A phone ring on the morning of September 5, 1972 woke up three East German journalists, who had been sent to cover the Olympic Games being held in West German Munich.
This is the first Olympics in which an East German delegation participates independently and officially - a great political achievement for the communist regime in the country, which has been struggling for decades for international recognition.
It was also the first Olympics held on German soil since the end of World War II.
The early phone call to the three journalists comes from the building in the Olympic village, where the East German athletes' delegation lives.
"Armed forces penetrated the Olympic village during the night and occupied the house of the Israeli delegation, opposite the house of the East German delegation. There were shots fired, and apparently there are casualties."
While the outside world, including the West German security services, were unaware of the magnitude of the terrible drama unfolding within the Olympic Village that would end in the murder of 11 Israeli athletes by a Palestinian terrorist squad, the three East German journalists received fairly accurate information about what was happening and immediately left for the Olympic Village.
One of them was refused entry at the gate next to the scene of the unfolding attack.
A West German policeman advised him "it's better not to enter, if you don't want to leave as a corpse", and he was directed to another gate.
The other two journalists entered the village without any problems using the Olympic Village's underground road system.
Hours have passed since the beginning of the event, and the West German security authorities still have not sealed off the village.
The three East German journalists were able to move around quite freely in the area and deliver detailed reports on what was happening to the Stasi, the East German intelligence agency, whose people monitored the delegation of athletes and the delegations of spectators who came to the sporting event from the eastern side of Germany very strictly.
One of the East German athletes, who stayed in the delegation's quarters at 24 Connolly Street, across from building 31 where the Israeli athletes lived, was Klaus Langhoff, a member of his country's handball team.
Langhoff - then 32 years old, now 82 years old - recounts in a conversation with "Israel this week" those infernal moments: "Around 5 in the morning the leaders of our team woke me up. The general secretary of the delegation told me: 'Klaus, go through all our rooms and tell our athletes in Benin Opposite - at a distance of about 15 meters from us, in the house where the Israeli Olympic delegation was, there was an attack. We don't know what exactly happened, but everyone should stay in their rooms and lock all the doors and windows facing the street. We were forbidden to leave the building where we lived and go to the room The food for breakfast. We were ordered to wait for further instructions."
I mean, didn't you hear the shots across the street from the Israelis?
"I think I heard gunshots in my sleep, but it didn't wake me up. I had a separate room. In our building, we had housing units for five people, for three, for two, and for singles. From my room I could look directly at what was happening across the street, especially at the entrance to the building where the Israeli delegation was, where the cargo was handled and dealing with the terrorists."
Playing behind closed doors
We meet in Rostock, Langhof's hometown, where he began his sports career, which continued in the ranks of the German Handball Association even after the reunification of Germany, until recently.
The massacre of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics does not let up, even today, despite the fact that the neighborhood of the Israeli delegation did not create any closeness between the athletes of the two countries.
East Germany was the most hostile to Israel among the countries of the communist bloc in Europe even before the Six Day War, after which most countries of the bloc severed their relations with Israel.
East Germany had no diplomatic relations with Israel from the day it was founded in 1949 until the day it disappeared in 1990.
On the other hand, East Germany had the closest relations with its sworn Arab enemies of the Jewish state, including with the Palestinian terrorist organization, the PLO. At the end of October 1971, a delegation led by Yasser Arafat visited East Berlin, which was promised increased material aid. Already during the Six Day War, a shekel The German regime engaged militarily against Israel on the side of the Arabs, a move that was carried out in the Yom Kippur War, during which East Germany sent planes and pilots to Syria, whose participation in the fighting was prevented at the last minute because of the cease-fire agreement.
In such an atmosphere filled with hatred, Langhoff and his fellow members of the East German handball team met face to face with Israeli athletes for the first time precisely on the soil of East Germany, three years before the Munich Olympics.
