Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response (7 page)

11
                  
DESTINATION: CAIRO

MUNICH, OLYMPIC VILLAGE
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1972, 2100H

The German plan was simple. The terrorists and their nine hostages would be transferred to Fürstenfeldbruck military airfield, where two separate police units would be waiting in complementary ambushes. The first would be sprung on the terrorist commanders. The Bavarian officials assumed that Issa and his deputy, Tony, would inspect the plane and the crew that would fly them to Cairo. Thirteen officers of the police special task command force, dressed as stewards and cabin crew of the Lufthansa Boeing 727, would ambush the terrorists as soon as they boarded.

A second squad of five sharpshooters would act once Issa and Tony were caught inside the plane, neutralizing the terrorists and liberating the hostages. Armored personnel carriers would then swoop in and pick up the weary Israeli athletes. Georg Wolf, police chief Manfred Schreiber’s deputy, was selected to command the rescue operation. The men at his disposal were novices, entirely lacking experience in counterterrorist maneuvers.

Zvi Zamir and Victor Cohen arrived in Munich as Troeger, Schreiber, and Merck were discussing the final details of the Cairo transfer with Issa. They met with Ambassador Eliashiv Ben-Horin, who introduced them to Genscher and Franz Joseph Strauss, a senior Bavarian politician. Genscher and Strauss took the Israeli officials to meet Schreiber and Merck. The Bavarian officials were outspoken in their opposition to Israeli interference in the hostage crisis. “My presence bothered them,” Zamir later recalled. “My very arrival bothered them. It was so bad that they actually tried to bar us from the Olympic Village and were unwilling to speak with us.”

Complex internal German politics were putting the hostages at even greater risk. Zamir, an introvert with an inexpressive face and tight lips, was bounced from one German administrator to the next. He began to comprehend the complexity of the relations between the West German government agents and the Bavarian officials. “During the rescue [the federal agents] didn’t say a word,” Zamir recalled. “They didn’t intervene, even once. They sat where they were told to sit and they stood where they were told to stand.”

Initially, Schreiber and Merck refused even to discuss the details of the rescue mission with the Israeli representatives. “I remember, to this day, the police commander’s answer,” Zamir said. “It still rings in my ears. He said, ‘This is what we want: to get them to the airport. There everything is prepared for the release of the athletes.’ As I understood it, they already had a comprehensive plan.” Though Schreiber’s and Merck’s cold and aloof attitude did not make a favorable personal impression, Zamir felt a great sense of relief when they at last announced they had a plan. “I thought: a miracle is happening. There is a plan, preparations are being made. There are snipers. West Germany’s reputation preceded them, this was not a developing country. We were encouraged.”

In the evening hours, fervent plans were being discussed at 31 Connollystrasse. One final hitch remained: how would the captors and the hostages be transported to Fürstenfeldbruck airfield? Issa wanted a bus to deliver them. Schreiber and Merck insisted they fly by helicopter. Despite their differences, the Bavarian and West German officials had come to agree on one basic principle: the captors could not be allowed to leave the country with the hostages. As Troeger explained in a later interview, “We tried to give the terrorists the impression that we’d let them fly out but then tried everything to kill them or capture them before they could leave the country.”

Shortly after 1830 hours
,
Issa, who began to see traps behind every twist in the plan, agreed to travel by helicopter to the airport. He had been told that the Olympic Village was surrounded by thousands of angry protesters who were blocking the roads, and that he and his men would probably be overwhelmed and lynched if he attempted to make the twelve-mile journey to the airport by bus. Genscher told Issa the helicopters could be readied in two hours. Departure from the Olympic Village was scheduled for 2100 hours
.
Issa’s behavior made it clear that his deadline’s elasticity had been stretched to the fullest.

A wave of uncertainty was rising over the hundreds of radio and television crews broadcasting from the Olympic Village. The German press officials were slow to release new information, and when they did, it was often one bit at a time. Rumors circulated in the press pool. Around the world viewers hunkered in front of their TVs, watching and waiting for the outcome.

