A morning like any other in Munich...
a city where tradition and modernity exist happily side by side.
This summer our beautiful city plays host...
to the 20th Olympic Games.
There, in the center of the future Olympic site, is the Olympic tower.
Next to it, the Olympic arena.
For many visitors, Munich is a kind of German paradise.
We're sure that you'll agree.
Well, nobody could foresee what later on happened.
From the wires of the APand UPI.
Good afternoon. This is Paul Mandel reporting.
Another deadline has come and gone-
They had their hands tied in front of them, their hands were tied like that.
Quite a frightening experience.
It wasn't any James Bond,; it was the real thing.
- I just want to know what happened. - The Games must go on.
The deadline appears, to us, to be less than one minute away.
- Unbelievable. - Spitz is a Jew, and it was feared...
an attempt might be made to seize him.
Behind them was an Arab guerilla with some kind of weapon in his hand.
All seems to be-
It was only a year and three months that I was married to Andre Spitzer...
but it made such an enormous impression on me...
sometimes it looks like a lifetime.
I went fencing, and he happened to be my fencing master.
I didn't know he was from Israel at all.
He spoke Dutch, but with a slight accent...
so I thought he maybe is from Eastern Europe or something.
Ankie Spitzer
He had something about him which really appealed to me.
He was very much at peace with himself...
and also with the people around him.
It was very attractive to me because...
I was not so at peace with everyone and everybody...
and certainly not with myself.
Being the person that he was, it was hard not to fall in love with him.
I am a member of a Palestinian family...
which fled our village in Galilee from Zionist gangs in 1948.
As refugees, my family moved from camp to camp...
before finally ending up at the Chatila camp in Beirut.
When I was growing up, I thought there was no future for us...
unless we returned to Palestine.
If we didn't return, I would spend my whole life...
as a refugee deprived of any kind of human rights.
So I joined the liberation movement...
and was given a gun and trained to use it.
For the first time in my life I felt inspired, I felt truly Palestinian...
that I wasn't just a wretched refugee...
but a revolutionary fighting for a cause.
I joined the revolution since 1967.
- Which revolution? - The Palestinian revolution.
It has affected the course of the rest of my life.
You have only to look at the way I have to do this interview...
so many years later, still in hiding.
We lived in the northern border between Lebanon and Israel...
and it was way out in nowhere.
They decided to have their fencing academy there.
He was going from town to town, from village to village...
to try to teach the youngsters...
through the art of fencing, to have respect for each other...
because fencing is an aggressive sport.
You have a weapon in your hand. You're going to attack somebody.
If you attack him right, then you score a point.
But he tried to teach the youngsters...
how to channel that aggression...
into respect for your opponent.
It was very tough living there, but I remember that year we lived there...
as the most beautiful and most wonderful year of my life.
I did a few tours of duty in training camps in Lebanon...
and then the leadership sent us to Libya for special training.
The training was hard and advanced.
We were there for about one month.
It seemed to me we were getting special training.
We began to get a feeling that something big was underway.
He dreamt always to be once at the Olympics.
Years before, before I knew him...
he said that he was thinking about to get to the Olympics once...
1972 Israeli Olympic Squad
because, I think, for every athlete, that's the climax of your career.
For Andre and the rest of the Israeli team...
the 1972 Olympics held a particular significance...
because they were held in Munich, Germany, the birthplace of Nazism.
There was a feeling that this was a huge event for the Israeli team...
to be coming and attending...
and therefore their presence in the Olympic village...
certainly their presence in the opening ceremony...
when their team marched under the flag of the Star of David...
were very emotional moments.
The Germans saw the games as an opportunity to erase...
the negative memories many still had of the 1936 Berlin Olympics...
which had been misused by the Nazis for propaganda purposes.
Twenty-seven years after the end of the war...
Munich was the ideal opportunity to show the world...
the new democratic face of Germany.
The friendliness was in overdrive.
It was a massive attempt, and it hit you straightaway...
Gerald Seymour ITN News Reporter
to appear open and modern and shorn of their past.
To help promote this new non-militaristic image of Germany...
security was kept deliberately lax.
Police were banned from the Olympic sites...
and in their place were 2,000 unarmed security officers...
clad in specially designed outfits.
Jacov Springer Israeli Weightlifting Coach
But for some of the Israeli team, it was not so easy to erase the past.
My father, he was five times in the Olympic Games.
Five times is a special thing.
He was born in Poland in 1921.
His father was from Germany originally...
and thought that because he's speaking German, nothing would happen to them.
Alex Springer
So all the family stayed in Poland during the war...
but my father ran to Russia.
He didn't want to stay because he was afraid something will happen to them.
And all the family...
his brothers, sisters and his parents...
were killed in Poland.
He was the only one who survived.
Thirty-six years after the Nazi Olympics...
Dachau, the first of the concentration camps, was chosen as the site...
for an Olympic memorial service.
The Israeli team came to the service...
along with competitors from most European countries.
Dachau is just six miles from the Munich stadium.
I think it was very difficult for him with the memories...
of his family and what the Germans did to them.
I think he felt this.
But maybe it was also for him to-
to show something to the Germans...
that " Here I am, coming back to the Olympic Games...
and you-
you couldn't really destroy me. "
Spitz is still holding them off. He's got a half a meter lead.
