2715 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218-4363 Olympic planning documents from the Bavarian ton’s handmaiden in that entire imperialistic en- Postmaster: Send address changes to Historically Speaking, 656 archives reveal that Munich’s security planners terprise. Beacon St., Mezzanine, Boston, MA 02215 did indeed make a detailed assessment of the se- Pressing danger was seen to emanate from Correspondence: Please write the Editors, Historically Speaking, 656 Beacon St., Mezzanine, Boston, MA 02215 curity landscape; alas, in retrospect that assess- the domestic Right as well as the Left. West Ger- ment resembles nothing so much as a giant hunt many, especially Munich, harbored thousands of Memberships and subscriptions: Please see the ad on page 26 for red herrings. expellees from former German territories in 4 Historically Speaking April 2009 Poland and Czechoslovakia. In 1972 the expellees and temporizing response to the Palestinian com- vored by the Bavarians. were more than usually disaffected because West mandos’ occupation of the Israeli compound and In the end, Brandt tried to go over the Bavar- German Chancellor Willy Brandt had recently em- seizure of hostages. Nothing can excuse the Ger- ians’ heads by proposing to fly the terrorists, along barked on his campaign of Ostpolitik, his effort to mans for their woefully inadequate performance in with their hostages, to Cairo. But when he called mend fences with Bonn’s eastern neighbors and this prolonged standoff, but, once again, a little Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s office to secure the Soviet Union. To the expellees, Ostpolitik was historical context may help explain the failure. permission for the German plane to land, Sadat tantamount to treason. Munich also served as a When in the early morning hours of Septem- would not even come to the phone. Brandt’s sup- haven for disgruntled refugees from Ukraine, ber 5 eight Palestinian terrorists climbed over the posed friendship with Sadat was hardly enough to Croatia, Romania, the Baltic States, Turkey, and Olympic Village fence and seized hostages at the compensate for Sadat’s reluctance to get mixed up even Iran. Olympic security officials feared that Israeli team compound, threatening to kill one in this mess. militant elements belonging to these factions might hostage an hour until Israel released some 234 As the crisis wore on into the evening hours, see the 1972 Games as an excellent stage on which “political prisoners” held in Israeli jails (and, for with the terrorists constantly extending their ulti- to parade their grievances before the entire world. good measure, Germany freed Baader and Mein- matum, the Germans finally came up with a Accordingly, the Bavarian state police kept these hof, who had trained with Black September in Jor- scheme that they thought might yet save the lives groups under close observation and supplied body- dan), the German officials believed they had little of the remaining nine Israeli hostages, while allow- guards to protect athletes and digni- ing their precious Games, which had taries from such “target” regions been temporarily suspended some seven during the Games. Not surprisingly, the Olympic movement hours after the attack began, to resume Olympic security assessments also as scheduled. By (falsely) promising to included Arabs among the possible in particular has been haunted by the fly the terrorists and their hostages to threat sources. An investigation com- Cairo on a Lufthansa plane, the au- piled by the security team covering Munich murders. Security has become the thorities convinced the militants to the period from April 1, 1972 to June travel in two helicopters to Fürsten- 30, 1972 made note of unsuccessful obsession with Olympic organizers. feldbruck Airfield outside Munich, attempts by Arab terrorists to hijack where security forces hoped to ambush Sabena and Air France flights, along the Palestinians and free the Israelis. with hijack threats from “Black September,” the choice but to try to negotiate their way out of the Tragically, the rescue effort they put into play that PLO-sponsored commando group that attacked crisis. They offered “an unlimited sum of money” night came across like a demonstration of how not the Israeli Olympians. Note was also made of a to no effect. Several high-placed German officials to conduct such an operation. threat by a group calling itself the “General Con- offered themselves as stand-ins for the hostages, The original plan called for a team of seven- sulate Hamburg” to sabotage the Olympics with again with negative results. They could not send in teen policemen