Munich – As the scene of terrorist attacks

The international act of terrorism perpetrated in Munich that is best known today, occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics. The hitherto “Cheerful Games” were overshadowed by the Munich Massacre on September 5. Sportsmen from the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by a Palestinian terrorist commando. As the result of an unprofessionally prepared rescue operation, members of the commando murdered all the hostages and a police officer was shot dead.

Two years earlier, in February 1970, Munich had already been the scene of an act of international terrorism and antisemitic violence. Within the space of a few days, two Palestinian commandos had attempted to bring Israeli aeroplanes under their control at Munich Airport. During the attack on 10 February the passenger Arie Katzenstein was murdered.

An arson attack on 13 February 1970 on the Jewish Community Centre in Reichenbachstrasse 27 in Munich killed seven people, most of them Holocaust survivors. To this day the perpetrators have still not been identified. In two other cases, traces also lead to Munich: parcel bombs forced an Austrian plane to make an emergency landing on 21 February 1970 and caused a Swiss Air plane to crash in which 47 people were killed.

Was the attack on the Israeli Olympic team in Munich a disaster waiting to happen? Should not politicians and the security authorities, aware of the incidents of February 1970, have recognised the potential danger for the major international event conceived as the “Cheerful Games” and implemented a suitably adapted security concept? The acts of violence in February 1970 and September 1972 are connected in terms of where and the way they were carried out. Whether there are direct links remains to be researched.