Down on the near side is- But Spitz is gonna go in. Spitz wins the gold medal!
Mark Spitz, USA.
And that is the whistle anyway, and the United States...
have kept their unbeaten record unless-
The referee says there's three more seconds to play.
The only way they're going to score is by going for a long shot.
And they got it! My goodness, I don't believe it.
I do not believe it. The Russians have got the gold.
Victory for the USSR for the first time ever.
Absolutely fantastic. She loves every moment of it!
Myself and two others traveled from Libya to Germany...
two days before the operation.
We went to a hotel which the leadership had given us the address of.
There we met up with the rest of the team-
another group of three and two leaders who had been in Munich for some time.
The following day my friend and I...
went to a couple of volleyball games at the Olympic Park.
We still had not been told what the target of our operation was to be.
After one of the competitions he said, "Hey, there is the Lebanese team.
I'm going over to say hello to them. "
I, coming from Holland, said, 'Are you out of your mind?"
They are from Lebanon.
Israel was in a state of war with Lebanon.
He said, 'Ankie, that's exactly what the Olympics are all about.
Here I can go to them and talk to them. That's what the Olympics are about. "
So he went over and he asked how were your results...
and I'm from Israel, and how did it go?
To my big amazement, I saw that the people responded...
and they shook hands with him and they talked to him...
Ankie Spitzer
and they asked him about his results.
I'll never forget when he turned around and came back towards me...
with this huge smile on his face and said...
"You see? This is what I was dreaming about. "
After ten days, Andre's fencers finished their competitions...
and he and Ankie traveled to Holland to spend time with their baby Anouk...
whom they had left in the care of Ankie's parents.
The next morning at 10:00, he had to take the train to Munich.
He woke up a little bit late.
We got to the train station, and the train had left.
I was desperate because I thought he's going to get in trouble...
when he gets back to Munich because they're waiting for him there.
He said, "Well, another day with you. "
I said, " No, let's try the other train station about 30 miles onwards. "
So we raced to the next station...
and in Eindhoven in Holland, that's where he jumped on the train.
Without a ticket. The train was already in the station.
I still remember me running next to the train...
and he left.
And that was the last time I saw him.
On the night of September 4, as Andre arrived back at the village...
the Israeli delegation was enjoying a night out at the theater...
watching Fiddler on the Roof.
They returned to the village at midnight.
The night of the operation...
we went to the restaurant in the railway station for dinner.
There we met with the chief of the organization...
who for the first time told us what the target of our operation was.
I felt very proud...
that for the first time I was able to confront the Israelis.
Our passports and belongings were taken from us...
so there wouldn't be any clue as to who we were.
Then we all went to the village.
As we were climbing over the fence...
we ran into a group of American athletes...
who were sneaking in after a night out.
I remember they were drunk.
The funny thing is that we actually helped each other to climb over.
I held my hand out...
and we lifted one of them into the village.
We said thank you and good-bye.
With the help of members of the East German team...
the terrorist leaders had entered and studied the Olympic village...
in the days prior to the attack.
Now they headed straight for the Israeli men's quarters.
We headed towards the building.
Each of us was carrying a sports bag...
filled with weapons, hidden under clothes.
Each of us was given a specific task.
My job was to guard the outside of the building while the others went in.
The Israelis were in five apartments.
Apartment one housed the team coaches.
The terrorists went there first.
As they broke in, wrestling coach Moshe Weinberger attempted to stop them...
but he was shot and wounded.
The leader went into the first room...
but didn't realize there was an Israeli behind him.
He was attacked full force and his weapon was taken.
Another member of our group panicked and shot the Israeli.
The terrorists demanded that Weinberger, already heavily wounded...
show them where the rest of the Israelis were.
At gunpoint, he led them past apartment two...
which housed the field athletes...
to apartment three, which contained the weight lifters and wrestlers.
Weinberger calculated that they might stand some chance...
of overpowering the terrorists.
I got out of bed and went outside...
only to find myself standing in front of a terrorist...
wearing a balaclava hood and a yellow sweater.
The terrorists were already holding all five of Gad Zabari's roommates.
Now, weight lifter David Berger, suggests they attack the terrorists...
saying, "We have nothing to lose. "
But a gunman understands and jabs a machine gun into Zabari's waist...
ordering him towards the exit and back to apartment number one.
And that's how I came to be the first in line.
My friends are behind me with their heads bowed.
I feel in a bit of a daze when suddenly I see...
another terrorist ahead of me, wearing a balaclava hood.
Suddenly the reality of what's happening hits me.
As I get closer, he orders me in this direction.
But as he's giving me the order...
I push his Kalashnikov aside and run.
He shoots two or three rounds at me.
But I don't think about the shots, I just run.
I run for about 70 meters...
and then jump over the village fence and into the first building I see.
As Gad Zabari ran away...
the already wounded Moshe Weinberger heroically jumped on the terrorists.
He was shot and killed.
We had no orders to kill.
We were forced to only when things went wrong.
I heard some shots, so I walked up to the window...
and then I realized Moshe Weinberger...
has been thrown out of the door...
to the pavement.
He was naked, without anything on him.
Shmuel Lalkin Head Israeli Team
And I saw that he was dead because blood was pooling around him.
This was when I thought that we were attacked by somebody.
