Israel at the 1972 Summer Olympics

Munich hosted the first Olympics held in a German city since the 1936 Berlin Games, and West German organizers sought to project a peaceful, rehabilitated national image.[2] They called the event “Die Heiteren Spiele,” or “The Cheerful Games”; other descriptions included “the Smiling Games” and “the Games of Peace and Joy.”[2][3] More than 7,000 athletes from 122 countries participated in the Games, which ultimately ran from August 26 to September 11, 1972.[2] A more detailed participation total gives 7,156 competitors, including more than 1,000 women, a record at the time.[6]

For Israel, attending an Olympics in Germany carried significance beyond athletic competition.[5] The Israeli flag's appearance on German soil before a worldwide television audience publicly expressed a readiness to accept “a different Germany.”[5] The Games also formed part of West Germany's effort to demonstrate its postwar commitment to democracy and rehabilitation.[5] Their broadcast on Israeli television—the first Olympic Games shown on the country's television service—gave the delegation's participation an immediate presence in Israeli public life.[5]

Former Olympic competitor Ben Helfgott recalled the Israeli team receiving “a tumultuous welcoming applause” from 80,000 spectators at the opening ceremony.[6] During the Games, he spent time with delegation members at sporting venues and receptions, and he last saw five of them early on September 5 after the weightlifting competition.[6] His recollection places the welcome received by the team alongside the ordinary encounters and competitions preceding the attack.[6]

Munich was Israel's fifth Olympic Games and its first Olympic appearance in weightlifting.[1] Swimmer Shlomit Nir Tor later recalled a delegation of 22 people, comprising athletes, coaches, and referees; she and sprinter Esther Roth were its two women.[7] Nir Tor remembered the Israelis being housed at the rear of the Olympic Village without accompanying Israeli or German security personnel.[7] The delegation's accommodation faced a street and was separated from the village by a low fence.[5]

Esther Roth-Shachamorov reached the semifinals in the 100 meters and narrowly missed qualifying for the final in a photo finish.[8][9] She also qualified for the 100-meter hurdles semifinals, which she was scheduled to run the day after the attack.[9] Her coach, Amitzur Shapira, predicted that she would win a medal, and she remained an Israeli medal hope before the delegation withdrew.[8][9] Shapira was among the team members murdered in Munich.[8]

Weightlifter Yossef Romano entered the Games with nine Israeli national championships and experience representing Israel at the 1965 and 1969 world championships.[1] Born in Benghazi, Libya, he had moved with his family to Israel in 1946.[1] During the August 31 Olympic weightlifting competition, Romano tore a knee ligament and could not complete his lifts.[1] He was expected to return to Israel on September 6 for surgery, but remained with the delegation when the attackers entered its accommodation.[1]

Yair Michaeli and Yitzhak Nir represented Israel in sailing.[4] Michaeli later remembered preparations that had often consisted of weekend training, while describing their ambition as vying for first place.[4] His account also recorded the change in their outlook as the hostage crisis unfolded: initially they intended to continue competing, but learning that teammates had been killed ended any sense that competition remained possible for them.[4] “We said we'd continue competing,” he recalled, before explaining that, after the deaths became known, “the Olympics ended for us.”[4]

At about 4:30 a.m. on September 5, eight armed Palestinian terrorists associated with Black September entered the Olympic Village and forced their way into Israeli accommodation at 31 Connollystrasse.[10] Five climbed the fence wearing tracksuits and carrying weapons concealed in athletic bags, and three others joined them.[10] Athletes were accustomed to climbing the village fence, so witnesses did not initially regard the men's entry as unusual.[10] The attackers used stolen keys to enter two apartments occupied by the Israeli team.[10]

Wrestling referee Yossef Gutfreund heard a noise, saw armed men forcing open an apartment door, and tried to hold it shut.[10] Coach Tuvia Sokolovsky and race-walker Shaul Ladany escaped during the confusion, while four athletes, two team doctors, and delegation head Shmuel Lalkin hid.[10] Wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg fought the attackers, enabling wrestler Gad Tsobari to escape, and was killed.[10] Weightlifter Yossef Romano also resisted and was fatally shot; nine other Israelis were taken hostage.[10]

Romano was using crutches because of his knee injury when he lunged at the attackers and tried to seize a gun.[1] Information released in 2015 described the mutilation of his body and its placement in front of the remaining hostages.[1] The two initial killings and the capture of nine teammates transformed the Israeli delegation's Olympic participation into a hostage crisis.[3]

The attackers were led by Luttif Afif, known as “Issa,” with Yusuf Nazzal, known as “Tony,” serving as deputy.[10] Their demands included the release of more than 230 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and the imprisoned Red Army Faction leaders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof in Germany.[3] They eventually demanded transport to Egypt with their captives.[3]

