) from August 26 to September 10, 1972.

In the spring of 1966, Munich was chosen as the venue for the 1972 Olympic Games in Rome.

Significant funds were invested in the improvement of Munich before the start of the Olympics. Here, for the first time, a subway was built, the city center was almost completely reconstructed, the number of beds in hotels increased from 16 to 150 thousand, the system of access roads was practically re-created. New complex sports facilities included, in particular, an Olympic village for 10-15 thousand inhabitants, an Olympic stadium for 80 thousand seats, a sports palace for 15 thousand seats, a swimming pool for 10 thousand seats, a cycle track for 13 thousand seats and others Sport halls and platforms.

In Munich, an Olympic village for athletes was built, a new Olympic stadium (Olympiastadion), an Olympic park was laid out, a tower 291 meters high was erected.

All Olympic venues Munich were equipped with fairly advanced means of urgent information (scoreboards, electronic computers, measuring instruments using a laser beam, modern duplicating equipment for press bulletins, etc.). Never before has there been so much state-of-the-art equipment at the Games, installed literally in all sports arenas, as in Munich. Television was widely used, thanks to which more than a billion sports fans on all continents became spectators of the Olympic competitions.

Sailing Olympic regatta and demonstration performances in water skiing were held on the Baltic coast in the city of Kiel.

The Olympic Games were held on high level. During the Games, 100 Olympic and 46 world records were set.

American swimmer Mark Spitz won seven gold medals. He won at distances of 100 and 200 meters freestyle, 100 and 200 meters butterfly and in three relay races: 4 × 100 meters and 4 x 200 meters freestyle and in the combined - 4 × 100 meters, and world records were set in all starts. This achievement was only surpassed in 2008 by Michael Phelps.

Finnish athlete Lasse Viren won two gold medals in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters. Moreover, in the 10,000 meters run, Viren fell at half the distance, got up and was able to finish first, setting a world record - 27 minutes 38.4 seconds

For the first time at this level of competition, the Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut performed the most difficult gymnastic element "

XX Summer Olympic Games were held in Munich from 26 August to 10 September 1972.

Before the 1972 Olympics in Munich, the problem of choosing the standard-bearer for the USSR national team did not stand. The name of the hero was on everyone's lips - double Olympic champion freestyle wrestling Alexander Medved. It should be noted that the 35-year-old wrestler was not even going to his third Games, but he was persuaded. And he won again.

Of the 99 medals won by Soviet athletes in Munich, there were 50 gold, 27 silver and 22 bronze. For the first time, our basketball players beat the Americans, and literally last seconds final. Won the Olympics for the first time and volleyball players, water polo players, judoka Chochishvili, yachtsman Mankin in the "tempest" class, Vladimir Vasin in diving. Elena performed brilliantly in equestrian sports Petushkova on a horse Ashes, Kalita on horse Tarif and Kizimov on the horse Ichor.

The Olympics in Munich were remembered not only directly sports events, but also a high-profile terrorist attack.

"Games of happiness and joy"

It was the second week of the Munich Olympics. The Second World War ended almost 30 years ago, but Germany persistently tried to get rid of the Nazi past. "Games of happiness and joy" - under this slogan, the new Germany showed the world the appearance of an open and friendly country.

The arrival in Munich of a team from Israel, which included former prisoners of fascist concentration camps, once again emphasized the transition from a militaristic past to a carefree and happy life.

The small Israeli delegation at the Games consisted of three dozen people - 15 athletes and 15 officials, including coaches, judges, sports officials. In the new Olympic village, they were given the first floor of a small building at number 31 on the eastern outskirts, not far from the central gate.

Even before the Olympics, the Israelis were worried about their safety. The head of the delegation, Shmuel Lalkin, was embarrassed by the location, his excessive vulnerability, and the lack of armed guards and access control in the Olympic village.

The organizers brushed off the claims - they contradicted the philosophy of the "Happy Games" declared by the Germans. In them, the role of the police, armed only with walkie-talkies, was reduced to the fight against ticket speculators and drunks.

"Black September"

The terrorist organization "Black September", created in the early 70s by radical Palestinian Arabs, was not numerous; its ideological inspirer Ali Hassan Salameh is the closest associate of the future Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The group took the name "Black September" after the September armed conflict in Jordan, where numerous Palestinian refugees expelled by Israel lived. In that war, according to various estimates, about 10 thousand Palestinians died, and another 150 thousand had to flee to neighboring Lebanon.

In Germany, the Black September militants arrived before the start of the Olympics in two groups on false documents through Italy and Bulgaria. All weapons and ammunition (8 Kalashnikov assault rifles, 30 magazines for them with full ammunition, several TT pistols and 24 hand grenades) were delivered to Munich through the diplomatic mail of the Libyan embassy.

Several decades later, when documents about the operation were declassified, it turns out that three weeks before the Games, the German authorities received information from a Lebanese informant about the plans of terrorists during the Olympics, but frivolously ignored it.

USSR Super Series - Canada

On the night of September 4-5, eight terrorists in Adidas tracksuits with trunks stuffed to the brim with weapons stood at the 2-meter mesh fence of the Olympic village. Many athletes later said that they rarely used the usual entrance to the village - it was much easier to jump over a low fence in the right place.