This is ABC.
I'm Jim McKay speaking to you live, at this moment...
from ABC headquarters, Munich, West Germany.
The Olympics of serenity have become the one thing...
the Germans didn't want them to be: the Olympics of terror.
I had the first telephone call from the head of the team...
Dan Shilon Israeli Television
this morning at 6:00, and he told me that the Arabs are there...
and one of the Israelis was killed.
His name is Moshe Weinberger...
Israeli Journalist
and I saw his body carried out after one hour into an ambulance.
That body was smashed...
which means he was killed by a machine gun...
not by a regular gun.
I was sleeping.
My parents came to wake me up, and they said...
"We just heard on the radio that there was an attack...
at the Israeli quarters of the Olympic village.
They killed one of the Israelis, and they say it was the boxing coach. "
I know there was no boxing coach, so I jumped out of my bed.
I thought, if it is not the boxing coach, then what coach is it?
Maybe it's Andre.
How many Israelis are they holding as hostage in the block?
Around 16, 17.
Thirteen members of the Israeli team as hostages.
There are nine hostages.
Nobody could tell me if Andre was a part of this...
if he was one of the hostages, if he escaped.
Nobody could tell me.
When I arrived on the scene, I met a young female police officer...
who was talking to a man dressed in a white suit.
He was Issa, the terrorists' spokesman.
Issa expressed his demands in a staccato manner.
He was very cool and very determined...
clearly fanatical in his convictions.
The terrorists handed a communique to the police.
In it they demanded the release of more than 200 revolutionary prisoners...
from jails in Israel, Germany and elsewhere.
If this was not done by 12:00 noon...
the hostages would be executed.
And you have until 12:00?
They said that at 12:00 they will shoot.
I certainly took it seriously because I was standing there on gunpoint...
where always two or three machine guns pointed on me...
and the leader of the terrorists had a hand grenade in his hands.
Walther Tröger Mayor of Olympic Village
So I had to take it seriously.
When he was discussing with me, he always had that hand grenade.
Somebody's going inside.
The negotiators knew nothing about the terrorists...
except what they saw.
Three were visible at any one time.
Issa, the leader, his face blackened with shoe polish.
Tony, second in command, usually at the first floor window wearing a cowboy hat.
And another man guarding the balcony door.
Issa told the negotiators...
that a second Israeli had been shot and killed...
while trying to overpower his captors.
The terrorist leader refused to identify the dead man...
or allow his body to be removed...
until all the political prisoners on the communique had been released.
My camera crew and I ended up, for all of that long day...
looking down into this little walkway...
very quiet.
Gerald Seymour ITN News Reporter
And in a sense, you were looking down into the cockpit of world events.
We opened up all the radios and television stations...
to get some information.
Then at 9:00 in the morning, I found out that Andre is one of the hostages.
The men in the room: Josef Romano is 31 years old...
an Israeli weight lifter in the middleweight class...
David Berger, 26 years old, in the light heavyweight class...
Ziev Friedman, another 26-year-old weight lifter in the bantamweight class.
These strong men sitting helpless there at the point of submachine guns.
Eliezer Halfin, 24 years old, a freestyle wrestler, is in that room.
Mark Slavin is 18 years old, a Greco-Roman wrestler.
The others are officials, Joseph Gotfriend, Jacob Springer...
Andre Spitzer, Kehat Shorr and Amitzur Shapiro.
We have a situation.
In Israel, the population awoke to the shocking news.
Demand the release of some 200 Arabs now being held in Israel.
The Israeli government immediately made it clear...
that in line with their policy, no deals would be struck with the terrorists.
Golda Meir Prime Minister of Israel 1969-1974
If we should give in, then no Israeli anywhere in the world...
can feel that his life is safe.
It's blackmail of the worst kind.
At this time I was the aide-de-camp of Minister Genscher.
And the minister was shocked, of course.
General Ulrich K. Wegener
He wanted to see the Minister of Interior of Bavaria...
because he was responsible.
We are a federal state.
So they talked to each other and they decided to go to the Olympic village.
In terms of the politicians and the VIPs who came...
they looked to me as if they held none of the cards...
as if they basically did not understand, one, how to respond...
and two, the mind-set of the people they were dealing with.
The Palestinians that one saw, there was that feeling...
that they were in charge and that they were dictating.
When it became clear to me that negotiation was fruitless...
I said to the leader:
"You know our recent history...
what was done to the Jews by the Germans.
You must understand, this makes the situation here particularly difficult. "
I said "Why don't you let them go and take me instead?"
But he refused.
Acting on behalf of both the Federal and Bavarian governments...
I offered the terrorists an unlimited sum of money...
in exchange for the hostages.
This offer was rejected.
They said, "It is not a question of either money or substitute hostages...
but only of the 200 prisoners. "
Peter Jennings is inside the village...
and is observing this with the naked eye.
Jim, I am almost directly...
over the Israeli building.
It will be a famous number before long. It's building 31.
It's on Connollystrasse.
It does appear to be confirmed-
though anything confirmed today is difficult-
that these guerrillas are from one of the very extreme left-wing groups...
a group called Black September.
Continuous delegations go forward.
People here are waiting, but unquestionably...
the mood becoming more tense.
They had set a deadline of noon...
which is just an hour and 15 minutes away...
saying that they were going to kill all of their hostages at that time.
