Naval postgraduate school monterey, california thesis

B. MUNICH 
OLYMPICS 
MASSACRE, (GERMAN POLICE, SEPTEMBER 
1972) 
1. 
Background and Case Study 
On 5 September 1972, eight Palestinian terrorists from the Black September 
faction, held nine Israeli athletes hostage in exchange for the release of 232 Arab 
prisoners held by Israel, as well as two known German terrorists. They stormed the 
Olympic Village in Munich by climbing over one of the perimeter fences during the early 
morning hours and raiding the apartment building that housed the Israeli contingent. In 
the process, they killed two Israeli athletes (Moshe Weinberger and Yossef Romano) and 
were able to hold hostage nine more. 
The Black September terrorists had been planning the operation for months. At 
approximately 0400 hours on the morning of the siege, the masked gunmen made their 
way to #31 Connollystrasse at the Olympic Village Apartments. They successfully 

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entered the apartment, taking five Israeli team members hostage: track coach Amitzur 
Shapira, fencing master Andrei Spitzer, rifle coach Kehat Shorr, weightlifting judge 
Yacov Springer, and Yossef Gutfreund (Calahan, 1995, p.2). The terrorists then moved 
around the complex looking for more Israelis, successfully apprehending six more in 
apartment #3. During the initial struggle, wrestling coach Moshe Weinberger and 
weightlifter Yossef Rommanno were shot with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, killing them 
both. 
Aside from the initial struggles and the shots fired, very few people at the 
Olympic Village noticed what had transpired. Eventually, two Israeli athletes who had 
escaped the assault, alerted the German authorities to the incident. During the next hour, 
the Black September terrorists issued their demands and threw the body of Moshe 
Weinberger into the street. In addition to the release of the Arab and German terrorists, 
they requested an airplane for their escape plan. Manfred Schreiber, the Munich Police 
Commissioner, became the de-facto command authority over the hostage incident (p. 3).
The German negotiators successfully extended three deadlines throughout the day.
Schreiber finally concluded that a rescue attempt was the only solution to the siege.
Initially, police rescue units dressed as athletes attempted to conduct an emergency-
deliberate plan of action. Their efforts were quickly aborted when they realized their 
plan had been exposed on the local news, which the terrorists could see on the television 
inside their room. Schreiber concluded that the best option was to isolate the terrorists at 
the airfield and attempt to intercept them on their way to the aircraft at Germany's 
Furstenfeldbruck Airport. Israeli Special Forces units from the Sayeret had offered 
assistance in mounting a rescue, but this was denied by the local state officials. 
At the airfield, eight German police officers dressed in Lufthansa flight and cabin 
crew uniforms. However, because of a shortfall, several officers were forced to wear 
Lufthansa shirts with what were obviously standard police-issue trousers. This small 
squad was tasked with securing the aircraft and ambushing the terrorists once inside.
After discussing the mechanics of their ambush, the officers decided their portion of the 
plan was too dangerous to execute, and decided on their own to abort the suicide mission 
(Reeve, 2000, p. 109). With the helicopters already inbound, the deputy commander for

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the Munich police, Georg Wolf, was left with the only option of attacking the terrorists 
with the five men sniper team, while the terrorists made their walk from the helicopters to 
the aircraft.
Five German snipers who were responsible for initiating the assault were 
prepositioned at the airport. However, it was not until the helicopters with the terrorists 
and the hostages arrived at the airfield for the transload, that the German authorities 
realized there were eight terrorists and not five as anticipated. The snipers did not have 
communications equipment and could not relay this information to the rest of the German 
assault force waiting by the air terminal. In addition, the lighting at the airfield was shut 
off, and the only floodlights used by the Munich police were all pointing at the airplane.
With very little time to reposition themselves, the sniper element was stuck with very 
poor site selection. One helicopter landed less than fifty yards away from one of the 
snipers (p. 111).
As the terrorists moved away from the helicopters to inspect the aircraft, 
Schreiber ordered the snipers to open fire. The sniper shots missed their intended targets, 
and a firefight ensued at the airfield. The Israeli hostages were still tied to their seats 
inside the two helicopters, with several of the terrorists keeping guard. The firefight 
lasted approximately 80 minutes; German police armored vehicles were called on to the 
scene to try to resolve the deadlock at the airfield. When they arrived at the airfield, the 
terrorists panicked; one terrorist came out of his helicopter and sprayed the Israeli 
athletes inside with his Kalashnikov; he followed this act by throwing a hand grenade 
inside the helicopter, blowing it up in a giant ball of flame, burning the five Israeli 
athletes still bound inside. German police decided to conduct a full on infantry style 
assault on the terrorists. As the assault element moved forward, another terrorist came 
out of the second helicopter and opened fire on the remaining four hostages still tied in 
the helicopter. The firefight continued with the armored vehicles opening fire 
sporadically, seriously injuring two snipers thinking they were terrorists (p. 122). At 
approximately 0130 hours, the firing ended. All the hostages, five terrorists and one 
police officer were killed. The remaining three terrorists survived and were arrested at 
the airfield.

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