‘The hostages are dead’: How Munich Olympics massacre was reported 50 years ago
False reports initially said Israeli athletes had been freed; but then reporters ran into Munich’s distraught mayor and learned of the botched police operation
AFP — September 5, 1972: Palestinian gunmen storm the Olympic Village at the Summer Games in Munich and take a group of Israeli athletes hostage, triggering a standoff that ends in a massacre.
AFP was the first news outlet to report on the tragic climax of the attack that shocked the world 50 years ago. Here’s a look at how it unfolded.
‘Games of Peace and Joy’
It was the 11th day of the Munich Olympic Games, dubbed the “Games of Peace and Joy” by organizers eager to erase memories of the 1936 Games in Berlin, presided over by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
At dawn, eight men wearing tracksuits and carrying sports bags scaled the fence of the Olympic village enclosure and head for the address 31 Connollystrasse, where the Israeli delegation is staying.
Those running into them thought they were athletes returning from a night on the town.
Masked in black scarves and touting handguns, they burst into the Israelis’ apartments.
Two men who tried to stop them were killed: wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Yossef Romano. Some escaped, but nine other Israelis were taken hostage, hands bound behind their backs.
Two cleaning ladies working nearby raised the alarm after hearing gunfire.
“It was between 4 and 5 a.m…. when I opened my door I saw in the stairwell a man in plain clothes wearing a cap and brandishing a machine gun,” a witness living in the same building as the Israelis told AFP.
Black September
“Shortly after 7:00 a.m. GMT (8 a.m. local time) nearly 3,000 police officers are deployed in and around the Olympic Village. Elite marksmen arrive and surround the building,” AFP reporters at the scene wrote.
In the course of the morning, the operation was claimed by the radical Black September terrorist group, already notorious for the assassination of Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi Tal and the hijacking of a Belgian airliner a few months before the Olympics.
They demanded the release of more than 200 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel — a demand refused outright by the government of Golda Meir.
In negotiations with the West German authorities, they threatened to execute the hostages if their demands were not met.
Meanwhile, several thousand people congregated around the Olympic Village to wait for news of the hostages.
The competitions continued as normal from early morning. At 3:50 p.m. local time, authorities halted the Games for 34 hours — a first in Olympic history.
Gunbattle at airport
After 11 hours of talks, the German negotiators managed in the evening to convince the gunmen to leave for Cairo with the hostages onboard a plane placed at their disposal.
At around 10 p.m., the eight terrorists and their nine hostages were taken by helicopter from the Olympic Village to the Fuerstenfeldbruck military air base, where German police had decided to mount a rescue operation.
Five police snipers opened fire on the group soon after they landed.
A gun battle erupted, in which a Palestinian fighter threw a hand grenade into a helicopter, which exploded.
Toward midnight the West German government spokesman Conrad Ahlers said the rescue operation had been a success and the hostages freed.
AFP journalists at the scene, however, reported that “a battle is raging. Machinegun fire can be sporadically heard, isolated gunfire also, no doubt from the elite marksmen.”
Bloodbath
The police called a news conference in Munich, but one of AFP’s reporters at the airport, Charles Bietry, was skeptical, suspecting a diversionary tactic. He decided to remain at the scene with two colleagues from French newspapers.
He later reported seeing a man in a suit and tie emerge from the airport, his face stained with tears.
“Everything went wrong, all the hostages are dead,” the man, who turned out to be the mayor of Munich, Georg Kronawitter, said in German.
Bietry persuaded a couple to take him by car to a phone box from where he called his editors.
“The worst thing was hearing on the radio the chants of joy coming from Israel,” where they believed the hostages had been saved, he said.
At 2:16 a.m. Munich time, AFP announced to its clients around the world that “all the hostages have been killed.”
German authorities only confirmed the fact 56 minutes later.
A total of 11 Israelis were killed, including the two members of the team killed at the outset, along with a German policeman.
Five hostage-takers were also killed and three were arrested.
As controversy raged over the botched police operation, the International Olympic Committee announced on the morning of September 6 that the Games would continue.
“I am sure the public will agree that we cannot allow a handful of terrorists to destroy this nucleus of international cooperation and goodwill we have in the Olympic movement,” its president Avery Brundage said. “The Games must go on.”