There were other people involved.
A friend of mine was a member of the Arab Council...
and he also came to negotiate.
My overall impression was that they really believed...
in the possibility of their demands being met.
In my opinion, from a political point of view, this was 99.9% unlikely.
I thought and still think that the Israelis would rather have let...
their whole athletic team be killed than let this happen.
I tried to explain these things to Issa...
but he was very skeptical and dismissive of me.
Israel remained adamant that no deal could be struck with the terrorists...
but to buy time, the negotiators lied to Issa...
saying they were still awaiting a definitive answer from Jerusalem.
They begged the terrorist leader to postpone his noon deadline.
Issa responded only with a new threat-
one Israeli would be shot publicly every hour...
that their demands remained unmet.
We were, I think, a little bit naive. Also the minister.
The German government at this time thought...
they could negotiate with terrorists.
They were thinking that they could talk to them...
and convince them to let the Israelis go.
But there was no way.
So the time to get close to noon and to think that...
"It's almost noon. Are they going to kill him now?"
It was like dying a little bit.
A matter of seconds before the deadly ultimatum was reached...
the negotiators persuaded Issa to agree to an extension.
The deadline now is 5:00 Munich time, noon in New York.
It is now 1:25 here in Munich.
It's about three and a half hours to the next deadline.
Israeli Olympic Committee in Jerusalem has now named the second dead man...
as being Josef Romano, a 31-year-old middleweight weight lifter.
I can't believe it for one second that my husband has gone.
Yesterday I received a cassette...
where he said, " Happy Jewish New Year" to everyone...
his brothers, the children-
A lot of people I meet in the street or at work...
Schlomit Romano
when they hear about me being the daughter...
of Josef Romano from München...
they say, "Oh, you know, when I was little...
I admired your father, and he was like this and that. "
All the time I hear new stories and new things...
about my father.
That's how I know him.
Of course, not enough.
Like, I can't imagine his voice.
I can't imagine him calling my name.
They let Josef Romano die, bleeding to death, lying between all his friends...
as a warning if anybody tried to grab a weapon from one of the Palestinians...
this would be their lot.
Nobody has the right to do that.
In a way, I didn't like Issa because of what he was doing...
but I could have liked him when I met him elsewhere.
He was not violent. I would have even trusted him in his word.
Not his compatriots and partners.
Walther Tröger Mayor of Olympic Village
They were like- What do we say in German?
Galgenvogel. Gallow birds.
But Issa was different from them.
We were not only negotiating on how to handle this.
We also were- I wouldn't call it philosophical...
but we were also going into the grounds of the whole thing.
I said, "Why are you doing it?"
He said, "We are sorry for you. You made good Olympic Games.
But you offered us a showcase...
and we have to use this showcase in order to show our possibility...
to so many millions or even billions of people in the world...
who are watching your Olympic Games. "
Mark Spitz, the American swimming star...
who won seven gold medals at this Olympiad...
was placed under heavy guard shortly after the drama unfurled.
Within hours, Spitz was hustled out of Germany on a plane bound for home.
Spitz is a Jew, and it was feared an attempt might be made to seize him.
Spontaneous demonstrations condemning the attack sprung up around the world.
There was outrage that the Olympic ideal of peace and brotherhood...
had been so shamelessly destroyed.
But as the day progressed, there was also a growing sense of anger...
directed at the International Olympic Committee...
for refusing to halt the Games in the light of what had happened.
The Olympic Committee at that time was very arrogant.
Very arrogant.
They felt something terrible happened, but they have nothing to do with it.
Willi Daume, head of the Olympic Organizing Committee...
has announced that the Olympics will go on.
As of this hour, the Olympics, the Games of the 20th Olympiad, will continue.
This is a live shot you're looking at right now.
And we're moving in now on the windows...
behind which, at this moment, eight or nine terrified living human beings...
are being held prisoner.
The demands have been many. There's someone right now.
And this has happened time and time and time again.
The door opening, the head coming out to see what is going on.
Within 200 yards of where that building is, there's a manmade pond.
Not a formal swimming pool, but a very lovely pond with a little dock...
where the athletes lie out and take sun.
That's what they're doing right now, sunning themselves.
They're swimming, talking of technique with athletes of other countries.
And yet this grim, terrible thing is taking place inside the village.
There were people running around the training track.
I thought, yeah, you've trained for this for four years...
but it seemed wrong.
There was something selfish, slightly obscene...
about the atmosphere in the rest of the village.
I didn't hear much of the negotiations.
I spent my time standing guard outside.
But after some time I was relieved and I went into the room...
where the Israelis were being held.
I found one of our guys sitting with the Israelis, his gun by his side.
We began to chat with the Israelis...
and told each other stories and jokes.
But then our leader suddenly came in and ordered us to stop messing about.
He didn't want us to talk to them too much...
in case they tried to emotionally exploit us...
and tried to escape.
The Germans decided that the time had come...
for them to take the initiative.
Food was brought in...
not only with the hope that the hostages would be fed...
but in such large quantities that no one man could carry it alone.
The police hoped more than one guerrilla would come out for the five boxes...
could be rushed and overpowered.
A second hope was the chefs could gain access and count the Arabs inside.
There were no chefs. It was the police commissioner...