That night, at the fence, the terrorists met Canadian water polo players, who had been sitting up late in the media center watching the hockey super series of the USSR - Canada. The Canadians returned to the village in high spirits (4-1, Maple victory). They helped each other with the militants to get over the fence and dispersed in different directions - on the clock it was about 4:20 am local time.

“They came with us. We thought it was other athletes. Five or ten minutes later we heard the sound of gunshots, but we thought that someone had won a medal and set off fireworks,” recalled Robert Thompson, Canada's water polo player.

Only in the morning they will be told about the hostage-taking in the building opposite.

capture

The Israeli athletes were asleep. The day before, they had a busy evening - the Olympians went to the musical "Fiddler on the Roof", had dinner with a famous Israeli actor, walked around Munich at night.

In total, the Israeli delegation occupied five rooms on the first floor of building No. 31. True, not everyone lived there. Hurdler Esther Shakhamarov and swimmer Shlomit Nir settled in another part of the Olympic village, and three yachtsmen settled in the town of Kiel, where the sailing races took place.

The terrorists were well versed in the Olympic village - they spent several weeks observing and studying the situation, and two of them, allegedly, were even employed there as laborers. Having quickly overcome 70 meters from the fence to the building in which the Israelis lived, they opened with their keys (one of the invaders had cleaned the building the day before and had access to the keys) room number 1, in which the Israeli coaches and judges lived.

From the rustle in the keyhole wrestling referee Yosef Gutfreund woke up and immediately rushed to the opening door. With his considerable weight, for some time, he held back armed men in balaclavas on the threshold - one of his roommates, weightlifting coach Tuvia Sokolovsky, was enough to escape through a broken window. The six remaining inhabitants of the first room were destined to be held hostage and die.

“I woke up from the cries of Gutfreund, jumped out of bed and through the half-open door, which he desperately tried to hold, I saw people with black masks on their faces and with weapons. At that moment, I realized that I had to run. I broke the glass, jumped out the window and ran towards the neighboring building. The terrorists shot after me so that I could hear the sounds of flying bullets,” Sokolovsky said immediately after his happy release.

The captors demanded that the six hostages show them the rest of the rooms where the Israelis slept. Wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg, already wounded in the cheek during a fight with one of the terrorists, led them past room number 2 (shooters, fencers and athletes lived there) to room number 3 to six wrestlers and weightlifters - apparently, based on their strength and rebuffed, but they, caught in a dream, did not show resistance. So the number of hostages grew to twelve - the rest of the Israelis managed to quietly leave the occupied building.

The first victims were Weinberg and weightlifter Yosef Romano. On the way back to the first room, they attacked the militants and rescued another hostage - lightweight wrestler Gadi Tsobari, taking advantage of the confusion, fled through the underground parking. However, Weinberg was shot dead on the spot, the terrorists threw his body out the window. And the seriously wounded Romano was taken into the room and subjected to torture, leaving the corpse to the end as a warning to the rest of the hostages.

The terrorists set out their demands on a printed piece of paper thrown out of the window - the release and transfer to Egypt of more than two hundred Palestinians from prisons in Israel and Western Europe.

Israel's answer was lightning fast - there will be no negotiations with terrorists.

The Israeli authorities offered the Germans to conduct a liberation operation using their own special forces, trained specifically for such situations. The detachment was already ready to take off, but a refusal followed - the foreign military did not receive the right to operate on German territory.

The Olympics didn't stop

Until 4 pm on September 5, sports competitions continued at the Games - only after the death of two hostages, the organizers took a break. In the Olympic village, life was in full swing all day long - athletes watched the captured building from their balconies, journalists filmed reports, officials and negotiators were spinning around.

“We had to keep silent about the terrible hostage-taking by terrorists. All countries then transmitted reports to live. And we came to the place of the tragedy and pretended that we were also transmitting, “filmed” with the camera turned off. Our correspondent Tolya Malyavin and I secretly went to the village where it all happened. It was scary when the terrorists looked out of the windows, just terribly Crazy. I dreamed of leaving home as soon as possible, ”said sports commentator Nina Eremina.

“The USSR national team lived in a neighboring building. We saw the terrorists when they roamed around the loggias in masks,” doctor Savely Myshalov recalled in an interview.

The militants really often appeared on the balcony, inspecting the surrounding area. In the middle of the day, they took two hostages to the window at gunpoint - trainers Andre Spitzer and Keat Shor - to demonstrate that they were still alive.

There were still few police - a small armed group of German border guards cordoned off the Olympic village alarm zone awaiting further instructions, but there was no plan for release in the German crisis headquarters.

New requirements

By evening, the terrorists announced new conditions - a plane with a crew to Cairo. To get to the airport, they demanded two helicopters to the Olympic village, to which they were supposed to be delivered by buses from the captured building.

“From the window of the ninth floor, we clearly saw how two buses arrived. Four athletes, blindfolded and arms crossed, stepped out of the first one and were put into the first helicopter. Then five more hostages got off the second bus and boarded the second helicopter. It was the last picture we saw,” Israeli swimmer Shlomit Nir was not even twenty then, but she still cannot forget the terrible events of more than 40 years ago.