A detailed account in the Jewish Review of Books places the initial demands shortly after 5 a.m. and says the prisoner list also included Japanese Red Army operative Kōzō Okamoto.[11] That account describes a threat to kill one Israeli hostage every hour if the demands were not met.[11] The captives remained under armed control while negotiations continued through the day.[12]

Israel's Foreign Ministry received an urgent report from its embassy in Bonn at 8:45 a.m. on September 5.[13] The information was passed to Prime Minister Golda Meir, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, and Education and Culture Minister Yigal Allon, whose office was responsible for the Olympic team.[13] At a 9:30 a.m. security meeting, the government instructed its ambassador that Israel would not negotiate with terrorists and expected West Germany to make every effort to rescue the hostages.[13]

Meir rejected yielding to the captors' demands, explaining: “If we should give in, then no Israeli anywhere in the world can feel that his life is safe.”[3] Nir Tor recalled that Israel offered assistance during the crisis but German officials declined, saying they could handle the situation themselves.[7]

The Israeli government pressed West Germany and the International Olympic Committee to suspend the Games while the hostages remained in danger.[13] Israel's embassy in Washington also sought American assistance in obtaining a suspension.[13] Olympic and West German officials initially decided against stopping the competitions.[13] The Jewish Review of Books describes events continuing for hours and reports that Olympic official Willi Daume announced the postponement of the remaining day's competitions near 4 p.m., together with plans for a memorial service the following morning.[11]

German authorities negotiated for hours before arranging transport to Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, where a plane intended for Cairo was waiting.[12] The attackers and hostages traveled by bus and helicopter, with two helicopters used for the flight to the airfield.[3][12] German sharpshooters attempted a rescue as the captors moved between a helicopter and the aircraft.[12] The operation developed into a gun battle with the Israeli hostages trapped in the helicopters.[12]

Accounts of the rescue emphasize serious operational failures. Nir Tor's account described the airport ambush as badly conceived and implemented, while Israeli archival records later recorded Zvi Zamir's criticism of German confusion and lack of professionalism.[7][13] During the fighting, the attackers blew up one helicopter and shot the hostages in the other.[13] All nine remaining Israeli captives died, along with German police officer Anton Fliegerbauer; five attackers were killed and three were captured alive.[3][14]

Early reports wrongly announced that the hostages had been saved.[10] At 11 p.m., the media circulated news of a successful rescue, bringing relief to an Israeli public that had not yet learned the outcome.[10] Reports reaching Jerusalem were incomplete and contradictory, and Ambassador Elyashiv Ben-Horin cautioned that there was no official confirmation that the Israelis had survived.[13] At 2:55 a.m. on September 6, he reported that all the hostages were dead; Mossad chief Zvi Zamir confirmed that information at 3:10 a.m.[13] ABC broadcaster Jim McKay announced the deaths with the words, “They're all gone.”[10]

The 11 Israelis murdered in Munich included competitors, coaches, a referee, and a judge, spanning several sports represented by the delegation.[15] They were wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg; weightlifters Yossef Romano, Ze’ev Friedman, and David Berger; weightlifting judge Yakov Springer; wrestlers Eliezer Halfin and Mark Slavin; wrestling referee Yossef Gutfreund; shooting coach Kehat Shorr; fencing coach Andre Spitzer; and track coach Amitzur Shapira.[15] Two were killed in the initial takeover and nine during the failed airfield rescue.[3]

The Olympics were suspended for a day, and a memorial ceremony was held at the Olympic Stadium.[3][6] A service originally planned for the two Israelis killed in the village instead commemorated all 11 murdered delegation members.[13] At the September 6 ceremony, IOC president Avery Brundage announced that the Games would continue.[11] The Israeli delegation left Munich after the ceremony, and the survivors departed accompanied by 11 coffins.[7]

Lalkin explained the Israeli withdrawal by saying, “We pulled our team out. We couldn't go on without them [the murdered team members].”[6] He nevertheless believed that the Games themselves should continue, because stopping them would fulfill the terrorists' purpose.[6] A differing account in the Jewish Review of Books describes Meir ordering the remaining team home while Lalkin would have preferred to stay and compete, and records Ladany's argument that withdrawal would give the terrorists another victory.[11] Michaeli's recollection, by contrast, emphasized that the loss of his teammates had made further competition meaningless to him.[4]

The decision also drew attention outside the Israeli delegation.[6][16] Some competitors from the Netherlands and Norway went home in protest, while the East German contingent also objected to continuation.[6] A United States government memorandum recorded President Richard Nixon's view that Israel should remain consistent with its earlier intention to see the Games through rather than withdraw.[16] Secretary of State William Rogers noted reports that Israel might ask the United States to end its participation and referred to the reversal of the initial public reports that the athletes were safe.[16]