"We played against the Israeli national team in 1969 as part of the preliminary games for the World Championship held a year later in France," recalls Langhoff, "the lottery forced us to play against the Israeli national team. Our national team management could not refuse to play against Israel, because then we would have lost the opportunity to qualify for the championship The world. And that's how this confrontation came into being, held if I'm not mistaken on November 19, 1969.
The first match took place in Schwerin, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
To our great regret and to the regret of the Israeli team, our management decided to hold the game behind closed doors.
Maybe 50 selected spectators were invited.
Beyond them, no one was allowed to enter the hall.
We won the game by a huge margin, 35:2.
The game was very fair from both teams."
The East German media reported on hosting the Israeli delegation?
"Yes, but in small and very brief news, not as they used to report on our games. Handball was a very popular sport in East Germany. It is understood that there were many handball fans who once wanted to see the Israeli delegation. For many, the behavior of the authorities towards the Israeli delegation was seen as shameful, but no We could have done something against her."
And why didn't the return match take place in Israel?
"The game was supposed to take place in Israel at the beginning of December. We kept getting conflicting news. First we were told that the game would take place in a large hall in a kibbutz, I think near Nahariya. We were even given a lecture by an Israeli communist, who came especially to tell us about Israel at the invitation of the East German government. Unfortunately, I don't remember his name. What he told us in German really excited us. Our government probably didn't know what he was going to tell us. But to our great joy, and probably to the anger of the East German Communist Party, he described Israel and its development since 1948 in a positive way. Very much. He told us what the Jewish people did from this land, how it turned from a desert into a fertile and flourishing land, a pride for all citizens. You could feel his pride in the State of Israel in his words. To this day, I can see before my eyes how he stood full of joy and spoke to us about Israel in his eyes Burkas. It really moved us.
The Olympic Village in the photo taken by Langhoff, photo: Klaus Langhoff
"Even before that, I gathered information about Israel for myself, since during our trips to Arab countries, where we faced Arab national teams, I always noticed that they only spoke about Israel in a negative way. I didn't like it. In Egypt, already in the early 1960s, they gave We have information brochures full of incitement against Israel. Therefore, every trip to Western countries I looked for material about Israel - books, brochures, press reports, in order to know more. This lecture by the Israeli communist made me very happy. For all of us, the meeting with him was very important emotionally. We did not expect that he will speak so positively about Israel.
"But unfortunately, the match in Israel did not take place. According to the handball rules, the field was supposed to be a certain size and around it there were supposed to be borders of a fixed size, so that the players would not get stuck in the walls. There was no such hall in Israel, and the World Committee informed us that we had to go to the World Championship without a match Reciprocal. In that championship we won the runners-up of the world championship."
Did you have any contact with the members of the Israeli national team during their stay in East Germany outside of the game?
"Contrary to what was customary at the time, a joint meal was not held for the two delegations. Before the game we greeted each other, on the field we stood by their side and treated them in a friendly manner. On the part of the players there was no reason to ignore the Israelis. The leadership of the Communist Party and the regime bodies told us that the game should take place within a normal framework, but Without a show of friendship on the field. This is how we behaved. The game was played in a sporting atmosphere between the two teams.
Then came 1972. For the first time East Germany participates independently, with all the symbols of its sovereignty, in the Olympic Games, which are held in West Germany.
"Handball became an Olympic sport for the first time in 1972, and thus we became part of our national team. Until 1964, there was a joint German delegation for the two countries to the Olympics. Each time preliminary competitions were held between the two countries for representation, and following them a delegation of athletes from both countries was assembled. In 1968, in Mexico , two separate German national teams participated, but under the Olympic flag and anthem. 1972 was a double debut for us: both the first appearance of an official East German delegation at the Olympic Games and the participation of the handball team. As world runners-up, we very much hoped to win a medal at the Olympics. Then the attack on the delegation happened On that day, September 5, we had a fateful match against the USSR team.
We were ready to win, but the game was postponed a day because of the attack and we lost it.