Genscher, Merck, Schreiber, and Troeger arrived at the blue door at 2050 hours
.
They told Issa they had organized a four-man volunteer aircrew to fly the helicopters to Fürstenfeldbruck airfield, where a Cairo-bound plane was waiting on the runway. The German team asked Issa for his word that the flight crew would not be taken hostage or harmed in any way. Issa promised to respect their neutrality. The officials then explained that the terrorists and their hostages would have to walk two hundred yards to the helicopter landing pad. Issa agreed, but first insisted on inspecting the route. He told his men to kill the Israelis if he did not return within six minutes. His accomplices nodded, all too aware that the Germans might be on the verge of springing a trap.

Issa left Apartment 1 with Schreiber, Troeger, and several police commanders. They walked down the stairs to the underground parking lot at 31 Connollystrasse, on their way to the improvised landing pad behind administration building G
-1.
A second Palestinian gunman walked behind the group, his weapon aimed at their backs.

As soon as he entered the parking lot, Issa saw shadows darting between the concrete pillars. He vetoed the two-hundred-yard walk. They would be too exposed on the way to the landing pad. The group returned to Apartment 1. The shadows in the darkness, police gunmen, had missed their opportunity. Issa now demanded that a bus take them to the waiting helicopters.

The Germans searched for an appropriate bus. They found a willing driver and a minibus with sixteen seats. Issa took one look and refused to board. He wanted a full-sized bus. Schreiber’s men searched the Olympic Village till they found a driver willing to take the captors and hostages to the landing pad. Slightly after 2200 hours the bus’s engine was humming in the underground parking lot of 31 Connollystrasse. At 2205, the first terrorist went down the stairs and opened the door leading to the garage, AK
-47
in hand. He combed the area with his eyes, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Satisfied, he signaled to the others. The terrorists pushed the hostages out of the building in groups of three. The Israelis were blindfolded and bound to each other at the waist, their hands tied in front of them, as they were shoved onto the bus. The tension was escalating. The terrorists, suspicious of even the slightest movement, waved their weapons in the air, stabbing at the threatening darkness that surrounded them.

The bus rolled slowly toward the landing pad, taking several minutes to make the two-hundred-yard journey. Two Bell helicopters were waiting, their flight crews in place. Inspecting them with a high-powered flashlight, Issa was first off the bus. He checked the two aircraft for anything out of the ordinary and then signaled the other terrorists. Four hostages were taken off the bus: Berger, Friedman, Halfin, and Springer. They were loaded onto the back bench of the first helicopter. Tony, the second in command, rode with this group, along with three of his men. Issa, in charge of the second helicopter, boarded with the three remaining terrorists and the five other hostages.

Shmuel Lalkin, head of the Israeli delegation, stood on the balcony of the administration building, watching as the hostages were herded into the helicopters. “The helplessness left us with a grave feeling,” he later said in anguish. The Israelis were completely vulnerable, like lambs to the slaughter.

Zamir and Cohen stood next to Lalkin. “There was a deathly silence,” Zamir recalled. “It was a terrible scene. We had a hard time watching it: we were standing on German ground, watching shackled Jews being taken to helicopters.”

The night was illuminated by thousands of camera flashes. The remaining Israeli athletes huddled together on the balcony, watching in disbelief. “This isn’t a goddamn James Bond movie,” muttered one, as he watched the media frenzy beneath him. “This is life and death.”

Zamir and Cohen stood next to Bavarian prime minister Franz Joseph Strauss and German interior minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher. “Suddenly I heard Strauss say to Genscher in German, ‘Hey, they got the number of terrorists wrong!’” Zamir later recalled. “I was struck by his words. I realized that they hadn’t known up until that point how many terrorists there were, despite the fact that they had been inside and spoken with them. Suddenly, as they’re walking to the helicopters they realize they got the number wrong. It hurt. I noticed that Strauss was shocked too. It was a serious blow to the German devotion to accuracy. I was sure that they had stationed five sharpshooters on each terrorist. They gave me the feeling that the plan was tailor-made, that they had thought of everything, and then . . .”

12
                  
THE CATASTROPHE

GERMANY, FÜRSTENFELDBRUCK AIRFIELD TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1972, 2200H

The two helicopters rose off the pad and slipped into the darkness. As soon as they were out of sight, a third chopper arrived. Senior federal and Bavarian officials ran out of the administration building and down to the landing pad. The Israeli envoys, Zamir and Cohen, were once again surprised to find themselves persona non grata. Bavarian officials tried to block them from stepping up into the waiting helicopter. “It’s full,” they said. Zamir and Cohen pushed past them and sat down, glowering.