Roth-Shachamorov withdrew before running her 100-meter hurdles semifinal, losing the opportunity to complete an Olympic campaign in which she had advanced in both sprint and hurdles competition.[9] She returned to competition the following year and won three gold medals at the 1973 Maccabiah Games.[8] Her murdered coach's prediction of a Munich medal remained part of the account of her interrupted participation.[8]

On October 29, 1972, a Lufthansa jet was hijacked by terrorists demanding the release of the three surviving attackers, whom West Germany subsequently released.[10] A later account in Tikvah Ideas states that Meir authorized the Mossad to pursue those responsible for the attack.[17] The massacre also left a deep scar on Israeli society, intensified by the fact that the delegation had been attacked in Germany.[5]

The release of 45 Israel State Archives documents for the massacre's 40th anniversary provided records of cabinet meetings, ministerial consultations, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee discussions, reports, and diplomatic cables.[13] These records documented the government's response, contemporary anger over German conduct, and frustration that the delegation had not been adequately guarded.[13] Nir Tor separately recalled that the delegation had no Israeli or German security personnel accompanying it.[7]

Zvi Zamir sharply criticized the rescue operation, describing confusion and a lack of professionalism and accusing German forces of taking insufficient risks to save the hostages.[13] He later told a Knesset committee that German authorities had intended to rescue the captives but could not improvise as events unfolded.[13] Later disclosures included a Der Spiegel report that German authorities had received a warning about a possible Palestinian attack but did not secure the Olympic Village.[10] Another 2012 report described secret post-attack contacts between West German Foreign Minister Walter Scheel and Black September representatives, aimed at preventing further attacks in Germany.[18]

The continuation of the Games remained a significant public dispute.[19] Brundage's memorial remarks drew criticism for drawing parallels between the murder of the Israelis and the IOC's exclusion of Rhodesia.[11] At the 2012 anniversary memorial, Munich mayor Christian Ude defended resumption as denying terrorists a total triumph, while Central Council of Jews in Germany president Dieter Graumann criticized Brundage's “The Games must go on” response.[19] Although the principal accounts identify the attackers with Black September, the archival basis for establishing that organizational connection has also received differing assessments.[10][20]

Olympic security changed after Munich, with later Games introducing stronger protective measures in Olympic Villages and competition venues.[2] Those changes improved athlete protection but diminished the open, festive atmosphere associated with earlier Olympics.[2] For Israel, remembrance also remained connected to the symbolism of having sent a delegation to a German-hosted Games and to the rupture that followed the killings.[5]

Survivors continued to recount both their losses and the chance circumstances of their own survival.[19] At a 2012 memorial near Munich, Henry Herscovici said, “I and my friends are here. We had the chance to live.”[19] Nir Tor's later recollections preserved the experience of one of the delegation's two women, including the absence of accompanying security personnel and the survivors' departure with their murdered teammates' coffins.[7] Michaeli's account similarly preserved the moment when Olympic ambition gave way to mourning.[4]

Ankie Spitzer, widow of fencing coach Andre Spitzer, and Ilana Romano, widow of weightlifter Yossef Romano, campaigned for an official Olympic tribute.[21] Olympic Committee of Israel secretary general Efraim Zinger argued that the IOC should initiate a commemoration, while Israeli IOC member Alex Gilady said the Israeli Olympic Committee could have demanded a memorial at the 1976 Montreal Games but had not done so.[21] These discussions formed part of the prolonged effort to establish remembrance within the Olympics themselves.[21][22]

Despite appeals from victims' families and others, the IOC did not hold a minute of silence at the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Games.[19] In 2016, it held a commemoration at a memorial site in the Rio Olympic Village, honoring the 11 Israelis and the German police officer killed in Munich.[22] At the Tokyo opening ceremony in 2021, the victims were remembered during an Olympic opening ceremony for the first time.[23]

A dedicated Munich memorial opened in September 2017, the attack's 45th anniversary, after decades of campaigning by victims' families.[24] Built in Olympic Park within sight of the village and sporting venues, it takes the form of an open-cave-like space cut into an artificial hill.[24] The memorial combines photographs and biographies of the victims with personal objects provided by their families.[24] An approximately 11-meter LED screen shows a 27-minute film loop following the crisis hour by hour; the project cost €2.35 million.[24]

On the massacre's 50th anniversary, Germany acknowledged failures by the German state and reached a €28 million compensation agreement with the victims' families after negotiations.[25] The agreement followed longstanding allegations by families and the Israeli government that Germany had failed to protect the delegation and sought to conceal police failures.[25] Together with the permanent Munich memorial and remembrance at Olympic ceremonies, the anniversary agreement marked another stage in the decades-long public response to the loss of the 11 Israelis.[24][25]