Munich Olympics Massacre Officials Ignored Warnings of Terrorist Attack
07/23/2012 SPIEGEL
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/officials-ignored-warnings-of-munich-olympics-massacre-a-845867.html

Explicit warnings that a terrorist attack might take place at the 1972
Munich Olympics were ignored by German officials, according to previously
classified documents seen by SPIEGEL. The new details also reveal efforts to
cover up the extent of their failure to stop the brutal murders of Israeli
athletes.

It is no secret that the German authorities' handling of the massacre of
Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics was characterized by
bumbling and cover-ups. But new documents seen by SPIEGEL reveal that
officials concealed even more -- and more blatant -- errors than previously
thought. Indeed, there were even several warnings prior to the Games that an
attack was imminent.

Previously classified documents from investigative officials, embassy
dispatches, and cabinet protocols released to SPIEGEL by the Chancellery,
Foreign Office and state and federal intelligence agencies have revealed the
lengths to which officials went to hide their mistakes.

In the attack on Sept. 5, 1972, Palestinian terrorists killed 11 members of
Israel's Olympic delegation, along with one German police officer. Five of
the eight terrorists from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
terrorist group called "Black September" were also killed during the botched
rescue attempt by German police at the Fürstenfeldbruck military airport,
where the hostages were being held in two helicopters.

'No Self-Criticism'

Already on Sept. 7, just one day after the memorial ceremony for the victims
took place in Munich's Olympic Stadium, a Foreign Ministry official told a
special sitting of the federal cabinet what would ultimately become the
maxim for both Bavarian and West German officials. "Mutual incriminations
must be avoided," a protocol for the meeting reads. "Also, no
self-criticism."

Just how closely this advice was followed can be seen in documentation from
both the federal government and the Bavarian state government, which falsely
described the "precision" with which the terrorists carried out their
attack. In reality, officials knew that the "Black September" members were
actually so poorly prepared that they even had trouble finding hotel rooms
in Munich before their attack.

On the day of the attack, the Palestinians were even known to have gone
right past the Israelis' apartments in the Olympic village, encountering
athletes from Hong Kong on an upper level of the building instead. An
"analytic evaluation" of the attack by the Munich criminal police later
explicitly determined that the terrorists had "conducted no precise
reconnaissance" ahead of time.

But none of these details were revealed to the public. The fact that
Bavarian state prosecutors in Munich were pursuing an investigation against
police president Manfred Schreiber and his chief of operation on suspicion
of negligent manslaughter also wasn't mentioned in the document.

Clear Warnings

Concrete warnings of a potential attack also went unmentioned, despite the
fact that they were so clear that their dismissal remains difficult to
comprehend. On Aug. 14, 1972, a German embassy officer in Beirut heard that
"an incident would be staged by from the Palestinian side during the Olympic
Games in Munich." Four days later, the Foreign Office forwarded the warning
to the state intelligence agency in Bavaria, along with the recommendation
to "take all possible available security measures" against such an attack.

Security agencies didn't even register warnings that appeared in the press.
On Sept. 2, three days ahead of the deadly hostage-taking, the Italian
publication Gente wrote that terrorists from Black September were planning a
"sensational act during the Olympic Games." Only later -- two days after the
bloodbath in Munich -- was the warning put on record through a tip-off from
the Hamburg criminal police.

Responsible officials seem to have attempted to erase any evidence of their
failures to prevent the attack, the documents show. A few days afterwards, a
chief police commissioner seized information concerning 26 potential crisis
scenarios for the Munich Olympics, which had been prepared by a police
psychologist to aid in preparing a security concept for the games. One of
the scenarios involved an attack by Palestinian terrorists at the Olympic
village.

When the Bavarian state intelligence agency inquired after the materials,
police officials acknowledged that they had been created and discussed
during preparatory seminars ahead of the Olympics, but indicated that a
written record was "not available." The documents are still missing today.

kla/SPIEGEL