They flew directly to the Fürstenfeldbruck airfield, while the choppers, carrying the hostages and their captors, flew a preplanned, circuitous route. The German and Israeli officials landed ten minutes before the other helicopters and headed straight for cover in an administration building at the center of the airfield, next to the control tower.

Ten minutes later, at 2236 hours
,
the two helicopters carrying the eight terrorists and the nine hostages touched down. Issa jumped out and hurried toward the Lufthansa Boeing 727 waiting a hundred yards east of the control tower. Tony jumped out of the other helicopter and ran after Issa. Four terrorists, two from each helicopter, stood guard outside their respective aircraft. The German pilots left the controls and stood stiffly beside the choppers, at attention, as though waiting for a superior officer.

Issa had no way of knowing of the drama that, moments before, had taken place on board the cold Boeing 727. Twenty minutes earlier a group of thirteen officers from the police special task command force had abandoned the plane—and their mission—for “fear for their lives.” The senior German officials hiding out in the office building next to the control tower were equally ignorant of these critical developments.

The policemen, under the command of Reinhold Reich, had aborted their mission while the helicopters were in the air, fifteen minutes before the terrorists and hostages landed at Fürstenfeldbruck. Reich, a rookie in all matters concerning counterterrorism, had, unbelievably, put the mission to a vote. The decision to abort was unanimous.

Later Reich shamelessly explained that their decision hinged on operational instructions that seemed suicidal. Their commanders, Schreiber and Wolf, supported them wholeheartedly.

It is possible to understand some of Reich’s claims and still reject their validity. At the heart of the matter lay negligence and a glaring lack of professionalism. Wolf and Schreiber were negligent because the plane in which their planned ambush was to take place was carrying
8,300
liters of high-octane, highly flammable fuel. A hand grenade, or even a bullet, could have engulfed the police crew, the nearby helicopters, and the hostages in a massive fireball. If the authorities had already decided that the plane would not take off, why not empty its tank of fuel? Reich was also correct to note that his men would hardly have passed as airline flight attendants: many wore Lufthansa shirts but police-issue trousers. Uniforms that fit the flight crew could easily have been found. It is also reasonable to understand Reich and his men’s contention that the mission leaned toward the suicidal. But the timing of their decision to abort—while the helicopters were in the air—remains manifestly unacceptable. It was their duty to point out these faults early in the afternoon, during the planning stage of the mission. Had this been done, the risks could have been diminished to a level he and his men could accept.

Issa and Tony boarded the plane. It was cold, dark, and empty. The aircraft did not seem travel-ready, though, as the West German officials had promised it would be. The two terrorists quickly reversed course, moving back toward the helicopters in front of the office building. The tension built in the second-floor room where Zamir, Cohen, and the German officials sat in darkness. They peered out the window.

Someone whispered, “What’s happening?”

The Bavarian group recited the main points of the plan, adding sheepishly, “We don’t exactly know what’s happening.”

At the same time, Georg Wolf, the commander of the rescue effort, was lying on the roof of the building. He already knew that the special task command force had abandoned their mission, but had yet to be informed by his superior, Schreiber, that his five marksmen were preparing to act against eight—not five—heavily armed terrorists. Only four minutes had passed since the helicopters had landed. Six of the eight terrorists were in the sights of the marksmen. Two of them, Issa and Tony, the leaders, were in motion. At 2240 hours
,
Wolf ordered Marksmen 4 and 5, who were lying next to him, to open fire.

Their fire was trained on two of the four terrorists guarding the helicopters. Only one was hit and neutralized. The others scrambled under the helicopters and returned long bursts of automatic fire in the direction of the tower and the lights. The first two shots were a signal to the other marksmen to open fire. Marksman 3 dropped Tony on the tarmac with a shot to his foot. Issa zigzagged his way, firing quick bursts of
7.62
mm rounds at the control tower and the office building as he ran toward the cover of the helicopters. For several long minutes the terrorists unleashed wild automatic fire and threw grenades at the tower. They hit most of the lighting giraffes, throwing the landing pad into darkness. It was now impossible to differentiate between terrorist and hostage. Drama was becoming tragedy.

