Munich Olympics Massacre

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on securing the debate and his excellent speech in commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Olympics massacre in Munich.

When we talk about middle east affairs, it is important that we always place them in the context of the time. Of course, 1972 was a very different age from our own. International terrorism, with which sadly we all have become far too familiar, was relatively new, and Black September itself was a relatively new terrorist organisation. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will know better than most of us that terrorist incidents in Northern Ireland really started to get going in 1969-70. I believe that 1972 was the most blood-drenched year in Northern Ireland’s history, with hundreds of soldiers murdered and many civilians killed. At that time, many countries in the world were confronting terrorism for the first time.

Another new thing in the early 1970s was live television, as was the start of colour broadcasts. I think that I am right that, even at the 1968 Mexico City games, live television as we know it today did not really happen, as a lot of events were recorded and broadcast later, but in Munich in 1972, there were live outside broadcasts to countries all around the world. What made the terrorist incident in the Olympic village in Munich all the worse was that the murders of 11 people and a German police officer were broadcast live as they happened on television screens in people’s front rooms. Millions of people around the world saw for themselves the awful events unfold and, of course, that made for very uncomfortable viewing.

Of course, 1972 was no more than 27 years after 6 million Jews were led to their deaths in German extermination camps. The Munich Olympics were meant to be Germany’s rehabilitation—if you like—in the international world order. They were to be a games of peace, joy and happiness that could bring the nations of the world together in the Olympic spirit, and that could show West Germany, as it was then, as a modern nation, free of its past. The presence of the Israeli team at the Olympic games was a very important part of that. Indeed, the Israeli athlete who carried the Israeli flag at the Olympic opening ceremony, Henry Hershkowitz, who was a marksman, said:

“I felt awesome pride that Jews could raise their flag on German soil. This is proof that the Nazis weren’t able to crush the Jewish spirit, the Israeli spirit.”

The presence of such a large Israeli team in Munich was a very important part of the 1972 games, and it was therefore even more terrible that it was the Israeli team that was targeted by Palestinian terrorists.

Additionally, 1972 was the best part of a decade before other well-known terrorist incidents, such as the Iranian embassy hostage siege in London. Many of us recall that event, and the success of the SAS in liberating most of the hostages and killing the attackers sent a clear signal to the world that Britain would not be held hostage by terrorist organisations. However, the success in dealing with the Iranian embassy hostage siege was in complete contrast to the mess made by the German authorities in dealing with the Palestinian attack on the Israeli Olympians, because the Germans just did not know what they were doing.

In the early 1970s, nations around the world did not know how to deal with terrorist incidents. All the security apparatus with which we are now all too familiar—trained marksmen, and soldiers wearing gasmasks and abseiling into buildings—did not exist in 1972. Indeed, there were no armed police at all in the Olympic village or the Olympic park, because the German authorities deliberately wanted to downplay their militaristic part. The Israeli compound was on the ground floor with no security barriers, so the terrorists simply opened the door and walked in.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the cruellest ironies of what happened in Munich in 1972 was that, under the post-war settlement, the German military authorities were not able to undertake on German soil the sort of work that they could carry out only four years later when giving their assistance at Entebbe and in other terrorist actions? As he rightly points out, a particular tragedy in 1972 was that the German authorities on the ground were unable to organise the sort of rescue that we have perhaps all come to take for granted in other terrorist incidents in the decades since.

[Mr Hollobone]

As always on such matters, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Again, with reference to the Iranian embassy hostage siege in London, we remember pictures of black-clad SAS men on the roof abseiling down into the windows and taking out the terrorists. As people will recall from Munich, live television was showing German police officers—armed at that point, and dressed in tracksuits—on the roof and creeping down towards the Israeli quarters. The amateurishness of it all was exposed by the fact that nobody thought that there was a television in the Israeli quarters where the hostages were being held, but the terrorists could see on the TV screen the police officers on the roof above them. Basic security measures were not thought of.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East is quite right to say that the different organisational structures between the federal Government and the Bavarian authorities meant that there was no proper co-ordination. There were absurd scenes in which Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the federal Interior Minister—the equivalent of the Home Secretary in this country—stood outside the Israeli quarters negotiating face to face with the leader of the terrorists, who was holding a hand grenade. We just cannot imagine that such a situation would arise today. That was how basic it all was then; no one knew how to deal with such terrorist incidents.

