Olympic Massacre: One Day In September

The_MC · September 13, 2012

Watched a documentary on the BBC last night about the 'Munich Massacre'. It was well before my time and I'll be honest I'd never even heard of it. For those who don't know a group of Palestinian terrorists went into the 1972 Munich Olympic village and took members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage, eventually killing all 11.

iplayer link to the oscar-winning documentary -> http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0074ksy/Storyville_Olympic_Massacre_One_Day_In_September/

What really struck me was the total ineptitude of the police and officials throughout the incident. There was a lack of even the basics like personal radios between snipers, inadequate weapons and training, police set to ambush the terrorists abandoned their posts, snipers were set up in line of fire of each other. The police even prepared a raid live on TV while the terrorists had TVs showing the coverage in the rooms. A month or so later terrorists hijacked a plane and demanded the surviving terrorists be extradited to Libya which the German authorities did immediately, in an event suggested to be orchestrated by the Germans.

For 20 years the authorities refused to release information, hid thousands of documents and did not accept responsibility for the results. There are even reports that the authorites were tipped off by an informant 3 weeks before the incident and has since tried to cover-up their mishandling of the whole affair.

Maybe it's just the parellels of injustice and negligence from yesterday but it really struck a chord with me.

New York Red · September 14, 2012

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