What Was The Munich Massacre?

The Munich massacre occurred at the 1972 Munich Olympics when nine Israeli athletes were held hostage by Arab terrorists belonging to the group Black September. In return for the release of the hostages, the terrorists demanded that Israel release two hundred Arab prisoners. This Israel refused to do. When the terrorists demanded that a plane be supplied to fly them and the hostages elsewhere, the stage was set for a final confrontation. The German authorities felt that the Israeli athletes would be killed if they were taken elsewhere. Plans were therefore made to ambush the hijackers with sniper fire when they reached the airport. German law forbade the military to be directly involved in cases like this so the matter had to be handled by the police. The police marksmen lacked the training and experience of military snipers and their equipment was not as good. Moreover, only five marksmen were available at the airport to handle eight hijackers. This led to a fiasco when the assault began. The gun-battle lasted for over an hour and the hijackers had time to kill all of the Israeli athletes. Most of the hijackers were killed too. Three were captured alive.