Munich 1972: New files found on the Olympic assassination – including a mysterious tape

Created: 07/23/2022, 20:32

By: Dirk Walter

Previously secret - but now visible: Archivist Gerhard Fürmetz with one of the files that have now been released.

A tape is among the documents that the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior submitted to the main state archive.

© Bodmer (2), Schmotz (archive), collage: Johanna Segl

"Secret!" is the red stamp on documents relating to the 1972 Olympic attack. They were previously classified as classified information.

The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior has now released the files.

Any new information on the assassination?

Munich – On October 10, 1972, the Olympic assassination was just over a month ago, the Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution wrote to the Bavarian border police about the report of an “untested informant”.

Accordingly, there are plans to "hijack an airplane at Munich Riem Airport".

The aim is to free the three terrorists who survived the exchange of fire at the end of the dramatic September 5, 1972 at the Fürstenfeldbruck air base.

The informant even named two possible dates for the kidnapping: October 20 and 30.

The document from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has been in the VS archive of the Bavarian State Archives since 1998 – VS stands for closure.

Only now, in April of this year, did the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior arrange for these and other documents to be handed over to the Bavarian State Archives.

At the same time, two boxes containing files from the Ministry of the Interior were transported the few hundred meters from Odeonsplatz, where the Ministry of the Interior is based, to Schönfeldstrasse.

There she was received by archive director Gerhard Fürmetz.

He is head of Department II (More Recent Collections) and thus also the master of the Olympic files.

He says: "I don't think that the history of the Olympic attack needs to be rewritten now.

But the files do allow new perspectives, for example on what was known at the time about threats and the security concept of the police.”

Assassination attempt in Munich in 1972: "State security matters" is on the files

So far no one has read the files systematically - our newspaper is the first to have access to the materials.

Room 34 on the ground floor of the Main State Archives is an unadorned room, worn office furniture, 1970s charm.

There, Fürmetz placed five blue files, each several centimeters thick, on a table.

"State security matters.

Arab terrorists, attack in the Olympic Village,” it reads, including the respective years from 1972.

Fürmetz leafs through the yellowed papers that have been filed away.

The files tell contemporary history, making it clear, for example, that the security authorities wanted to learn from the Olympic attack.

More police presence at major events after the Olympic disaster, that was the lesson.

There is a 17-page report on the security situation prior to the 1974 World Cup, signed by the Federal Minister of the Interior at the time, Genscher.

A police officer wrote in handwriting with a ballpoint pen that the report gave a "good overview".

Concrete indications of an attack are not recognizable.

But the goal must be "to unsettle potential troublemakers, especially by showing the (police - ed.) forces".

There are also three Leitz folders with archive material on the Olympic Games from July to September 1972, which also contain documents about bomb threats, for example.

In addition, the archive received a stack of loose documents, including a photograph folder on the "hostage murder of Israeli Olympic athletes".

Olympic assassination in Munich: photos that should never be shown

Its content is horrible: close-ups of the murdered hostages, never published for reasons of piety.

One of the killed Israelis is still strapped in in the destroyed helicopter.

The file also contains photos of the hostage-takers who were killed, half undressed and lying bloodied on the asphalt of the air base.

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It's not as if the documents that have now entered the archive are the first ever on the Olympic assassination.

The Ministry of the Interior handed over an extensive first batch as early as the 1980s.

After 2012, when the question of the files on the 40th anniversary of the attack was publicly discussed, further submissions were made, most recently in 2015. In total, the approximately 180 Olympic files are likely to have come from the interior ministry, the state criminal investigation office and the presidiums of riot and police officers Border police add up to a good five meters of shelves, estimates archivist Fürmetz.

Extensive other archive materials are located next door in the state archive.

Olympic assassination: Relatives of victims threatened to boycott the day of remembrance because of missing documents

The fact that the Ministry of the Interior has now submitted new files surprised him too.

"We actually thought that everything was already with us." The reason for the most recent delivery was apparently the threat by relatives of the victims of the attack to boycott the planned commemoration day on September 5 if all documents were not finally made accessible.

Fürmetz's task is now to record the files properly.

Then they could see scientists or journalists in the archive.

However, there are exceptions: Eleven individual documents from the years 1972 to 1979 are apparently so explosive that they were handed over to the archive by the ministry, but are still classified as "classified information".

In the main state archive there are only two archivists - who are bound to secrecy - who know the content of these documents.

Upon request, they decide whether to present these secret documents to researchers.

Munich 1972: Mysterious tape about telephone negotiations about the hijacking of a plane

Among the most recent archival items is a unique item: a tape containing telephone negotiations on the hijacking of the plane on October 29, 1972.

In fact, the informant quoted by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution was not that wrong in his warning of a hijacking: On October 29, 1972, Palestinians hijacked a Lufthansa plane.

However, it did not start in Munich, but in Beirut with the destination Frankfurt.

The result of this hostage-taking is well known: on the same day, the three surviving assassins from the Olympic attack, who were imprisoned in various Bavarian prisons, were released.

Nobody knows exactly what can be heard on the tape.

It has to be digitized first.

The Olympic Games in Munich in 1972 shaped the city – and catapulted it into the modern age.

For the 50th anniversary a magazine is published by our publishing house: Olympia Munich 1972. The cheerful games and the terror.