Mr. Schreiber, and myself...
with two policemen clad as chefs, as cooks.
The idea was not to poison the food.
The idea was that someone of us...
could enter the room...
because at that time nobody knew about the number of the terrorists.
The deception had no effect.
The negotiators reported to the waiting Israeli ambassador...
that their plan had failed.
The ambassador repeated again that no deal would be made.
The Israeli ambassador was watching, together with me...
what was going on, and he was not very happy about this.
He got out and asked for a phone...
and he called the prime minister in Israel.
General Ulrich K. Wegener
The Israelis, they wanted to send a team...
which was rejected by the German government, of course.
The prime minister had a long talk with Chancellor Brandt.
And I remember her report saying...
that he refused that any Israeli team...
will come to Germany to do the action.
Zvi Zamir, Chief of Mossad (Israel Secret Service) 1968-74
And the general feeling was that if the German defense- army, whoever-
will take it upon itself...
they are capable of doing it well in Germany...
and there is no necessity to send an Israeli team.
At the time, I was the head of the Mossad.
And Moshe Dayan spoke with the prime minister...
and they insisted that I should go to be present...
to see how the Germans do this operation.
Zvi Zamir immediately flew to Munich...
arriving early that same evening.
Almost 11 hours after the start of the crisis...
the Olympic Committee finally bowed to intense international pressure...
and suspended the Games.
Some competitions are continuing. They will be allowed to finish.
But at that time the Games will be suspended.
At 10:00 tomorrow morning, in the huge Olympic stadium...
there will be a memorial service for the two men dead.
The Olympic Games are reduced to utter silence...
and one tantalizing head poking out a door.
Something has to happen.
It was a kind of...
Dan Shilon Israeli Television
a bizarre, surrealistic situation...
in which we journalists surrounded the event...
with every possible camera.
Endless cameras around the Olympic village.
It was a great story to many television stations and media around the world.
I mean, the climax of the Olympic Games, such an event.
And perhaps even some of the stations...
took a very cynical approach to it...
saying, "Wow! What an audience we'll get now. "
On a lovely late summer afternoon, the tense vigil continues.
In just a half an hour, the deadline will have expired.
He definitely had his hands tied. I saw it.
Late in the afternoon, I saw that the window was opened...
of the apartment where they were kept hostage...
and I saw Andre in front of the window.
They asked him, "Is everybody okay there...
and what is the situation with all the other hostages?"
Andre said, "Everybody is okay except for one. "
When the Germans asked, "Who is the one and what happened to him?"
I saw that he was not allowed to say that.
So he got hit with the butt of the rifle of one of the Palestinians...
and pushed away, and they closed the curtains.
That was the last time, really, that I saw him.
After that, Mr. Genscher said...
he wished to have a direct discussion with the Israeli hostages.
Then Mr. Schreiber said he wished to accompany him.
They said, "No,you are policemen. You are not allowed to enter. "
I said, 'All right. Then it's me. " So we went up there...
and it was a terrible impression, I must say.
One was bound to one chair...
and the others were on the two sides tied together.
And then the one who was killed...
was lying there.
The wall was full of blood.
I will never be able to forget those faces...
full of fear, but also hope.
Then we had a discussion...
and the discussion was...
absolutely covered by the...
very depressed mood of the hostages.
They wished...
to come to a conclusion which might save their lives...
but they were not very hopeful in that respect.
There's been one report attributed to Wilf Brimsley of the Associated Press...
who said a police lieutenant told him that at 5:00...
about 29 minutes from now, Munich time...
a volunteer squad of policemen dressed as athletes...
would storm the Israeli Olympic team headquarters...
and would come in shooting.
These are the volunteer squad of 38 police or West German border guards.
Because of very complicated laws...
the German army would not be allowed to participate.
There you see an athlete holding a canvas bag...
in which is obviously a machine gun.
The commissioner of the police, Mr. Schreiber...
selected some policemen, you know...
and asked them...
have you ever shot a gun or whatever?
That was it. They had no training, nothing.
Jim, there are now a great many of those security men...
in athletic uniforms...
moving off in various directions.
I don't want to instigate any false drama here...
but it looks, at this point, like the beginnings of some kind of deployment.
The plan was for us to climb up on the roof...
of the Connollystrasse building...
and go down the ventilation shafts.
Once in position we were to await the code word 'sunshine'...
from the Chief Inspector before attacking.
That's how we would free the hostages.
Walking cautiously on the roof...
hopefully not being heard in the rooms below.
You see how close these two men are. Couldn't be 20 feet.
You see he comes out and gets down on his hands and knees.
That's for him to get a better look up.
Outside our studio here and around the Olympic village...
a crowd estimated at 75,000 to 80,000 people...
has gathered, awaiting the outcome of this.
This building now swarming with Germans...
trying to rescue the Israelis.
The deadline appears, to us, to be less than one minute away.
Anything to report at all, Peter?
The commando looks very much more nervous than he did a while ago...
and he certainly has an apprehensive darting-about look from here...
almost as if they do sense that something is very imminent.
Once again there is a delegation directly under the building...
and the Arab guard, not on the balcony...
but in the window slightly down below him, is negotiating with him.
Now we've gotten an official time check.
It is 5:00. This is the deadline.
The storming, if it is going to happen, could happen at any moment.