At the Fürstenfeldbruck military airfield, the terrorists were waiting for a Boeing 727, inside of which there were supposed to be police officers dressed as crew members. According to the plan, they were supposed to eliminate two militants who would rise to inspect the board, and the neutralization of the rest was assigned to snipers. The crisis headquarters was led by Bavarian Interior Minister Bruno Merck, West German Interior Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Munich Police Chief Manfred Schreiber.

Failure

But the operation failed due to mediocre organization and a chain of negligent and incompetent actions:

- the police, dressed as pilots, at the last moment got scared of the terrorists and, refusing to participate in the operation, arbitrarily left the plane;

- it was assumed that there were four or five terrorists - the assessment was based on observations;

- five snipers (actually ordinary police officers who visited the shooting range on weekends) were armed with rifles with a conventional optical sight, which were ineffective in poor visibility conditions;

- the armored personnel carriers were late for the operation due to a traffic jam on the way to the airport;

- the airfield was not lit;

- shooting at terrorists began prematurely and disorganized;

- There was no communication between the snipers and the leaders of the operation.

After the first shot at the terrorists returning from an empty plane, a chaotic firefight and grenade explosions began, as a result of which all nine hostages sitting tied up in helicopters and one policeman were killed.

Of the eight terrorists, five were killed at the airport, three were taken alive.

Retribution

The bodies of five dead terrorists Germany sent to Libya at the insistence of Muammar Gaddafi - there they were buried by a 30,000-strong crowd with heroic honors. The Germans refused to extradite the three survivors to Israel, promising to judge according to local laws, but after a couple of months they were released, fulfilling the requirements of the hijackers of the Beirut-Ankara flight of the German airline Lufthansa. All three were enthusiastically received in the same Libya.

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir has instructed the Mossad (Israeli Special Tasks Agency) to develop a secret operation called "The Wrath of God" to destroy all those involved in organizing the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics.

Twenty years of continuous hunting for Black September members, as a result of which 13 militants were destroyed in different parts of the world - Rome, Paris, Athens, Lillehammer.

Jamal al-Gashi is the only one of the three released terrorists who managed to escape retaliation. Now 64, he is on the run from Israel's ongoing persecution in a North African country.

“I am proud of what I did in Munich because it helped the Palestinian cause a lot. Before Munich, the world did not know about our struggle, but on that day the word “Palestine” sounded all over the world,” al-Gashi said at a press conference in Libya after his solemn return.

Mourning

The day after the tragedy, a funeral ceremony was held at the Olympic Stadium in Munich with the participation of 3,000 athletes and 80,000 spectators. Only ten Arab countries and the USSR refused to participate in it.

“All the delegations were there, except for the Soviet one. Our country did not recognize Israel, but our wrestlers and weightlifters were indignant that they were not allowed into the stadium, because many of the dead were from Soviet Union", - confessed the doctor Savely Myshalov.

Israeli athletes who died in Munich:

Moshe Weinberg, 32 years old. Wrestling coach.
Yosef Romano, 32 years old. Weightlifter, born in Libya, participant in the Six Day War in 1967.
Zeev Friedman, 28 years old. Weightlifter, born in Poland.
David Berger, 28 years old. Weightlifter, born and raised in the USA.
Yaakov Springer, 51 years old. Weightlifting referee, born in Poland.
Eliezer Halfin, 24 years old. Wrestler, was born in the USSR, in Riga. He emigrated to Israel in 1969.
Yosef Gutfreund, 40 years old. Judge by classical wrestling, was born in Romania.
Kehat Shor, 53 years old. Shooting coach, born in Romania.
Mark Slavin, 18 years old. Wrestler, born in Minsk, emigrated to Israel 4 months before the Games in Munich.
Andre Spitzer, 27 years old. Fencing coach, born in Romania.
Amitsur Shapira, 40 years old. Coach for athletics.

Text: Alexey AVDOKHIN

September 5, 2017 marks the 45th anniversary of a tragedy like Olympic movement not known in its entire history.
It will be about the terrorist attack at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972.

For those who do not know, I tell, but for those who have forgotten, I remind.
September 5, 1972 in the Olympic village, terrorists (members of the terrorist Palestinian organization "Black September") 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team were captured.
The operation to free them was carried out unprofessionally and as a result, all the hostages died.

Here are their faces and names. Let's stop and be quiet for a minute.

Left to right, top to bottom:

1. Moshe Weinberg, wrestling coach;
2. Yosef Romano, weightlifter;
3. Yosef Gutfreund, classical wrestling referee;
4. David Berger, weightlifter;
5. Mark Slavin, wrestler;
6. Yaakov Springer, weightlifting judge;
7. Zeev Friedman, weightlifter;
8. Amitsur Shapira, athletics coach;
9. Eliezer Halfin, wrestler;
10. Kehat Shor, shooting coach;
11. André Spitzer, fencing coach.

Sorry guys. Eternal memory to them. Or not sorry?

So these Jews need it!?

Scary title, right? But, he was not born casually.

While preparing the article, I studied a lot of material, visited many forums, read an infinite number of comments. There were (and, unfortunately, a sufficient number) among them those whose essence is reflected in the title. Here's something like this:

Well, that's all right. So it should. I'll even say more.

