20. Olympic Summer Games
Olympic Medals in the games of 1972 in München
600 Medals in 23 Sports in 195 Events
The 1972 Summer Games, held from August 26. until 11.9. in Munich there were two strong opposites: triumph and tragedy! The triumph was won by the American Mark Spitz, who competed in seven competitions and won all in world record time. There has never been a performance like this and it was thought that it should be a record forever. It was not until 2008 in Beijing that Michael Phelps surpassed him with eight gold medals, also with seven world records.
The tragedy started on September 5th. Eight armed Arabs from the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September climbed over a fence and entered the Israeli team's quarters. In contrast to today, there were almost no precautions to ensure the safety of athletes and spectators in 1972. In addition, the Munich Games were deliberately designed to be cheerful in order to demonstrate Germany's change since 1936. That is why most police officers were in civilian and unarmed. Until then there had never been such a terrorist action. Therefore, the German police were completely overwhelmed with the situation and made serious mistakes. An Israeli athlete was killed right at the start of the attack, and another died shortly afterwards because no doctor was allowed to see him. Nine team members were taken hostage, some were able to escape through a window.
The area was closed off by the police. The terrorists demanded the release of 232 Palestinians and the Japanese terrorist Közö Okamoto from Israeli prisons and the two German terrorists Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. The Israeli government of Golda Meir immediately declared that they did not want to deviate from their principle of not releasing prisoners. Negotiations were held, ultimatums were extended, and the Olympic Games were interrupted at 15:38 after protests by numerous athletes. Since the terrorists were not turned off, they were able to watch the entire action on television and were kept informed of the current status. The images of the terrorist Issa wearing a mask and white hat went around the world. The German negotiators gave in to the terrorists. Around 10 p.m. the terrorists boarded a hostage with their hostages, shortly afterwards two helicopters which they flew to the Fürstenfeldbruck air base. There you should change to a Boing 727. However, this was not refueled, since the police intended to free the hostages. The helicopters were to land with the side doors facing the snipers, but landed with their snouts at the control tower. The snipers had no night vision goggles, the first shots hit a terrorist. A battle started. At 11:35 p.m. television reported a happy and well-done operation and that all the hostages had escaped and most of the terrorists were dead. In fact, shooting was still going on and hand grenades were also in use. It ended with the murder of all eleven Israeli athletes, the deaths of five hostage-takers and one police officer. Three assassins were arrested. The liberation campaign failed!
The games were interrupted for half a day after the death of the Israeli athletes. After a memorial service, IOC President Avery Brundage had them continued with the words "The games must go on" with the approval of the Israeli government. The surviving Israeli athletes and some from other countries left.
The assassins killed were transferred to Libya and buried there with military honors as heroes. The detained three terrorists were pressed free with a hijacking. Two of the three and at least 12 other suspects were tracked down and killed by Mossad in the following years. An assassin was able to hide in Africa.
After the Munich Games, nothing was the same as before. The feeling of security at major events can only be reasonably guaranteed with considerable financial, technical effort and a high level of personnel from the police and military.
The Olympic Park was the main venue for most sports. The most striking are the roofs of the Olympic Stadium and the Olympic Hall. To date, over 200 million visitors have visited the site at over 12,000 events.
The sailing competitions took place in Kiel, the competitions in the canoe slalom in Augsburg, football games also in Augsburg, Ingolstadt, Nuremberg, Passau and Regensburg.