to hide in the cockpit and rear of “biological weapons and the poisoning of Mu- a commando group of their own because no such the Lufthansa plane, springing out to kill the ter- nich’s drinking water.” Remarkably, one of twenty- unit then existed in the German arsenal. Like so rorists once they had come on board. However, at six “threat scenarios” plotted by a Munich police many of the security inadequacies surrounding the the last minute the policemen voted to abandon psychologist just prior to the Games involved an Munich Games, this one was rooted in West Ger- this action on grounds that some of them might attack by armed Palestinians on the Olympic Vil- many’s otherwise laudatory effort to cast off all as- get hurt or killed. The crisis managers were forced lage, replete with possible hostage-taking by the sociations with the Nazi past: put simply, an elite, to fall back on Plan B: pick off the militants with terrorists. On day two of the Games the Munich specially trained counterterrorism force was sniper fire as they left their helicopters. Alas, un- police received a warning from Interpol that two thought to be too reminiscent of the Gestapo or sure of how many terrorists they had to deal with, PLO activists had just flown out of Beirut, the Sicherheitsdienst of the SS. the Bavarian authorities deployed only five police Lebanon. Although their destination was unknown, As it unfolded, the crisis was managed by snipers (the general rule in such cases is to have Interpol suggested that “actions during the Bavarian security forces under the direction of two snipers for each target). None of the Olympics cannot be excluded.” Munich chief of police Manfred Schreiber. Bavaria “snipers” in question had been specifically trained In retrospect, of course, the Arab threat looks had sole jurisdiction over this operation because in for this duty, nor did any of them have precision to have been quite substantial, certainly worthy of the postwar German Federal Republic, internal se- rifles, high-powered scopes, bullet-proof vests, major countermeasures. However, with all the curity matters belonged exclusively to the individ- two-way radios, or even night-vision goggles, de- other threats on the horizon, the ones from the ual states—a correction to the highly centralized spite the fact that the two hastily erected light stan- Arab quarter tended to get lost in the shuffle. security environment of the Nazi era. Bavaria, the chions brought in to illuminate the scene left large Moreover, other factors made this particular dan- proudest and most independent-minded of the parts of the field in darkness. Finally, the snipers ger seem less pressing. Although Bonn retained eleven West German states, was particularly reluc- were positioned in such a way that they might well strong ties to Israel, Willy Brandt’s government tant to share any of its cherished responsibilities. hit each other rather than their intended targets. had also worked hard to improve relations with the When Israeli prime minister Golda Meir offered to The terrorists, for their part, failed to follow the major Arab states, all of which were thought to be rush in Israel’s own antiterrorist unit, Sayeret Bavarians’ script. Upon arriving at the field, only well-disposed toward the Germans. Olympic secu- Matkal, Schreiber said no thanks. He said no as six of them left the helicopters, leaving the two rity officials proved unsympathetic to a request well to an offer from Willy Brandt to deploy a unit others to cover their nine hostages (four in one from Tel Aviv for extra protection for the Israeli of the federal border guard, which, though not helicopter, five in another). In the initial barrage delegation in Munich. The most the Germans specifically trained to tackle terrorist situations, at of gunfire that followed an ill-advised and prema- would do was to ensure that the Israeli team was least was better armed and equipped than the Mu- ture order to fire from the security commander in not housed directly next to the Egyptians in the nich police or Bavarian state police. Apart from the airfield tower, only three of the terrorists were Olympic Village. state pride, Bavaria wanted to keep Bonn and taken out. Having found cover under or near the As accounts of the opening phase of the Brandt out of the picture as much as possible be- helicopters, the other five terrorists held the police “Munich Massacre” in the Olympic Village invari- cause the arch-Conservative Bavarian establishment back for over an hour, finally emerging from hid- ably emphasize, the German authorities com- had little use for the Socialist Brandt, who, to add ing to