We waited and waited, but the code word "sunshine"never came...
because there was a film crew...
on the East German building opposite us...
which broadcast live everything that was happening on the roof.
Later we discovered that there was a TV in every athlete's room...
and the terrorists had been able...
to watch us preparing live on screen.
Thank God we called it off.
It surely would have been a suicide mission if we had attacked.
If you had told me then that the Germans did not have available in Munich...
Gerald Seymour ITN News Service
a trained storm squad, I think I would have disbelieved you...
because everybody in 1972 was totally transfixed...
by a myth of utter German ruthless efficiency.
Fourteen minutes to 6:00, Munich time, in the evening.
We were told not to let the situation go on for more than 24 hours...
because psychologically that was the most we could take.
If the Israeli government still refused to release the prisoners...
we had been told to demand an airplane...
to take us, with the hostages, to any Arab country we could.
At 6:00 p. m., the Palestinians issued a new demand.
They wanted a long-distance jet...
to fly them and their hostages to an unspecified Arab country.
But the German government and the organizing committee...
decided that we were not allowed at all...
to let foreigners bring out guests of our country...
who came as guests to the Olympic Games.
That led to the final conclusion that we give the impression to the terrorists...
that we'll let them fly out...
but try everything to then kill them...
or bring them into prison...
before they could leave the country.
Our aim was to drag out the proceedings...
to wear down the terrorists...
and try to establish the best time for freeing the hostages.
That was our objective.
The organizers of the Games naturally wanted the Games...
to resume as soon as possible.
We had to find a resolution one way or another.
To move the thing from the Olympic compound...
Zvi Zamir, Chief of Mossad (Israel Secret Service) 1968-74
in order to let the Olympic Games to carry on...
this was their main objective.
The Israeli team...
and its rescue were secondary to that.
The staff group decided to bring them...
to the public airport of Munich in order to try something.
I said, "Listen, that's crazy. We have another airport...
which is not a public airport. "
So I proposed to make Furstenfeldbruck the target.
The police plan revolved around a decoy Boeing 727...
which was to be left on the runway with its engine idling.
On board would be a voluntary squad of policemen...
disguised as flight crew.
The Palestinians and Israelis would be flown in by helicopter.
When Issa and his deputy went to inspect the plane...
the fake crew would overcome them.
Meanwhile, five snipers positioned on the tower and around the airfield...
would open fire on the remaining terrorists...
and assault vehicles would rush in to rescue the hostages.
There were only five snipers because the police still believed...
there would be a total of four to five terrorists.
This is Peter Jennings in the Olympic village.
The Olympic village is built on various levels...
and underneath building 31, and underneath all of the buildings here...
there is a network of roads.
Those alleyways now have been used to bring in...
a fairly massive security force, including armored cars...
and just a short while ago, Howard Cosell...
noticed that there was considerable activity there.
Over the recent 25 to 30 minutes...
there was a flurry of activity, cars were speeding off...
and we now have a corridor or avenue of departure...
available to the Arabs...
should a deal have been made and should they be coming out...
as now seems likely.
So there is a quiet now and an expectancy.
I didn't feel fear as such.
I felt apprehensive, as any person would.
I was afraid of failing.
The Palestinians and Israelis were to be flown by helicopter...
to Furstenfeldbruck Airport.
But how would they get themselves and their hostages...
to the helicopters, which were on the edge of the village.
They decided to walk via the underground car park.
The police saw another ambush opportunity...
and placed marksmen here...
but Issa insisted on checking the route first.
So we walked there with one of...
the terrorists behind me with a machine gun in my back...
and at that time, some of the gunmen of the German police...
were lying in the side streets...
and when we approached, they were crawling away.
So the terrorists immediately found out that there was danger...
and they decided to use a bus and not to walk.
The terrorists brought the Israelis down a passage...
into an underground car park and to a bus.
Robert Thompson, a 24-year-old Canadian water polo player...
saw them leave.
So then they brought seven of them out...
and they put seven of the Israelis on the bus...
and then he went back inside, and then they brought out more.
During this, there was one fellow standing in front of the bus...
with a machine gun, watching all of it.
The terrorists had all the guns. What were the Israelis doing?
They were tied.
They had their hands tied in front of them...
and plus their hands were tied like that.
Then around the back they had ropes, and they were tied together like that.
The first man that got out was the man with the white pith helmet.
He got out, went over to the first helicopter...
and made a complete check with a flashlight.
He checked in and out, both back, front and middle of the helicopter...
and when he saw that everything looked like it was all right...
he signaled, and four hostages started to march out...
with their hands tied in front of them...
and behind them was an Arab guerilla...
with some kind of weapon in his hand.
It was quite a frightening experience.
It wasn't any James Bond. It was the real thing.
It has taken less than five minutes to reach the waiting helicopters...
but in that five minutes a critical piece of information...
has suddenly been revealed.
There are not four guerillas nor even five, as the police believed.
There are eight, and there are only five police marksmen...
waiting at Furstenfeldbruck Airport.
We were standing at a window directly above...
as our friends were led handcuffed from the bus to the helicopters.
The terrorists stood there with rifles.
They looked as if they felt like heroes dominating the world.
All around, flashbulbs were going off.
I felt bitter.
It's not a movie.
It's our people we're talking about!