"Three times I participated in the Olympic Games - in 1972 as a player, in 1980 in Moscow - where we won gold, and in 1988 in South Korea as a coach. I must say that of all these three Olympics, the games in Munich - until September 5, were the most successful. There was a happy atmosphere , peace, calm among all the athletes. The Olympic Village was small and intimate, but wonderful. For us, as athletes who participated for the first time in the Olympics, it was extremely impressive. We were very enthusiastic. The important game that was scheduled for the next day against the USSR.
We also passed by the low fence that surrounded the village and through which the terrorists penetrated.
Her height was about 2 meters.
In the following Olympics, the security measures were already much stricter.
What I don't understand to this day is how they were not prepared for the possibility of an attack.
After all, this was a time when there were already Palestinian terrorist attacks.
But the German organizers and the International Olympic Committee were naive.
Disaster live
Langhoff pulls out of his dark jacket pocket photographs that he himself took throughout the long day, during which nine members of the Israeli delegation were held hostage.
"Here you see the entrance to the building of the Israeli delegation, near which they dumped Moshe Weinberg's body," he points to one of the photographs, "the body remained there for a while, until it was evacuated. It was a terrible sight. Horrifying. Shocking. We lived in the apartments across the street and saw everything Then the negotiations with the terrorists began with the participation of the Munich police chief, the West German Minister of the Interior, Dietrich Genscher, and other people. They talked near the entrance with one terrorist, who was holding a grenade in his hand the whole time. The negotiations went on all day. It was terrible."
The window of your room overlooked directly the scene of the event?
"My room was on the fifth or sixth floor. At first we obeyed the instructions of those in charge and did not open the windows. In the window of the second floor of the Israeli house we saw two terrorists. Down on the ground floor there was always one terrorist armed with a Kalashnikov and there was the negotiator with the grenade in his hand. After an hour to an hour and a half from the beginning of the event, we opened the windows and doors and left the rooms to our balconies. The terrorists who were on the second floor waved goodbye to us. They knew very well who lived in the building opposite. That is, that this was the East German delegation. East Germany was considered an ally of the Palestinians. They saw us Their friends. Some terrorists knew the Olympic village very well, and knew everything - where to jump over the fence, how far to walk to the house where the Israelis were. Everything was planned in detail. After they waved us goodbye, we took the cameras and filmed them. I had more photos, but I gave some of them in 1997 to a journalist who did not return them to me, and in the meantime he passed away."
In photographs, most of them in color, Langhoff immortalized the Olympic village, the residential buildings, his team in full and partial formation and moments of the terrorist drama that took place across from his room.
Among other things, the black-and-white battle photographs of the terrorists and food that is brought to the Israeli delegation building at the request of the terrorists.
In the detailed report that the East German journalists send to the Stasi about the developments on the ground, and not to the local security forces, it is written at 8:15 in the morning from the first floor of the East German delegation building that looks directly at the events in the Israeli pavilion: "Five armed men are looking at us, laughing. Near the entrance door on the second floor On the ground is the commander of the force in a gray training suit with a white hat, his face is made up in brown. On the first floor at the window is a man with a dark gray, wide-brimmed hat, with large, red sunglasses, a shirt with a print, open for display, a gold chain..."
"When did you learn about the tragic end of the event?", I ask Langhoff.
"I had a small television set in my room, I watched the reports all day," he replies, "everything happened live. In the afternoon, we marked three crosses on the lawn that was behind our building. That's where the three helicopters later landed, which took the terrorists and the hostages to Fürstenfeldbruck Airport Suddenly in the evening we saw movement in the building opposite from us. You could see the elevators going up and down. Bus traffic in the village was underground.
"We learned that the nine hostages who were left alive were transferred to helicopters, and around 9 p.m., maybe later, we heard the helicopters leaving.
Some time later it was announced on television that the affair ended well.
