To mark the 50th anniversary of the Olympic Games in Munich in 2022, the Olympic assassination on September 5-6, 1972, will be commemorated all year long. Every month, the focus of the commemoration will be on an individual victim.
The staff of the Olympic Committee's press office pays tribute to the victims of the Munich terrorist attack with a spontaneously set up condolence memorial book.
September 5, 1972 Munich hostage crisis
During the XX Summer Olympic Games in Munich, a Palestinian terrorist commando of the Black September organisation carries out an attack on the Israeli Olympic team. During the ambush on their accommodation in the Connollystraße in the Olympic Village on September 5, 1972, the assassins kill two athletes and take nine members of the Israeli team into their captivity.
German police officers prepare for their mission to free the hostages. The rescue operation ends in a catastrophe.
The terrorists make an ultimate demand for the release of 200 Arabs imprisoned in Israel and threaten to shoot the hostages immediately. After negotiations with Federal Interior Minister Genscher and Police President Schreiber, the terrorists arrange to be taken to the Fürstenfeldbruck airport together with the hostages
An attempted rescue operation by the German authorities at the Fürstenfeldbruck air base ends fails. After a firefight lasting several hours all hostages were murdered. Furthermore, one policeman was killed in the attack, five of the terrorists died during the raid.
Should the Games go on?
The Munich Olympic Games were interrupted. After a half-day break and an accompanying memorial service, they subsequently resumed. The IOC decides to continue the competitions. At the Olympic Stadium's mourning ceremony, President Avery Brundage speaks the famous sentence: "The Games must go on! However, the Olympics no longer have the spirit of the days before the assassination.
The Munich Olympic Games were interrupted. After a half-day break and an accompanying memorial service, they subsequently resumed.
In response to the unbelievable failure and disastrous misjudgments of the Bavarian police, the "Grenzschutzgruppe 9" (Border Guard Group 9) was founded at the state level to prevent attacks in the future.