On September 4, 1972, Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics enjoyed a night out watching Fiddler on the Roof . In the wee hours of Teacher’s Day (in India), as they slept, eight tracksuit-wearing members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s Black September faction climbed a two-metre fence, assisted by unsuspecting athletes, themselves sneaking into the Olympic village.
The intruders carried Kalashnikov assault rifles, grenades and Tokarev pistols in duffel bags. Stolen keys gave them access to 31 Connollystrasse, where the Israelis were housed.
It is believed that the attackers, all from refugee camps, had worked in the village weeks preceding the Games to study the scene of their strike.
Hostages taken Occupants of Apartments 1 and 3 were rounded up. After some resistance, two were killed and nine taken hostage, while some escaped through the windows. In less than an hour the police were alerted and the world awoke to a 21-hour nightmare.
The custodians demanded release of 234 Palestinians and non-Arabs jailed in Israel besides Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, founders of the German Red Army Faction.
To demonstrate their resolve, they threw out wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg’s corpse from the front door. Members of the Hong Kong and Uruguayan squads sharing the accommodation were released unharmed.
Negotiators kept extending the deadline and when Israel refused to meet their demands, the detainers turned down offers of ransom money. Instead they sought two planes to fly them with their hostages to Cairo.
By watching live television, the terrorists discovered plans by German authorities to storm the building and then launch an attack at the airport. Captors and captives were flown by helicopters to Furstenfeldbruck air base where a two-hour showdown with snipers left two of the Palestinian assailants and a German policeman dead.
Shootout When armoured trucks held up in traffic arrived around midnight, the gunmen hurled a grenade into the helicopter with the hostages, killing three of them instantly.
The remaining detainees in the other helicopter were mowed down by one of the desperadoes. Three guerrillas were captured.
Less than two months later two were let off when Black September hijacked a Lufthansa flight and threatened to blow up the aircraft.
“I wish I had my weapon,” Lones Wigger Jr., two-time Olympic gold-medallist told this correspondent with a tinge of regret, during the fourth 2007 CISM Military World Games in Hyderabad. “I could have taken down a couple of those masked hoodlums who kept popping out of the balconies,” reminisced the crackshot US Army Lt. Col.
The crisis unfolded before his eyes, the Americans occupying the building opposite that of the Israelis.
Even sports rifles were/are prohibited at the Games village and were/are stored in the shooting range’s armoury.
