One Day in September. The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge...

309 Pages·2011·3.43 MB·English

by  Simon Reeve

Praise for ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER
“A page turner … Goes somewhat further [than the documentary], offering
background notes on Jewish and Palestinian history and the Black September
group, and Reeve fleshes out the long aftermath of the affair,in which Israel’s
Mossad agents took revenge over a period lasting almost twenty years. …
Highly skilled and detailed.”
—The New Yorker
“The strength of Reeve’s book is that it starts from the beginning. It details not
only the crisis itself, but also the historical background that led to the crisis. It is
an important book, a thorough primer on the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian
standoff.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Simon Reeve pulls off another master stroke.”
— Village Voice
“[A] controversial, engrossing new account of the slaughter. The governments of
Israel and Germany have criticized Reeve’s book for exposing state secrets; he
may have done so, but he avoids passing judgement on any one group. Instead,
he tries to show why the countries and people involved felt compelled to act the
way they did, even when their actions led to horrible consequences.”
—Time Out New York
“Powerful … recounts in horrifying detail the tragedy that claimed the lives of
11 Israelis. One Day in September describes the savagery of the Black
September Palestinian terrorists and the monumental ineptitude of the German
forces that tried to rescue the hostages at Fürstenfeldbruck airfield.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Written with all the pace of a thriller, this is a genuinely moving account of one
of the most tragic, and shameful, episodes of recent history. Excellent.”
—Birmingham Post
“Fascinating … a gripping account which reads like a thriller. Reeve is a very
thorough investigator, and the book encompasses German archives, news
programs, quotes, decisions, and international reactions.”
—Jewish Book World
“A gripping, often moving, account of the bloodiest sports day on record.”
—Jewish Chronicle
“Simon Reeve captures the essence of the slaughter. … One Day in September is
the inside story told by those who were present … .The book is easy to read,
even with obscure political and religious references.”
—Daytona Beach News-Journal
“A splendid, disturbing and gripping account of these events and the world’s
reactions … Stands among the best of its kind.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A comprehensive and unsettling account
… Reeve’s book is an important one since it deals with many issues—terrorism,
anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, and Middle East unrest.”
—Library Journal
“An exhaustively-researched account of the hostage-taking drama which
deteriorated into an unmitigated nightmare.”
—Canadian Jewish News
“Brilliant investigation … a master class in investigative journalism.”
—International Herald Tribune
“This astonishing record of the massacre at the Munich Olympics should be
compulsory reading. … I read in one sitting the gripping narrative.”
—Daily Mail,London
“His account is rounded and … gripping. … A very moving testimony.”
—Financial Times
“Explosive.”
—Observer,London
“In this gripping and very moving account based on newly released documents,
Reeve shows how official incompetence and indifference sealed the fate of the
hostages, all of whom died in a botched rescue attempt.”
—Scotland on Sunday
“A compelling investigation … This book is both a journey back in time to an
event many people know about—but that very few know enough about—and an
excellent insight into why these terrible events happened and how the
subsequent tit for tat revenge operations affected both sides in the conflict.”
—Sunday Business Post, Ireland
ONE DAY IN
SEPTEMBER
THE FULL STORY OF THE 1972 MUNICH OLYMPICS
MASSACRE AND THE ISRAELI REVENGE OPERATION
“WRATH OF GOD”
WITH A NEW EPILOGUE
SIMON REEVE
ARCADE PUBLISHING • NEW YORK
Copyright © 2000, 2011 by Simon Reeve
Epilogue copyright © 2006, 2011 by Simon Reeve All Rights Reserved. No part
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN: 978-1-61145-035-4
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Illustrations
Introduction
1 The Takeover
2 Black September
3 Negotiations
4 Operation Sunshine
5 The Deception
6 Fürstenfeldbruck
7 Champagne Celebrations
8 The Mourning Begins
9 Operation Wrath of God
10 Operation Spring of Youth
11 The Red Prince
12 The Cover-up
13 The Survivors
Epilogue
Notes
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Illustrations
1 The 1972 Israeli Olympic Squad (photo Rosa Springer)
2 Yossef Gutfreund, Israeli wrestling referee
3 Andre Spitzer, Israeli fencing coach, and his bride Ankie (photo Ankie
Rekhess-Spitzer) 4 Andre Spitzer and his baby Anouk (photo Ankie
Rekhess-Spitzer) 5 Jacov Springer (photo Rosa Springer)