Sporadic exchanges of fire pierced the darkness. The number of terrorists injured or dead was unknown. Jamal Al-Jishey’s finger was crushed by a bullet, his weapon mangled. A German policeman was shot through the head by a stray round. Fifteen minutes into the mission, all that could be reported was chaos. The German officials on the second floor had no idea what was happening, and couldn’t pull themselves together. Schreiber admitted as much in his later testimony: “We all felt paralyzed. The only person who exploded in rage against the perpetrators was the former Minister-President Strauss. He screamed at them and cursed them. The rest of us were incapable of doing even that.”

Sporadic fire was followed by twenty minutes of tension-filled silence. Zamir and Cohen were shocked by the turn of events. Realizing that help would not come from the command center, they decided to take the initiative, find a police official, and have him issue an order to storm the terrorists. The official refused, telling them that he had decided to wait for the armored police vehicles. When they arrived, he explained, their forces would approach under the cover of armor. Once again, negligence was the order of the day. The armored vehicles should have been ordered to leave the Olympic Village hours before, but that order was never issued. Ten minutes into the firefight, the armored vehicles were finally told to move. They were then stuck in a massive traffic jam, unable to maneuver around the numerous cars of curious bystanders who had flocked to the scene of the hostage crisis. Zamir, in a desperate, final attempt to convince the police officer to fight, pointed to two German air force pilots lying, seemingly injured, on the asphalt next to the helicopters. The police officer remained resolute: he would wait for the armor.

The silence stretched. The marksmen were unable to locate the terrorists in the dark shadows beneath the helicopters. The terrorists, it seemed, were saving their ammunition. Zamir and Cohen climbed on the roof to get a commanding view of the scene below. They saw two German marksmen, holding their fire, unable to discern friend from foe. Cohen lifted a megaphone and spoke in Arabic to the terrorists: “Give up. Save yourselves.” Their answer came in a hail of bullets.

In the officials’ room, Ulrich Wagner, standing next to Interior Minister Genscher, turned to one of the senior police officers with a desperate plea. “What are you going to do? Pull out the hostages! Do something!”

The commander, lowering his eyes, said, “I have no orders.”

The situation had reached a stalemate. It was almost midnight. An hour and twenty minutes had passed since the chaos commenced. Suddenly, four armored police vehicles lumbered out of the darkness. The terrorists felt the immediate shift in the balance of power. The end was coming. They were on the brink of failure and the hostages were still alive. One of the terrorists leaped out of the helicopter under Tony’s command and threw a fragmentation grenade inside. The grenade exploded, setting the fuel tanks on fire. A sky-licking flame rose up, illuminating the tarmac. The fate of the shackled hostages within—Ze’ev Friedman, Eliezer Halfin, David Berger, and Yaakov Springer—was sealed.

Seconds later, another terrorist jumped into the second helicopter, where Yossef Gutfreund, Kehat Shorr, Mark Slavin, Amitzur Shapira, and Andrei Spitzer sat, hands and feet manacled, bound to each other. He must have seen their terrified faces as he sprayed them with automatic fire from close range. Wagner heard their final cries above the rattling gunfire.

In the moment of silent shock following the massacre, the remaining terrorists jumped to their feet and started to run. They fired at the control tower as they fled into the darkness of the surrounding fields. One of the marksmen was able to catch Issa in his sights and kill him. Three of the terrorists, Adnan Al-Jishey, the injured Jamal Al-Jishey, and Mohammed Safady, made it to the open fields along the runway. The German police chased them in armored vehicles, on foot, and with dogs for over an hour before they were caught.

One helicopter continued to burn, yet no one extinguished the fire. The firemen on hand were unwilling to approach the scene, deterred by the occasional gunfire. They waited until all the terrorists had been caught before putting out the flames with foam. David Berger’s life was lost as a result. The bodies of the three athletes sitting beside him in the helicopter were destroyed by the fire, but Berger’s remained intact. He had been shot, perhaps by both police and terrorists, in the calf and thigh—nonfatal wounds. David Berger, an autopsy revealed, died from smoke inhalation.