• March 20, 1995. In the Tokyo subway, followers of the AUM Shinrikyo sect sprayed sarin, mustard gas, and cyanide. 3796 people were injured, 12 people died. So this Japanese and it is necessary!
• July 25, 1995 Explosion in the Paris subway. 8 people were killed, 100 were injured. So this French and it is necessary!
• September 11, 2001. Attack in New York. 2977 people died. So this Americans and it is necessary!
• September 1, 2004. Hostage-taking in Beslan. 335 people died, including 186 children. So this Ossetians and it is necessary!
• March 11, 2004. Attack in Madrid (4 explosions in suburban trains). 191 people died, 1050 were injured. So this Spaniards and it is necessary!
• October 23, 2002. Terrorist attack on Dubrovka ("Nord-Ost") Moscow. 174 people died. So this Russian and it is necessary!
• April 11, 2011. Terrorist attack in the Minsk metro. 15 people died. So this Belarusians and it is necessary!

You can go on for a long time. But, the conclusion suggests itself:

Is that what we all need!? To all humanity. YES?

Or still NO? Maybe we'll come to our senses someday?

What are we striving for? Fear? But fear is first. Then - hatred and an eye for an eye.

Well, I splashed it out, and now let's go back to Munich -72.

Olympic Games in the den of fascism. "Games of Peace and Joy"

The significance of the 1972 Olympics in Munich for Germany can hardly be overestimated. You understand. The memory of the Olympic Games in Berlin 1936 and what followed is very strong.

Therefore, all the propaganda forces of the FRG were aimed at making the whole world understand:

Germany is different. Kind and peaceful. And these games are "Games of Peace and Joy" for everyone.

Not only in word, but also in deed.

The scope and quality of the Olympic venues at the Olympics in Munich were beyond comparison. Huge money was invested in the improvement of the city itself. The metro was built, the city center was completely transformed, hotels were built and a new and convenient system of access roads was created.

The modern Olympic Village for 15 thousand people, the Olympic Stadium for 70 thousand seats, the Sports Palace for 15 thousand, the swimming pool ....

In general, everything to make athletes and spectators feel cozy and comfortable.

Comfort - YES, but safety, unfortunately - NO!

• There were practically no armed guards.
• All law enforcement forces were sent to fight drunks and stowaways
• Access to the Olympic Village was rather formal. If you are in sportswear, you can safely enter the territory without a pass.

The Israeli Olympians marched with their heads held high, but Palestine was not allowed…

The Games started on August 26, 1972 and set a record for the number of participating countries. There are 121 countries in total. Among them is still a very young state of Israel.

One can only guess what each of the 42 members of the Israeli delegation felt and thought about when they were given the opportunity to march under their flag on German soil.

As for Palestine, the IOC refused it due to the absence of such a State de jure.

For reference:

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA)/partially recognized State of Palestine team first competed in the 1996 Olympics. Since then, she has competed in every Summer Olympics.

It was this refusal occasion for militants to appear at the Munich Olympics not as athletes….

I specifically highlighted "reason", because The reasons, as you know, are quite different.

I will not talk about the Arab-Israeli conflict now. One post here is not enough, and, frankly, there is not enough knowledge. No, of course they are, but they are not enough.

Capture and "liberation"

Everything is in order.

1. On the evening of September 4, the Israeli delegation went to the theater - they gave "Fiddler on the Roof". At the same time, in a restaurant at the railway station, Abu Daoud, one of the leaders of Fatah and the ideological inspirer of the future terrorist attack, instructed eight direct participants, members of the Black September group.
2. The Olympic village was surrounded by a mesh fence. Many athletes admitted that they were too lazy to bypass the fence to enter the territory through the gate, and they simply climbed over it. This is what the terrorists did at four in the morning on the night of September 5. At the fence they met a group of people returning from a party. Canadians, Americans and terrorists helped each other climb over the fence (athletes mistook eight strangers for fellow athletes from Eastern countries). A group of German postmen passed by, later recalling how the terrorists entered the territory. But at that moment everything looked quite harmless, and no one paid any attention to the terrorists.
3. Two of the group of terrorists previously reconnoitered the territory (according to some reports, they worked in the Olympic Village as auxiliary workers). In general, they knew where to go, and led the others to the building where the Israelis were housed in five apartments.
4. The front door was not locked. First, the terrorists broke down the door to the first apartment where the coaches lived. One of them, fight team coach Moshe Weinberg, tried to resist; he was shot in the cheek and forced to escort the invaders to the rest of the Israelis. Weinberg convinced the terrorists that one of the rooms (where the Israeli athletes actually were) was occupied by a team from another country, and took them to where the wrestlers and weightlifters lived, hoping that they could deal with the Palestinians. But the Israelis were taken by surprise - it was night, and the athletes were sleeping.
5. At first, the terrorists took 12 people hostage, but when the athletes were taken to the floor below to be reunited with the coaches, one of the wrestlers, Gadi Tzabari, was able to escape. He was helped by the wounded Weinsberg, who distracted the terrorists and paid for it with his life. His body was thrown out into the street at the entrance to the building - to intimidate and confirm the seriousness of intentions.
6. The rest were taken to one of the bedrooms, where weightlifter (and Six Day War veteran) Yosef Romano attempted to attack one of the terrorists. He was shot and left to bleed to death on the floor. There are nine hostages left.