kill all nine hostages with machine-gun fire pounded their initial failure to provide adequate to the complications, was at that moment running and/or hand-grenades just as a fleet of armored security for the Games by mounting a confused for reelection against a Conservative candidate fa- personnel carriers, tardily summoned from an army  April 2009 Historically Speaking 5 base across town, arrived at Fürstenfeldbruck. The ist West” had forfeited any right to condemn the eruptions of delight in some quarters and outrage armored personnel carriers were crucially delayed Palestinian action because of their own record of in others following the attacks were reminiscent of in their arrival by thousands of civilian rubber- atrocities. (Only much later, after German reunifi- Munich. neckers who clogged the roads to the field; the au- cation and the opening of East German archives, Not surprisingly, the Olympic movement in thorities, it turned out, had failed to secure the did it become known that the East German secret particular has been haunted by the Munich mur- area. police, the Staasi, had given shelter and support to ders. Security has become the obsession with At first glance it seems odd that the Bavarian Ali Hassan Salameh, one of the attack’s organiz- Olympic organizers. The Munich Organizing Com- authorities would have so bungled an operation of ers.) French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre essentially mittee spent $2 million on security, considerably this magnitude. After all, these were Germans—they agreed with the East Germans, writing that Israeli less than its outlay for cultural events. Four years were supposed to be good at things military and policies had left the Palestinians with no option later Montreal spent over $10 million, an expendi- paramilitary. But in fact the military/security cul- but terror, the “poor man’s weapon.” As for the ture that helped propel that Olympiad deeply into ture of West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s was Palestinians, PLO spokesman Georges Habasch the red. Atlanta in 1996 actually invested more a far cry from what it had been under earlier Ger- announced: “The action is a success. I call this a money in security than in any other area. With all man political systems. West Germany’s new army, triumph for Palestine.” that security spending, Olympic venues came to re- the Bundeswehr, which had come into being in And the action was a Palestinian triumph in the semble armed camps, replete not just with ma- 1955-56 after much internal resistance, prided it- sense that it effectively sabotaged any progress to- chine-gun-toting guards but also x-ray machines, self on being “democratic” and free of Kadaverge- ward a Middle East settlement that might have ex- body scanners, and surveillance cameras. For the horsamkeit (corpse-like obedience) and gratuitous cluded the PLO. On September 8 Israel retaliated Athens Olympics in 2002, the first post-9/11 spit and polish. The various state police forces, for the Munich murders by launching simultane- Games, the Greek government ordered over 7,000 too, liked to think of themselves as kinder and ous air strikes on ten PLO bases in Syria and troops into the streets. Taking place as they did in gentler versions of their former incarnations; Lebanon. The raids killed over 200 people, many a tightly controlled authoritarian nation, the 2008 moreover, they tended to deemphasize counterter- of them women and children. Across the Middle Beijing Games topped all previous Olympics in se- rorist training despite the recent emergence of do- East the “Arab Street” expressed rage at Israel and curity arrangements. An Israeli journalist attending mestic terror groups like the Red Army Faction. sympathy for the Black September fedayeen. Libya the Beijing Games was amazed to find security The bungling continued even in the transmis- welcomed the bodies of the five terrorists killed at checks at the Olympic venues stricter than those sion of the grim news from Fürstenfeldbruck to Munich, celebrating them as martyrs for the Arab at Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel-Aviv. the outside world. At 11:00 p.m. on September 5, cause. All the major Arab states, including Egypt, Yet if the Munich Massacre left a clear imprint a German government spokesman mistakenly an- now felt compelled to side with the PLO against on security arrangements for subsequent Olympics, nounced that all the hostages had been freed. Rel- Israel. this greatest tragedy in modern Olympic history atives of the nine Israeli hostages went to bed The Palestinians did their part to keep the pot did not