6 Yossef Romano, Israeli weightlifter (photo Ilana Romano)
7 Jacov Springer and Yossef Romano, weightlifting judge and weightlifter
(photo Rosa Springer) 8 The Olympic Village, constructed to house more
than ten thousand athletes 9 The Star of David is carried into the Olympic
Stadium during the opening ceremony of the Munich Games 10 Israeli
delegates visit a performance of Fiddler on the Roof in Munich (photo Rosa
Springer) 11 The Israeli wrestling team: Gad Tsabari, Mark Slavin, Moshe
Weinberg (coach), and Eliezer Halfin (photo Gad Tsabari) 12 Nahr-el-Bared
camp near Lebanon, home to six thousand Palestinian refugees in 1952
(United Nations Relief and Workers Agency, photo Myrtle Winter-
Chaumeny) 13 Jalazone camp on the West Bank in the early 1950s (United
Nations Relief and Workers Agency) 14 Jamal Al-Gashey, aged nineteen
15 Mohammed Safady, photographed after his capture by the Munich police
16 Adnan Al-Gashey, photographed after his safe return
17 Afif Ahmed Hamid
18 Khalid Jawad
19 The entrance to the Israeli building by which the terrorists entered (photo
Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH) 20 German police and border guards
arriving at the Olympic Village 21 Connollystrasse, the pedestrianized street
in the Olympic Village in which the Israeli delegation was housed 22 Issa,
the commander of the Black September attackers, during the daylong siege
23 The terrorist leader Issa begins dictating terms to Manfred Schreiber,
Hans-Dietrich Genscher, and Village mayor Walther Tröger 24 Senior
German officials in Connollystrasse after negotiations with the terrorists
25 Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Issa, and Walther Tröger walk along a road
under the Israeli delegation building during the evening of the siege 26 &
27 The aftermath of the firefight at Fürstenfeldbruck airfield outside Munich
which ended with the deaths of all the hostages 28 Fürstenfeldbruck airfield
at dawn after the battle
29 The body of terrorist Khalid Jawad at Fürstenfeldbruck airfield 30 Anton
Fliegerbauer, in charge of a squad of police officers at Fürstenfeldbruck
airfield 31 Zvi Zamir, head of Israeli intelligence in 1972
32 General Aharon Yariv, commander of the Israeli revenge missions, with
Haim Bar-Lev, former Israeli Chief of Staff, David “Dado” Elazar, Ehud
Barak, and Muki Betser (photo Muki Betser, from Secret Soldier, Pocket
Books/Simon & Schuster, 1997) 33 Abu Daoud, mastermind of the 1972
Munich Olympics massacre, after being shot at close range in Warsaw,
Poland,August 2, 1981
34 The widow of Adnan Al-Gashey (photo Kevin MacDonald)
35 The brother and parents of Afif Hamid (photo Kevin MacDonald) 36 Anouk
Spitzer-Rekhess at the grave of her father Andre (photo Passion Pictures)
Photographs are from the author’s collection unless otherwise credited.
Introduction
They were billed as “The Games of Peace and Joy.” The 1972 Olympic Games,
held in the southern German city of Munich, were to be the biggest and most
expensive ever mounted, with more athletes representing more countries than at
any previous sporting event.
At 3:00 P.M. on August 26, 1972, the world watched as ranks of tall Greek
athletes marched into the packed Olympic Stadium, in the north of the city, to
bathe in warm sunshine and thunderous applause.
The arrival in the stadium of the Greek team, representing the nation that
invented the ancient Games, signalled the start of a magnificent opening
ceremony for the XXth Olympiad.Teams from the rest of the world emerged
from the stadium tunnel to the sound of drums and cymbals and followed the
Greeks in alphabetical order. Spectators roared their approval, and banners and
national flags fluttered in the light breeze. Behind the Egyptian team
(“Aegypten” in German) came those from Afghanistan, Albania, Brazil: the
cream of the world’s athletes assembling to compete in tests of physical strength,
agility, and skill.
As most of the 10,490 athletes present at the Games milled around the
stadium, jostling for a better view, groups of whip-cracking Bavarian folk-
dancers entertained the crowds. Next, 5,000 doves were released into the blue
skies over Munich. Sixty men wearing Bavarian national costume fired antique
pistols into the sky, signalling the arrival of the hallowed Olympic flame carried
from the Peloponnese, the site of the ancient Olympics.With the Munich beacon
lit,the Games could begin.
The opening ceremony was a moving experience for the West German officials
who had fought tenaciously to bring the Games to Munich. Hans-Jochen Vogel,
the mayor of Munich from the 1960s until just a few weeks before the Games
began, was bursting with pride during the ceremony.“It was emotional,” he
said,“in a good sense.”1
Bavarian officials hoped the event would confirm Germany’s rehabilitation
as a civilized society, expunging memories of the Second World War and the
infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics, which Hitler used to glorify Nazi