Although I am putting on the record my analysis of the amateurishness and incompetence of the German authorities in handling the situation, much bravery was clearly displayed by many people who tried to address the problem, and not least Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who offered himself as a hostage in replacement for the then nine hostages who were still alive. He actually went into the room at one point to check on the hostages’ welfare, but he failed to count the number of terrorists. Until the failed rescue at the military airfield later that night, the German authorities thought that they were dealing with five terrorists, not eight. They had five marksmen lined up at the military airfield to take out five terrorists, so they did not have enough to take out eight. Nowadays, there would be a lot more marksmen.

The marksmen who were put in place were not properly trained and did not have the proper rifles. There was no proper co-ordination. At the military airfield, the German police officers in the airliner that was going to take away the hostages and the terrorists voted, just 15 minutes before the operation was due to take place, to abort the mission and simply disappeared. The whole thing was tragically incompetent. Authorities around the world are now, thankfully, far better trained in knowing how to deal with such terrorist incidents.

Black September started as an Arab terrorist organisation by making attacks on Arab targets. Until 1972, Black September’s main dispute was not with Israel, but with the Jordanians. Black September actually assassinated the Jordanian Prime Minister and caused all sorts of terrorist outrages in the Arab world. The origins of that horrific movement were actually in Arab-on-Arab violence, and only in 1972, when it was forced out of Jordan into Syria, and then into Beirut, did Black September take on the Israelis. One of the tragedies of the middle east in relation to the Palestinian cause, which we in the United Kingdom recognise as having merit—the UK Government’s position is that there should be a Palestinian state and a homeland for the Palestinians—is that Black September and the start of Palestinian terrorism has, to my mind, blackened the Palestinian cause. Furthering its dispute through terrorism was one of the many wrong decisions taken by the Palestinian movement.

I simply do not accept the reason given by the terrorists for the Munich massacre, which was to raise the profile of the Palestinian dispute among the audience of the world, as 1972 was only five years after the 1967 war, and it was less than a year before the 1973 Yom Kippur conflict. The world knew about the problems in the middle east and about the Palestinian struggle. It was simply illegitimate for the Palestinians to say that the only way to attract world attention was by committing such atrocities. It was one of the many wrong decisions taken by the Palestinians in the furtherance of their aims.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Palestinian terrorist campaign hardened the resolve of the Israeli Government and people not to give in? In actual fact, it was a backward step that did the very opposite of what the Palestinians were trying to achieve.

[Mr Hollobone]

It is of huge credit to the Israelis that when they were confronted with the horrendous hostage situation at the Munich Olympics, the then Prime Minister Golda Meir refused to negotiate with the terrorists, whereas the West Germans were all for having negotiations straight away. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East referred to the hijacking on 29 October, after the massacre—I think it was by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—about which there is strong evidence that the West German authorities liaised with terrorists to organise a hijack so that they would have an excuse to free the three remaining terrorists, who were then flown back to Libya.

One of the points in all this is the Libyan involvement in the Munich massacre. The terrorists came from Libya, they went back to Libya, and they were funded by Libya. Of course, Colonel Gaddafi was in charge of Libya at the time. How appalling to think that a major western country such as West Germany could collude with terrorist organisations to try to get itself out of the hole of holding terrorists in German jails.

The tragedy of the Munich Olympics is that, just 27 years after the holocaust, Jews were once again led to their deaths while bound and gagged on German soil. All that took place on live television and was seen on screens in people’s homes around the world. Clearly, the German authorities were embarrassed about it, but they handled it incompetently. The Israeli authorities, to their credit, refused to negotiate with the terrorists, and thus began the extremely hard line that Israel has taken with terrorists ever since.

It is completely wrong of Arab nations to applaud the terrorist attack on the Munich Olympics. Even today, Palestinian groups hail as martyrs the terrorists who were killed, and hold up the Munich attack as a good example of the sort of activity that Palestinians should undertake to highlight their cause. That is completely wrongheaded. Would not it have been wonderful, on the 40th anniversary of the massacre, for the Arab League to come out with a statement condemning the events in Munich in 1972? If we are ever to get a resolution to the middle east crisis, we will need such gestures from the Arab world as an attempt to go some way towards healing the wounds of the past.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East on securing the debate and his excellent speech. I hope that the Olympic authorities can find some way to commemorate those horrendous events of 40 years ago.