Golda Meir

At the beginning of the sixth morning, the terrorists handed over to the police demands: release 234 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, as well as two German radicals - Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhoff.
The deadline was set for 9 am, after which the terrorists promised to shoot one hostage every hour.
Golda Meir, the then Prime Minister of Israel, took a firm position - the country does not enter into negotiations with terrorists.

"If we give in, no Israeli anywhere in the world will be safe," she said.

7. At that moment, the German police did not have any anti-terrorist unit at all, and the military could not take part in operations on the territory of the country in peacetime without violating the post-war Constitution.
   Therefore, the fate of the hostages was in the hands of the local authorities. Negotiations from the German side were conducted by the Bavarian Minister of the Interior Bruno Merck, his federal counterpart Hans-Dietrich Genscher and the head of the Munich police Manfred Schreiber.

   There were no psychologists or professional negotiators.

8. At six in the morning, the tragedy was reported to IOC President Avery Brundage. He ordered Don't stop games; The first event on September 5 started at 8:15 exactly on schedule.
   

   "The games must go on at all costs," he said.

   And what he was guided by when he made such a decision, I do not know. It's not the fans fighting!
   As a result, of course, the competition had to be stopped, but this happened only at 15:50, 10 hours after the management received news of the hostage-taking.

9. The negotiators offered the terrorists, sequentially and in parallel, several options for getting out of the conflict - first an unlimited amount of money, then - to replace the Israelis with themselves.
   The Palestinians refused, but several times shifted the terrible deadline - first at 12:00, then at 13:00, 15:00 and finally - at 17:00.
   
   
   
   Meanwhile, several plans for the release of the hostages, hastily developed by the anti-crisis committee, crashed into reality.
   • The idea of ​​putting a gas through the air conditioning system that would make the terrorists and hostages lose consciousness had to be abandoned because the gas could not be found.
   • The idea to send armed commandos disguised as cooks with food into the building failed when the terrorists said they would bring the food to the entrance themselves.
   • And the idea to take the apartment by storm failed because of the journalists. They filmed the preparations of the police and broadcast them live, while the terrorists watched TV in the apartment.
10. Soon the terrorists put forward a new demand - they wanted to go to Cairo by plane along with the hostages. The Egyptian government refused to accept the plane, but the German authorities decided to tell the terrorists that everything was settled - in order to lure them out of the building and free the hostages at the airfield.
    The terrorists allowed the negotiators to enter the apartment so that they could make sure that the Israelis were alive and ready to fly to Egypt. They mistakenly counted 4-5 people in the Palestinian team - and the anti-crisis headquarters proceeded precisely from these data, preparing the operation to free the hostages.
    It is strange that it did not occur to anyone to interrogate, for example, the same journalists and watch the tapes and recordings, but when eight terrorists came out of the captured building, this came as a surprise to the committee.
11. A Boeing of the Lufthansa airline was brought to the airfield with 12 armed police officers who pretended to be the crew. However, when the police saw two helicopters with terrorists and counted not 4-5, but as many as 8 opponents, they arbitrarily left their post on the plane. None of them were punished for it.
    In addition to these people, several German "snipers" participated in the operation to free the hostages - more precisely, they were policemen who liked to organize shooting competitions.
    They had no walkie-talkies, no helmets, no bulletproof vests, and their weapons, Heckler & Koch G3, were not equipped with telescopic or infrared sights and were no better suited to this task than themselves.
12. The terrorists, who arrived at the airfield along with the hostages in two helicopters, checked the plane standing on the airfield, saw that there was no crew in it, and realized that it was a trap.
    The "snipers" opened fire, but only two terrorists were able to hit.
    A shootout broke out in which a German policeman was killed. Shortly after midnight, the terrorists shot the bound hostages in both helicopters and threw a grenade into each of them. Everything was over.
    
    The police opened fire, accidentally hitting one of the helicopter pilots and seriously injuring the sniper. As a result of the skirmish, three terrorists were killed, three more survived.
13. Armored vehicles, which were supposed to arrive at the airport to support the police, got stuck in a traffic jam. Why they were not driven to the airport in advance, the Bavarian authorities could not explain.
14. Shortly after midnight, journalists in Munich were told that
    

    the operation was successful: the terrorists were shot, the hostages were released.

15. The same was handed over to the Israeli authorities, the families of the hostages, 56 members of the IOC (who disbanded the anti-crisis committee and went to bed). An hour later, a representative of the Olympics administration admitted that “the information transmitted earlier turned out to be too optimistic". By three o'clock in the morning the truth became known.
    The next morning, Schrider stated at a press conference:

    “The terrorists were too professional, too smart. The hostages were doomed to die unless we made the terrorists make a mistake. We did our best, but they weren't newbies."

16. On the Olympic Stadium a funeral ceremony was held, where there were 80,000 people and 3,000 athletes. The USSR national team did not appear at the ceremony (by decision of Moscow), and representatives of 10 Arab countries refused to lower their national flags to half-mast in memory of the dead Israelis.
17. September 6, 1972 when Olympic competitions resumed after a 24-hour break (the only one in the history of the Olympic Games), a group of spectators unfurled a banner on the podium with the inscription
    

    “Are the 17 dead already forgotten?”

    In a few seconds, the guards took away the banner and expelled these people from the stadium.

What happened next?