Two were already murdered, and they were making a show out of it.
One of the helicopters now proceeds out over the Olympic site...
out over the main stadium where half the lights are on.
The second helicopter is now following it...
and moving out around this tremendously high...
major Olympic tower as they depart...
to a destination we, of course, as yet do not know.
And we, with the German team...
we moved to the third helicopter.
The third helicopter now moving right by us...
right over the Olympic village...
passing now over the main stadium.
All the lights on in this Olympic site-
an Olympic site which for more than a week now...
has been a place of serenity and comradeship-
an Olympic village which, in spite of some political crisis, has been happy...
and now today has been absolutely shattered...
by this tragedy.
As we were flying...
we began to get the feeling that a trap was waiting for us...
so we began to prepare ourselves.
In the event of an ambush, we had been told to fight...
with all our strength, as though in battle.
We were to do everything necessary...
to defend ourselves and our operation.
The marksmen, who had no radio links...
were still only expecting a total of five terrorists.
Nobody from the village thought to inform them...
that there were now known to be eight.
We rushed quickly into the main building...
we moved to the second floor.
It was dark- dark in the place.
There were very many people in the corridors and around the building-
behind the building.
From the window we could watch and see the two helicopters...
landing in front of us.
Just as the helicopters...
bearing the Palestinians and Israelis were landing...
the police squad assigned to the decoy plane...
fearing that they were under-trained...
took a vote to abandon their mission.
It was quite simply a suicide mission...
and we unanimously voted to abandon it.
And this was seconds before- not even minutes-
seconds before the helicopters landed.
I told the minister, I said, "I'm sure...
this will blow the whole affair. "
The Germans had marksmen on the roof of the control tower...
and marksmen at ground level...
but they had no communications between each other.
They were just briefed to shoot.
When the first marksmen opened fire, they would all open fire...
but there was no coordination of targets.
Some of us got out of the helicopters...
but others waited inside it with the hostages, who were now very scared.
We told them that it was in everybody's interests for them to remain quiet.
Now, the leader of the team, he and another one...
went to check the aircraft.
The Palestinians were obviously missing...
the whole crew, because they came back...
and were yelling.
They were, of course, excited.
As the leader returned from the airplane...
the whole area suddenly lit up...
and an enormous amount of firing started.
So we all opened fire in the direction the shooting was coming from.
And a key marksman was moving from one position...
to another, blocked by a pillar...
Gerald Seymour ITN News Reporter
to get into another shooting position when the shooting started...
and therefore missed the crucial shot against the Black September commander.
Issa managed to get back to the cover of the helicopters unscathed.
Sniper Two was more successful, seriously wounding Issa's deputy.
Snipers Three and Four opened fire on the six terrorists...
guarding the helicopters...
but inexplicably managed to kill only one.
Sniper Five did not fire a single shot.
Because the helicopters had been landed in the wrong place...
he found himself in the direct line of fire...
of his fellow marksmen on the tower.
Like the others, he had not been supplied with a bulletproof vest...
or steel helmet and found himself hopelessly exposed.
Meanwhile, a policeman standing by a window inside the tower...
was killed when a stray bullet struck him in the head.
They weren't capable.
I can tell you that I doubt whether the snipers...
were really snipers according to what I listened to.
One was lying on the roof...
not far away from us.
He wasn't firing with a sniper's rifle.
But they didn't see it. They didn't see the targets.
Unbelievable.
The latest word we get from the airport...
is that, quote, "All hell has broken loose out there"...
that there is still shooting going on-
but all seems to be confusion.
Nothing is nailed down.
We have no idea what has happened to the hostages.
The leader was now on his feet again and shooting...
but his deputy was seriously wounded.
I crawled over to him and was hit in the hand.
My gun flew from my hand.
I tried to grab his gun so I could head for cover...
but I just couldn't do it.
And I only hope that our people...
and the Israelis, that they could get out of the helicopter...
but they had tied them together or whatever...
and so they couldn't leave the helicopters.
The entire area is ringed off by troops-
heavily armed troops with dogs, keeping everybody away.
We tried to approach, were stopped by one of the guards with a machine gun...
and he said, " Do not come closer.
They're heavily armed. You're going to get hurt. "
But it's total confusion out there.
Just about everybody and his brother and his sister...
got into their cars and they've driven to the area.
They've clogged the roads.
Police reinforcements had a bad time getting there...
because all of these people are curious, flocking to the area...
clogging up the roads.
Just absolute confusion.
Then I decided to try and find the commander of the police...
and then we said...
Zvi Zamir, Chief of Mossad (Israel Secret Service) 1968-74
"What else? What are you doing?"
Then he said that he is waiting...
for armored cars to arrive...
from somewhere near Munich.
The police had forgotten to order the armored cars...
to come to the airport earlier...
and it was only now, 20 minutes after the shooting began...
that they radioed to Munich for them to be sent.
But because the roads were congested with onlookers...
they did not arrive at the scene for another hour...
by which time most of the fighting was over.
Still no word...
the word we really want, from the hostages.
We asked them to let us go on top of the roof...
and try to negotiate with the terrorists.
They refused at the beginning...
but then they said, 'All right, on certain conditions. "
We went up on top of the roof...
and we started to speak Arabic to the terrorists.
Their reply was clear, very clear.