"Near midnight it was reported what really happened: the helicopters landed, German snipers tried to shoot the terrorists after shining spotlights on them. The diversionary operation was not successful, because the terrorists immediately threw grenades into the helicopters, and thus the athletes were murdered. This operation was prepared amateurishly. For us it was a shock." .
"Not a real memorial event"
After a long deliberation, the organizers of the Olympics decided to suspend the competitions for a few hours but resume them the next day.
Did you stay in the rooms all day?
"Part of the East German delegation left the Olympic Village that day as planned. Other handball teams went to practice, but we didn't. Our coach, Hans Seiler, said: 'The games are over.' Only in the evening did the news come that the games had been suspended for a day and then would resume. In the game we held the next day against the USSR, we lost.
We ended up competing for the third and fourth places and lost against Romania.
A team that returned to East Germany from the Olympics without a medal was worth nothing.
Only medals counted.
The attack on the Israeli delegation was very distressing for all of us.
I was busy thinking about it all the time.
It was unthinkable that someone would use such a large and important event as the Olympic Games for terrorist attacks.
"I was born at the end of 1939. I have childhood memories of the last years of World War II. Rostock was heavily bombed. To this day I am unable to enter dark basements or hear car engines making noise. To this day I have no understanding of wars between people. This attack left its mark on me Horrible to this day. After all, East Germany was involved in the incident by allowing Palestinian terrorists to pass through and prepare themselves. They knew that if necessary they could quickly move from West Germany to East Germany and receive protection there. One of the organizers of the attack in Munich, Abu Dawud, enjoyed protection in East Germany." .
But the Stasi agents who were with the delegation did not cooperate with the terrorists?
"Of course there were Stasi agents with us in the expedition, but I don't know if they were involved. There weren't many agents in the expedition. There were many Stasi people in the scouting expeditions, which could only stay a few days and then were replaced by another one."
Why did the East German delegation not participate in the memorial event for the murdered held after the massacre?
"An instruction came from the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Berlin that the East German Olympic delegation would not participate in the event. In our opinion, the athletes did not ask. The chairman of our delegation, Manfred Weber, informed us of this.
without explanation.
We had to put up with this directive.
We could not drive as much as we wanted.
Of course we talked about it.
Although we knew we had to be careful, because there were several players in our team who were informers for the Stasi.
We didn't know who they were.
I then played for the Leipzig club, where I studied at university.
Me and the other players from the Leipzig club could trust each other and talk freely.
Our opinion was that it didn't make sense not to go to the memorial event, but we couldn't talk about it with players from Berlin or other places."
What do you think about the attitude of the German authorities when it comes to accepting responsibility for the security and operational failure at the Munich Games?
"After this attack in Munich there was total silence. The press and the authorities denied what happened. Even in East Germany. It was completely suppressed. Only in 1997, after 25 years and after reunification, did they start talking about it again. Only at the end of East Germany's days did efforts begin to establish relations with the State of Israel. Before that, it was always presented in a negative light. The responsibility for the conflict with the Arabs was always placed on Israel. Of course, there were people who had a different opinion and who tried to get other information about Israel through contacts in the West - scientists, doctors who traveled to conferences abroad.
But the common people usually had nothing to do with the Israeli issue."
Were you invited to the memorial ceremony to be held in September in Munich on the 50th anniversary of the massacre?
"Yes, but I don't intend to go. My wife is about to undergo surgery, and I will not go there alone. I told my wife that when she recovers, I will go with her and show her everything again. It is important to me personally. I have since returned several times to the Olympic village with German handball teams and gave the athletes a tour of the place A mass event like the one planned is not a real memorial event. There will be speeches about reconciliation, but the athletes themselves will not have a real opportunity to be united with the memory of the events."
Do you understand the decision of the families of the Israeli victims to boycott the ceremony because of the attitude of the authorities in Germany?
"This is the first time I've heard of this, but I can understand Israelis who don't want to come to Germany."
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