And then Israel took retribution into their own hands. Operations "Spring of Youth" and "Wrath of God" were called upon to hunt down and destroy everyone who was involved in the preparation of this and other terrorist attacks. One of the operations of "Spring" involved the future Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak, the future commander of the Northern Military District Amiram Levin and Yoni Netanyahu, brother of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Dear readers. I did not set myself the task of thoroughly covering this topic, and anyway it would not work out (too many questions, the answers to which are still stored in the secret archives of Germany, Israel and ...... the KGB of Russia).

Therefore, I deliberately did not spend my time and energy on this. And I decided to end like this in mid-sentence.

However, what I wanted to say, I already said. You, if you want, can speculate about the role of the special services of the GDR and the USSR, about the fact that, according to some reports, the hostages died from the bullets of the police and about why schools are named after terrorists ....

That's all. Thank you for reading to the end

For the indifferent. Support the project

Since its inception, the goal of the Olympic Games has always been peace, even wars have been stopped for the period of the competition. It was for a long time until the middle of the 20th century sports competitions did not begin to mix in politics, and then decided to use the resonance that always accompanied the Olympics for terror and bloodshed.

On September 5, 1972, for the first time in history, a terrorist act took place in the capital of the Olympics, right in the Olympic Village.

The Black September group, whose founder is considered to be Ali Hassan Salameh, decided in this way to achieve, in their opinion, the good goals that they set for themselves.

Good intentions...

The idea of ​​a terrorist attack at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich arose from the leaders of Black September, after the International Olympic Committee refused participation in the Games to the representatives of Palestine, they write "Arguments and Facts".

Eight Black September militants, armed with automatic weapons and grenades, were tasked with capturing members of the Israeli delegation in the Olympic Village, who were then planned to be exchanged for Palestinian militants in custody. The action was aimed at drawing attention to the state of Palestine.

The situation in Munich also contributed to the implementation of the terrorists' plans. The organizers of the Olympics tried to minimize the presence of police and intelligence agents at the venues of the Games and in the Olympic Village. For Munich, it was extremely important to demonstrate peacefulness - after all, the gloomy status of the "cradle of Nazism" hung over the city. Another good intention played a cruel joke.

knew about the attack

The situation, in which almost anyone could get into the Olympic village, alarmed the representatives of Israel. However, they received assurances from the organizers of complete safety. Apparently, the German authorities focused on preventing the actions of neo-Nazis, not attaching importance to warnings about the possibility of terrorist attacks by Palestinian groups that came from agents in the Middle East, but the FRG ignored these signals.

Yes, and declassified documents of the Israeli intelligence services indicate that the Israeli government knew in advance about the impending terrorist attacks, writes BBC.

From the reports of the head of the Service general security(SHABAK), declassified at the end of August 2012, it follows that between June and September 1972, the then Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, received daily detailed information about the intentions of Black September activists to attack Israeli facilities abroad.

Separate warnings concerned directly West Germany.

Attack at dawn

At 4:30 am on September 5, 8 Black September militants, carrying bags of weapons with them, easily overcame the fence of the Olympic Village, ending up on its territory. The atmosphere was so serene that several athletes, who saw people climbing over the fence, helped them carry their luggage.

Two of the group of terrorists previously reconnoitered the territory (according to some reports, they worked in the Olympic Village as auxiliary workers). In general, they knew where to go, and led the others to the building where the Israelis were housed in five apartments, Booknik writes.

The first person the terrorists encountered was the wrestling tournament judge Yosef Gutfreund. He raised the alarm, waking up his comrades, and tried to prevent the militants from entering the apartment. Judge Moshe Weinberg hurried to help him, who was wounded in a skirmish with terrorists. Threatened with weapons, Weinberg was forced to show other apartments where the Israelis lived. Weinberg went to the trick, taking the militants to where the Israeli wrestlers and weightlifters lived. He expected that they would be able to resist the terrorists, but the athletes were caught sleeping.

At first, the terrorists took 12 people hostage, but when the athletes were taken to the floor below to be reunited with the coaches, one of the wrestlers, Gadi Tzabari, was able to escape. He was helped by the wounded Weinsberg, who distracted the terrorists and paid for it with his life. His body was thrown out into the street at the entrance to the building - to intimidate and confirm the seriousness of intentions.

The rest were taken to one of the bedrooms, where weightlifter (and Six Day War veteran) Yosef Romano attempted to attack one of the terrorists. He was shot and left to bleed to death on the floor. As a result, 9 people were held hostage by the Black September militants: shooting coach Kehat Shor, athletics coach Amitsur Shapiro, fencing coach Andre Spitzer, judge for weightlifting Yakov Springer, wrestlers Eliezer Halfin and Mark Slavin, weightlifters David Berger and Zeev Friedman, and the previously mentioned Yosef Gutfreund.

Negotiation

The terrorists put forward conditions for the release of the hostages: before 12:00 on September 5, release and ensure safe passage to Egypt 234 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, two German radicals held in West German prisons, and 16 prisoners held in prisons in Western Europe. If the demands are not met, the terrorists promised to kill one athlete every hour.

The fact that the conditions of the terrorists could not be met in full became obvious almost immediately: the Israeli government, which fundamentally refused any negotiations with the terrorists, announced that it would not change its position this time either. In return, the Israelis offered the FRG the help of their special forces in conducting an operation to free the hostages.