find much resonance in terms of memo- vastly relieved. Only at 5:00 on the following boiling. On October 29 two Palestinians hijacked a rialization at the Games. Over the years, relatives morning, courtesy of Jim McKay, did the world Lufthansa flight as it left Beirut for Frankfurt, of the slain Israeli Olympians and various mem- learn the bitter truth regarding the fate of the threatening to blow up the plane and all its pas- bers of the Olympic community repeatedly peti- hostages: “They’re all gone.” Somewhat later, sengers unless Bonn released the three “brothers” tioned the IOC to sanction a minute’s silence at Bavarian authorities announced that one policeman who had been captured alive at Fürstenfeldbruck. one of the opening ceremonies to honor the Mu- had also died, along with five of the terrorists; the Chancellor Brandt immediately acquiesced to the nich victims. The IOC invariably rejected the plea surviving three were in custody. hijackers’ demands. The three terrorists were al- on grounds that “politics” must not be allowed to Despite calls from around the world to cancel lowed to board the hijacked plane in Munich and intrude upon the Olympic festivals. (The irony of the rest of the 1972 Olympics, Munich’s “Carefree fly on to Tripoli, where they were feted as heroes. this rejoinder was apparently lost on the luminar- Games” resumed after a brief memorial service on This operation proceeded so seamlessly as to seem ies of Lausanne.) Eventually, after twenty-four September 6. At the memorial service IOC Presi- staged—which in fact turns out to have been the years of stonewalling, the IOC agreed to a less dent Avery Brundage insisted that a “handful of case. Threatened with a wave of new terrorist at- prominent acknowledgement of the Munich mur- terrorists” must not be allowed “to destroy [the] tacks on German soil unless Bonn released the ders by inviting children of the slain Olympians to nucleus of international cooperation and goodwill three captured Munich operatives, Brandt and his attend the 1996 Atlanta Games, whose closing cer- we have in the Olympic movement,” adding: “The top advisors set up the “hijacking” with the Pales- emony also mentioned the ’72 tragedy. Four years Games must go on.” Apparently not sufficiently tinians as a way of washing West Germany’s hands later, at the Sydney Games, a local Jewish college infused with Olympic goodwill, the Arab teams of its troublesome captives. It was this craven ac- unveiled a memorial dedicated to the victims of boycotted the memorial. quiescence by the Germans that finally convinced the Munich Massacre. As the veil came off the And, in fact, goodwill, Olympic or otherwise, Golda Meir to give a green light to Israel’s “Wrath memorial, Matan Vilnai, Israel’s minister of sport, was in precious short supply in the wake of the of God” campaign to track down and eliminate echoed his people’s stance on the Holocaust, de- Munich Massacre. In West Germany irate citizens the men responsible for the Munich Massacre. claring: “We will never forget these cold-blooded wrote letters to their local newspapers demanding That campaign proved largely successful, though, murders, nor forgive them.” the immediate expulsion of all Arab immigrants. like Israel’s air raids on Syria and Lebanon, it also In Israel voices were raised calling for the murder took innocent lives. David Clay Large is professor of history at Mon- of Arab diplomats around the world. From Wash- Now, from our standpoint some thirty-six tana State University. Among his many books and ington, President Nixon sharply condemned the at- years down the bloody road, we can see that the essays are Nazi Games: The Olympics of tack, while ordering special restrictions on Arabs Munich Massacre occupies an important point on 1936 (Norton, 2007) and Where Ghosts trying to enter the U.S. On the other side of the that road—if not precisely at the beginning, then Walked: Munich’s Road to the Third Reich political spectrum, Ulrike Meinhof, writing from very close to it. What happened in Munich helped (Norton, 1997). her prison cell, hailed the Munich attack as the spur a cycle of terror and reprisal that has gone kind of “revolutionary action through which the on in varying degrees of intensity ever since. Of West German Left can rediscover its identity.” The course, later terrorist strikes tended to differ in chief Communist Party organ in East Germany scope, procedure, and even purpose from the Mu- blamed the Israeli deaths squarely on West Ger- nich case—the 9/11 terrorists, for example, had many while insisting that Israel and the “imperial- no goal beyond terror itself—but the repeated