THERE was a time when we believed. A time when we regarded the Olympic Movement as something above politics and factionalism. A time when the Olympic village was seen as a metaphor for a future world of human solidarity. A time of innocence and optimism.
It all changed one day in September 1972. A day that began with eight Palestinian terrorists climbing the chain-link perimeter fence of the Olympic village in Munich and ended with 11 dead Israelis, five dead Palestinians, one dead German and the moral pretensions of the Olympic Movement shot to pieces. The sporting world would never be the same again.
As the crisis mounted on that fateful day and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) dithered, the blinkers fell from the eyes of the watching world. The terrorists had captured nine Israelis and held them at gunpoint in the apartment block at 31 Connollystrasse. Two Israeli athletes had been gunned down and lay in pools of blood, but still the IOC resisted a suspension of competition. It relented only at 3.50pm, nearly 11 hours after the start of the crisis, as calls from around the world became deafening.
Later, Zvi Zamir, the chief of Mossad (the Israeli secret service), who had flown to Munich to observe the response of the German authorities, said that the main objective of the IOC was to remove the problem from the Olympic compound so that the money-spinning Games could continue. “The Israeli team and its rescue was secondary to that,” he said. A movement that proclaimed amateurism had become obsessed by cash. At the memorial service the next day, Avery Brundage, the president of the IOC, failed even to refer to those that had died.
But the blame for the shameful response did not lie solely with the suits. Only 200 yards from the apartment building where Israeli athletes sat, tied up and trembling amid the stench of the corpse of one of their comrades, other athletes were sunbathing, joking and preparing for their events. Some seemed to regard the incident as of concern only in so far as it might impact upon the schedule for their own participation.
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The sanguineness of the athletes shocked those that had bought into the mythology of Olympic solidarity. Insiders were less surprised. Anyone who has lived in an Olympic village will testify that it is a moral vacuum filled only by the testosterone-scented ambition of its resident competitors.
The bloody and heart-rending denouement occurred at Fürstenfeldbruck airbase, a few miles outside Munich. After being knocked back in their demand for the release of more than 200 political prisoners, the terrorists had requested safe passage to an Arab country. They were duped into taking helicopters to a waiting jet at the nearby airbase, where snipers were stationed, ready for an ambush.
But the operation was hopelessly misconceived and disastrously executed. During the gunfight, five terrorists were killed and three taken into custody, but not before they had massacred all the hostages. One bystander in the control tower was killed in the crossfire. “The Games of Peace and Joy”, which the Germans had hoped would help to atone for the Holocaust, left the bungling German authorities with the blood of innocent Jews on their hands.
While the world was forced to confront the disturbing truth about the Olympic Movement, terrorist organisations were drawing a more sinister lesson. The Games were the chosen theatre of terror not for reasons of principle but as a sickening form of advertising. The Palestinian cause was thrust into the world spotlight for the first time. From that day to this, terrorists have chosen their atrocities with morbid reference to their PR value.
The most prosaic consequence for the Games has been the totalitarian security that now surrounds the village and venues, but other ramifications have been far more profound. The shameful response of the IOC obliterated the myth of its moral purity, something that has filtered progressively into the mentality of the athletes. The win-at-all-costs nihilism has now spawned a drug culture of such prevalence that no victory at the Games is unsullied by doubt.
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The political ramifications are being felt to this day. On October 29, 1972, a Lufthansa jet was hijacked and the German Government quickly acquiesced to demands made for the three terrorists being held for trial. When it saw that they would not face justice in Germany, the Israeli Government assigned secret hit squads to murder the perpetrators and their associates around the world.
This grisly legacy of the 20th Olympiad is examined in Steven Spielberg’s Munich, which was released yesterday. The movie has drawn criticism from both Palestinians and Jews, evidencing the gulf that still divides those wronged peoples. Resisting the temptation to veer into cliché, Spielberg offers a thoughtful examination of the moral ambiguities of the state-sanctioned retribution and the psychological turmoil endured by those who carried it out.
Does the end justify the means? Spielberg’s conclusion is candid and controversial. If the means are degrading, one is likely to lose sight of the ultimate end in a fog of guilt, moral confusion, paranoia and self-loathing. It is a lesson that applies as much to drug-taking athletes and corrupt officials as it does to governments and their paid assassins.
“It would have been wrong to stop the Games. There was a strong move from many of the athletes not to give in to the terrorists. We should never allow evil to triumph over good” — David Hemery, who won bronze in the 400 metres hurdles in Munich in 1968
“So many fatal mistakes, such negligence and such stupidity. They should have protected my husband and the other athletes and they didn’t. I just have the feeling that the world didn’t learn and doesn’t know how to react to international terror” — Ankie Spitzer, widow of Andre, the Israel fencing coach who died in the massacre
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“I’m proud of what I did at Munich because it helped the Palestinian cause enormously. Before Munich, the world had no idea about our struggle, but on that day, the name of Palestine was repeated all around the world” — Jamal al-Gashey, one of the Palestinian terrorists, speaking in 1999
SEPTEMBER 5, 1972 HOW THE CRISIS UNFOLDED
AT 4.30am on September 5, 1972, eight tracksuited terrorists from the Black September organisation scaled the fence of the Olympic village in Munich with the unsuspecting help of United States athletes. They entered the apartment block of the Israel team and, after scuffles in which two Israelis were killed, secured nine hostages in a third-floor bedroom.
After a day of negotiations, the perpetrators and their hostages were flown by helicopters to a local airfield, where snipers lay in wait. During the bungled rescue attempt, the terrorists murdered all the hostages. Five terrorists were also killed and the remaining three taken into custody.
The Israel team announced that they would leave the Games, followed by those from Egypt, Algeria and the Philippines and some members of the Netherlands and Norway teams. After a day of mourning, the Games continued.
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The bodies of the five terrorists killed at the airfield were flown to Libya, where they received a heroes’ welcome. A few weeks later, the three terrorists awaiting trial were released by the German authorities after the hijacking of a Lufthansa jet.
The Israeli Government responded by sending hit squads to assassinate the surviving terrorists and their comrades. The success of these missions is disputed. At least one perpetrator was still alive in 1999, when he gave an interview for a film documentary.