They opened fire on the building.
General Ulrich K. Wegener
They fired at the tower, and I told the minister he should lie down...
and he touched down under the desk of the commander.
Very funny, from our view today.
One of the surviving terrorists now made a dash for it...
heading straight for Sniper Five.
As the terrorist ran towards him, Sniper Number Five...
fired his only shots of the night...
point-blank into the fleeing man's face.
Seeing these shots...
police reinforcements arriving at the scene...
with no knowledge of the precise location of their own snipers...
mistakenly identified Sniper Five and the helicopter pilot...
who had fled for cover beside him as terrorists...
and opened fire on them.
Both were seriously wounded.
At midnight came the official announcement...
of the spokesman of the German government...
who said all the Israelis are saved...
and all the terrorists are dead.
Conrad Ahlers German Government Spokesman
I'm very glad that, as far as we can see now, this police action was successful.
Of course, it's an unfortunate interruption...
of the Olympic Games...
but, I mean, if all that comes out...
as we hope it will come out or has come out...
I think it will be forgotten after a few weeks.
Ankie Spitzer
People all over Holland were calling me- all my friends, my family.
A neighbor came to us with this bottle of champagne...
Alex Springer
and we all...
was very glad and happy...
and I think that I went to sleep.
Then the Israeli ambassador in The Hague, he called me and said...
"Ankie, I just heard the news.
Congratulations, and everybody is saved...
and everything is okay. "
Originally they said that the hostages were safe.
Now that has been changed...
and an Olympic spokesman said...
"We are afraid the information given so far is too optimistic. "
That's where we seem to stand.
So I called the Olympic village.
I called every half-hour, and every time the news got worse and worse...
and at 3:00 in the morning I said...
"If you know that something happened, then you tell me now...
because I'm not Hercules.
I have been waiting from 7:00 in the morning...
and now it's 3:00 the next morning.
I just want to know what happened to Andre. "
We keep hearing that the indications are not good...
that Johnny Klein may have very bad news.
After almost two hours of fighting...
one of the surviving Palestinians threw a hand grenade...
into the eastern helicopter.
The helicopter was refueled...
and within minutes...
the helicopter and the area around it...
was in fire.
Simultaneously, one of his comrades...
sprayed a full clip of bullets into the other helicopter.
Then there was silence.
And I told the minister...
"I think I have to go to look for what the police is doing. "
And then I went to the captain of the police company there...
and said, "Are you going to do something?
You have to move your people there.
You pull out the hostages or whatever, you know...
and do something. "
They didn't do anything. "I have no orders," he said.
It was-
It was a really tragic story...
and so we could only look, you know.
And when after-
You could hear them yelling, you know.
We've just gotten the final word.
When I was a kid, my father used to say...
"Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized. "
Our worst fears have been realized tonight.
They have now said that there were 11 hostages.
Two were killed in their rooms...
yesterday morning.
Nine were killed at the airport tonight.
They're all gone.
That afternoon, the Games continued.
The surviving members of the Israeli team...
flew home with their dead.
The bodies of the five dead Palestinians...
were handed over to Libya, where they received a hero's funeral.
Mohammed Safady, Aged 19
The three surviving terrorists were never to stand trial.
Adnan Al Gashey, Aged 27
Jamal Al Gashey, Aged 18
Seven weeks later, a Lufthansa jet...
en route from Beirut to Frankfurt was hijacked.
The hijackers demanded the release of the three Munich terrorists.
Acting with indecent haste and without consulting the Israeli government...
the Germans handed over the three prisoners.
The circumstances surrounding the hijacking...
have long been thought suspicious.
Why were only 12 passengers on board such a large plane?
Why no women or children?
Why such haste in agreeing to the hijackers' demands?
For the first time, one of the Palestinians involved...
has revealed that the entire affair was a setup...
organized by the German government in collusion with the terrorists.
The Germans thought that in this way...
they would prevent future terror attacks on their country...
and dispose the embarrassing evidence of their failure that day in September.
I think-
I think it's probably true, yes.
At this time, the mentality was so, you know.
Really.
Hans Jochen Vogel Mayor of Munich 1960-1972
On such questions, Willy Brandt, as I remember very well...
always made this gesture.
I can't say and do more.
29th October 1972 Terrorists arrive in Libya
Did you shoot any of the Israeli hostages?
It's not important to say if I killed Israeli or not.
What do you think you achieved?
One would have- We have made our voice heard...
by the world-
Are those your words?
- Of course. - The same thing.
They have made their voice heard by the universe or the world...
who has not been hearing before.
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 over the world.
It was only a year and three months that I was married to Andre Spitzer.
But I remember that year as the most beautiful...
and most wonderful year of my life.
This is the grave of Amitzur Shapiro.
He was the athletics coach.
He had four little children, one my age.
And here is Kehat Shorr.
He was the shooting coach.
Eliezer Halfin was a wrestler...
and so was Mark Slavin, who I think was only 18 years old.
And here's my father's grave.
Anouk Spitzer
And it says on it his name: Andre Spitzer.
It says, "Son of Tibor, fencing coach...
murdered by- killed by murderers...
in the Olympic Games in Munich...
as a representative of the Israeli sport. "
Then it says his date of birth and the date that he was murdered.
And I always bring him sunflowers because that's his favorite flower.