On September 5, 1972, Palestinian extremists infiltrated the athletes' dorms at the Munich Summer Olympics to take 11 Israeli athletes hostage and eventually murdered them all before being killed or captured by the German police. This photographic book is a touching tribute to the 11 Israeli athletes who were kidnapped and murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Summer Olympics in 1972. It details shocking new information about the tragic events, their devastating aftermath and the heroic efforts to seek recognition and remembrance for the victims. "Munich 72 and beyond" is the story of this horrendous slaughter and the struggle to navigate 43 years of politics and now the moment of redemption for the victims.
Discloses the Israeli plan to assassinate the known terrorist leaders responsible for the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes and chronicles the story of the hit-squad's leader, a man morally destroyed by his mission.
Set against the backdrop of the turbulent late 1960s and early 1970s, this compelling book provides the first comprehensive history of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, notorious for the abduction of Israeli Olympians by Palestinian terrorists and the hostages’ tragic deaths after a botched rescue mission by the German police. Drawing on a wealth of newly available sources from the time, eminent historian David Clay Large explores the 1972 festival in all its ramifications. He interweaves the political drama surrounding the Games with the athletic spectacle in the arena of play, itself hardly free of controversy. Writing with flair and an eye for telling detail, Large brings to life the stories of the indelible characters who epitomized the Games. Key figures range from the city itself, the visionaries who brought the Games to Munich against all odds, and of course to the athletes themselves, obscure and famous alike. With the Olympic movement in constant danger of terrorist disruption, and with the fortieth anniversary of the 1972 tragedy upon us in 2012, the Munich story is more timely than ever.
The first full account, based on access to key players who have never before spoken, of the Munich Massacre and the Israeli response–a lethal, top secret, thirty-year-long antiterrorism campaign to track down the killers. 1972. The Munich Olympics. Palestinian members of the Black September group murder eleven Israeli athletes. Nine hundred million people watch the crisis unfold on television, witnessing a tragedy that inaugurates the modern age of terror and remains a scar on the collective conscience of the world. Back in Israel, Prime Minister Golda Meir vows to track down those responsible and, in Menachem Begin’s words, “run these criminals and murderers off the face of the earth.” A secret Mossad unit, code named Caesarea, is mobilized, a list of targets drawn up. Thus begins the Israeli response–a mission that unfolds not over months but over decades. The Mossad has never spoken about this operation. No one has known the real story. Until now. Award-winning journalist Aaron Klein’s incisive and riveting account tells for the first time the full story of Munich and the Israeli counterterrorism operation it spawned. With unprecedented access to Mossad agents and an unparalleled knowledge of Israeli intelligence, Klein peels back the layers of myth and misinformation that have permeated previous books, films, and magazine articles about the “shadow war” against Black September and other terrorist groups. Spycraft, secret diplomacy, and fierce detective work abound in a story with more drama than any fictional thriller. Burning questions are at last answered, including who was killed and who was not, how it was done, which targets were hit and which were missed. Truths are revealed: the degree to which the Mossad targeted nonaffiliated Black September terrorists for assassination, the length and full scope of the operation (far greater than previously suspected), retributive acts against Israel, and much more. Finally, Klein shows that the Israeli response to Munich was not simply about revenge, as is popularly believed. By illuminating the tactical and strategic purposes of the Israeli operation, Striking Back allows us to draw profoundly relevant lessons from one of the most important counterterrorism campaigns in history.
A new history of the West German-Israeli relationship as these two countries faced terrorism, war, and economic upheaval in a global Cold War environment.
This compelling volume examines the historical background of the Munich Olympics Massacre as well as the controversies surrounding the event. Readers will be intrigued by the entire chapter of personal narratives from people who lived through the massacre including an Israeli athlete who recounts losing his teammates, and a Israeli wrestler's story that took him from the Soviet Union to Israel to Munich.
Steven Ungerleider's Faust's Gold is the stunning expose of the East German sports juggernaut of the 1970s and 1980s that forced young athletes to unknowingly take steroids. For nearly twenty-five years, East Germany's corrupt sports organization dominated international athletics. While the German Democratic Republic's secret "State Plan" was in effect, more than ten thousand unsuspecting young athletes--some as young as twelve years old--were given massive doses of performance-enhancing anabolic steroids. These athletes achieved miraculous success in international competitions, including the Olympics, but for many of them, their physical and emotional health was permanently damaged. Faust's Gold draws on the revelations of the ongoing trials of former GDR coaches, doctors, and sports officials who have now confessed to conducting ruthless medical experiments on young and talented athletes selected for Olympic training camps. It also draws on the extensive research of Brigitte Berendonk, who escaped from East Germany to begin a decade-long crusade to bring justice to her fellow athletes, and that of her husband, Professor Werner Franke. Berendonk's story, and those of her colleagues in the GDR, offers a unique insight into a bizarre regime. Faust's Gold is a true-life detective story that plunges into the dark, secretive world of the GDR doping scam, where elite competitors and their families are up against a formidable opponent: the East German secret police, known as the STASI. What emerges is a complex tapestry of the politicized modern Olympics that culminates in a powerful testimony to the massive wrong done by one Eastern Bloc nation to its world-class athletes.
One. Two. Three. That's as long as it took to sear the souls of a dozen young American men, thanks to the craziest, most controversial finish in the history of the Olympics--the 1972 gold-medal basketball contest between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the world's two superpowers at the time. The U.S. team, whose unbeaten Olympic streak dated back to when Adolf Hitler reigned over the Berlin Games, believed it had won the gold medal that September in Munich--not once, but twice. But it was the third time the final seconds were played that counted. What happened? The head of international basketball--flouting rules he himself had created--trotted onto the court and demanded twice that time be put back on the clock. A referee allowed an illegal substitution and an illegal free-throw shooter for the Soviets while calling a slew of late fouls on the U.S. players. The American players became the only Olympic athletes in the history of the games to refuse their medals. Of course, the 1972 Olympics are remembered primarily for a far graver matter, when eleven Israeli team members were killed by Palestinian terrorists, stunning the world and temporarily stopping the games. One American player, Tommy Burleson, had a gun to his head as the hostages were marched past him before their deaths. Through interviews with many of the American players and others, the author relates the horror of terrorism, the pain of losing the most controversial championship game in sports history to a hated rival, and the consequences of the players' decision to shun their Olympic medals to this day.