The German government refused the proposal, trying to resolve the situation through negotiations. The militants were offered high-ranking German hostages in exchange for the Israelis, but were refused. The German negotiators managed to push back the deadline for fulfilling the requirements by several hours. At 18:00, the terrorists changed their minds, demanding a plane to fly with the hostages to Cairo. The German authorities agreed to provide the plane, although it was originally a trap - the Egyptian government did not agree to accept the terrorists. The German authorities planned to neutralize the militants at the NATO air base in Furstenfeldbruck, from where the plane was supposed to take off. Military helicopters "Iroquois" were supposed to deliver to the base of terrorists with hostages.

The failure of the operation

However, the operation to free the hostages was not prepared. In Germany at that time there were no special units to combat terrorists. As forces to neutralize the militants, 5 snipers who did not undergo special training for actions in such circumstances, as well as ordinary police units, were used.

"Snipers" were police officers who liked to organize shooting competitions. They had no walkie-talkies, no helmets, no bulletproof vests, and their weapons, Heckler & Koch G3, were not equipped with telescopic or infrared sights and were no better suited to this task than themselves.

In a Boeing 727 prepared for the terrorists, police officers dressed as pilots were waiting for them. However, a few minutes before the appearance of helicopters with militants and hostages, for some reason they left him.

Another fatal circumstance was that the German authorities during the negotiations failed to establish how many terrorists were holding hostages. The crisis headquarters proceeded from the fact that there were no more than 5 of them.

The terrorists, in whose hands were not only Israelis, but also 4 helicopter pilots, arrived at the base and found that the plane was empty. Realizing that they were trapped, the terrorists entered into battle with the police forces. The snipers failed to immediately destroy all the militants - 2 terrorists died from their shots and 2 more were injured. One of the German policemen was killed by return fire.

It seemed that the German side simply could not stand the nerves, that they wanted to end this whole story as soon as possible. They did not make the minimum investment to save people's lives. Even when the shooting started, no one moved anywhere, but simply sat in cover and fired. It was real chaos, ”said Zvi Zamir, then head of the Mossad, who flew to Munich.

According to him, this was the only chance, the German side did not even offer an alternative plan. Immediately, the head of the Mossad added that he had seen with his own eyes what a stupor, according to him, were the German security services.

Armored personnel carriers were called in to help the police. With their arrival, the militants panicked, opening fire on the hostages and then blowing up the helicopters with grenades.

Of the 8 terrorists, 5 were killed, three were taken alive. None of the Israeli hostages survived.

short memory

After the death of Israeli athletes, the Olympics was interrupted for a day, but the proposal to stop it did not find support at all.

A funeral ceremony was held at the Olympic stadium, where there were 80,000 people and 3,000 athletes. The USSR national team did not appear at the ceremony (by decision of Moscow), and representatives of 10 Arab countries refused to lower their national flags at half-mast in memory of the dead Israelis. Among those present at the ceremony was the cousin of the shot Moshe Weinberg, Carmel Eliash - right at the stadium he had a heart attack and died.

Among the dead Israelis were 2 former Soviet athletes. Eliezer Halfin, a 24-year-old native of Riga, has been wrestling since the age of 10, at the USSR Championship among juniors he reached 4th place. He emigrated to Israel in 1969, continued sports career and won the right to compete at the 1972 Olympics.

A native of Minsk Mark Slavin was only 18 years old. In 1971 he became the champion of the USSR among juniors in Greco-Roman wrestling and was considered one of the most promising young athletes. Mark immigrated to Israel with his family in the spring of 1972 and immediately got a place in the Olympic team of his new homeland. However, the brilliant future of the athlete was crossed out by a terrorist shot.

On September 6, 1972, when the Olympic competition resumed after a 24-hour break (the only one in the history of the Olympic Games), a group of spectators unfurled a banner on the podium with the inscription "17 dead already forgotten?".

In a few seconds, the guards took away the banner and expelled these people from the stadium.

Diplomacy

On September 6, 1972, at 3:10 am local time, a diplomatic telegram arrived in Israel: "All the hostages died."

A day later, at an emergency meeting of the government with the participation of Zvi Zamir, it was decided to create a special commission that would investigate the reasons for the failure to ensure the safety of Israeli athletes.

Golda Meir also asked the ministers not to shift all responsibility onto the German side, so as not to aggravate the already negative emotions that prevailed at that time in Israeli society.

In a special decree of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, also declassified among numerous documents, it was said that it was necessary to maintain the most correct behavior towards West Germany.

A few weeks later, Golda Meir was presented with a detailed report by a special commission led by Pinchas Kopel. The key recommendation is that in the future, never rely on the security measures of the host, no matter how convincing they may be.

Retribution

Already at the end of November 1972, the three surviving terrorists were released by the German authorities at the request of the militants who hijacked the plane of the German company Lufthansa.

When Germany freed the surviving terrorists, Israel took retaliation into its own hands. Operations "Spring of Youth" and "Wrath of God" were called upon to hunt down and destroy everyone who was involved in the preparation of this and other terrorist attacks. One of the Spring operations involved future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (disguised as a brunette), future commander of the Northern Military District Amiram Levin (disguised as a blonde) and Yoni Netanyahu, brother of Benjamin Netanyahu (not disguised).

According to the head of Black September, Abu Iyad, it was on the night when Operation Spring of Youth was carried out that he and Yasser Arafat were going to visit the head of military intelligence Fatah Muhammad Yousef Najaf (murdered in his own house) and miraculously escaped death.

During Operation Wrath of God, several civilians not related to terrorism were killed. This caused a flurry of criticism against Israel. The death of waiter Ahmed Buchika in Norway was especially often remembered - agents confused him with one of the leaders of Black September, Ali Hasan Salame.

For 20 years after the attack, the German authorities refused to release any official information about the tragedy. After the widow of the deceased athlete Andre Spitzer went on television in 1992 and demanded at least some information about the circumstances of her husband's death, an anonymous German source contacted her and handed over about 4,000 different documents related to the terrorist attack at the Olympics. The families of the hostages again sued Germany and, after a series of twists and turns, received compensation in the amount of 3 million euros. However, the country's interior minister did not fail to add that this was "not an admission of guilt, but only a humanitarian gesture."

The Munich Olympiad in 1972 became the jubilee: the twentieth in history modern sports. It was held in Germany from August 26 to September 10. Beyond the bright sports victories and records that every Olympic Games are remembered for, these were also remembered for the tragedy that claimed human lives. But first things first.

Sports success

Traditionally, the two teams that fought in most disciplines were the USA and the USSR. The 1972 Munich Olympiad was no exception. At the same time, it should be noted that representatives of other states also showed bright sports results.

The Munich Olympiad in 1972 was remembered especially for a large number of unique achievements. It set 100 Olympic and 46 world records.

One of the main stars of the competition was an American swimmer who won 7 gold medals. This record remained unbeaten until 2008, when Australian Michael Phelps conquered it.

Surprising success accompanied the Finnish athlete Lasse Viren, who won two gold medals at distances of 5 and 10 thousand meters. At the last, his advantage over his rivals was so great that, even if he fell in the middle of the distance, he was able not only to return to the race and win, but also to set a world record.

Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut became another triumphant of the games, performing the most difficult element, called the "Korbut loop".

basketball tournament

A real sensation occurred in basketball at the 1972 Munich Olympics. For the first time in history, the US team, also called the "dream team", failed to win gold medals.

The path to the final did not portend any special problems for the Americans. On the group stage they scored 7 victories in 7 matches in their group, the Brazilians who put up the most resistance to them lost with a score of 54:61.

The main rival of the US team was determined in the second qualifying group. It was the USSR national team, which also passed the preliminary tournament without losses.

In the semi-finals, the Americans were head and shoulders above the Italians, winning after the first half 33:16. The final score of the meeting - 68:38.

The semifinal confrontation with the Cubans was not so smooth for the USSR national team. By the break, Soviet basketball players were losing 35:36. And only a confident game in the second period allowed us to win with a score of 67:61.

Olympic final

The basketball final at the 1972 Munich Olympics is still remembered by many. The Americans were in the lead throughout the meeting, but their advantage was not overwhelming.

At the end of the game, Soviet athletes even managed to take the lead, 8 seconds before final whistle the score on the scoreboard was 49:48 in favor of the USSR national team. At that moment, Doug Collins intercepted Alexander Belov's pass, and Zurab Sakandelidze had to foul. The cold-blooded American converted both free throws, the score was 50:49 in favor of the United States.

Three seconds before the end of the meeting Main coach Soviet team Vladimir Kondrashin took a time out. When the game resumed, he gave a pass to Belov across the entire court, and he put the ball into the ring, earning 2 points.

Team standings

The team standings at the Munich Olympiad in 1972 was won by the USSR team. Soviet athletes won 50 gold, 27 silver and 22. The Americans in total turned out to be only 5 medals less, but they received only 33 gold medals.

In third place in the team standings was the GDR team, and in fourth place was the FRG, which was considered the host of the competition.

The top ten also included teams from Japan, Australia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Italy.

Attack at the Olympics

Many people remember these competitions as the fatal Munich Olympics in 1972, where a terrorist attack was committed.

Members of a Palestinian terrorist organization called "Black September" took an Israeli delegation hostage. At night, when everyone was sleeping, 8 members of the group, dressed in tracksuits, entered two apartments where the Israelis lived. 12 people were taken hostage, including weightlifters, wrestlers, coaches in wrestling, athletics, shooting, fencing, judges in weightlifting and classical wrestling.

Two people were already killed during the initial skirmish.

The death of the hostages

The terrorists demanded the release of 234 Palestinians who were imprisoned in Israel and ensured their unhindered passage to Egypt, as well as two German radicals imprisoned in Germany, plus 16 prisoners in various countries of Western Europe. Otherwise, they promised to kill one Israeli per hour.

The German authorities tried to deceive the Palestinians. They developed a plan to free the hostages at the airport where the terrorists had taken them. But everything fell apart when the police, disguised as crew members, decided to leave the plane on which the Palestinians were supposed to fly out of the country. Having guessed everything, the terrorists decided to deal with the hostages.

In two helicopters, 9 people were shot or blown up with a grenade. A German policeman and five Palestinian terrorists were killed in a firefight that ensued on the runway. Only three survived. Two of them were killed as a result of the Mossad operation. Presumably, one of the attackers may still be alive.

Everyone was shocked by the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, but despite this, the competition was decided to continue.