Ankie spitzer biography template
Victim's wife fights for husband's ideal of borderless Olympics
"He told me we could talk as long as his two (German) marks allowed," said 73-year-old Ankie Spitzer. "'I love you from the bottom of my heart, and our daughter, too,' he said. Those are the last words I heard him speak."
In a muffled voice Spitzer revealed those final words she heard from her husband Andre calling from a payphone at the 1972 Munich Olympics athletes' village. A few hours later, Andre, a fencing coach with the Israeli Olympic team was swept up in the most infamous terror attack in Olympic history.
(Ankie Spitzer)
Just after 4 a.m. on Sept. 5, 1972, eight men wearing track suits and carrying bags, scaled the fence outside the athletes' village, looking for all intents and purposes like athletes returning from a late night on the town. The bags contained AKM assault rifles, pistols and hand grenades. Their owners belonged to the Palestinian guerrilla group "Black September," affiliated with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The guerrillas' objective was the Israeli team's apartments at Connollystrasse 31.
Two members of the Israeli delegation were killed trying to resist, while the remaining nine who were present, including Andre, were taken hostage. The Olympic tragedy had begun.
The guerrillas demanded Israel free 234 prisoners -- most of whom were Arab terrorists -- but Israel's refusal made negotiations difficult. In the end, the guerrillas and hostages were taken at night by helicopter about 20 kilometers to an airbase, where they would ostensibly leave West Germany on a civilian airliner. German police, however, had hastily prepared an ambush.
(Photo taken on Sept. 6, 1972 shows Ankie Spitzer standing in a room at the 1972 Munich Olympics athletes' village, one day after the guerrilla attack.)[Photo courtesy of Ankie Spitzer]
The rescue attempt, employing policemen untrained in such operations, was poorly planned. In the ensuing firefight, all nine hostages d
Twelve Months — Twelve Names: 50 Years Olympic Massacre Munich
A commemoration project as part of the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics.
On September 5, 1972 members of the Israeli team at the XX Summer Olympics in Munich were ambushed by a Palestinian terrorist group that was part of the “Black September” organization. The terrorists killed two athletes in their accommodation in the Olympic Village and took nine others hostage. After long negotiations an attempt to free the hostages failed during the night that followed on the military airfield in Fürstenfeldbruck. The nine Israeli hostages were murdered and a Munich policeman also lost his life. Three of a total of eight terrorists were captured alive. None of them were ever convicted.
50 years after the Munich Summer Olympics, the Munich Massacre of September 5 – 6, 1972 is to be commemorated throughout 2022. Every month is dedicated to one victim. A variety of different actions in public spaces is planned, ranging from installations lasting the entire month to activities on one specific day.
This commemoration project has been conceived and coordinated by the Jewish Museum Munich in conjunction with the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism and the Consulate General of the State of Israel
Weightlifter
May 24, 1944 Cleveland / Ohio, USA – September 5/6, 1972 Fürstenfeldbruck
David Berger, the son of a physician, grew up with his two siblings in Cleveland. He started to lift weights at the age of thirteen. Berger studied psychology and business administration before gaining a doctorate in law at Columbia University in New York. He decided to focus on a career in sport. In 1970 he emigrated to Israel and successfully qualified for the Israeli weightlifting team for Munich.
In January 2022 the Amerikahaus Munich commemorates weightlifter David Berger with an installation by media artists Horst Konietzny and Saba Bussmann.
Policeman This year, 5 and 6 September will mark the 51th anniversary of the attack by Palestinian terrorists on the Israeli team at the Summer Olympics in Munich. Eleven Israeli athletes, one police officer and five of the terrorists were killed during the taking of hostages and the Bavarian police’s botched attempt to free them. The attack abruptly shattered the carefully orchestrated image of the “cheerful Games”. 1972 Summer Olympics murder of Israeli athletes This article is about the 1972 massacre. For other attacks, see Munich attack. This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, carried out by eight members of the Palestinian militant organisation Black September. The militants infiltrated the Olympic Village, killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team, and took nine other Israeli team members hostage. Those hostages were later also killed by the militants during a failed rescue attempt. Black September commander and negotiator Luttif Afif named the operation "Iqrit and Biram", after two Palestinian Christian villages whose inhabitants were expelled by Israel during the 1948 Palestine war.West German neo-Nazis provided logistical assistance to the group. Shortly after the hostages were taken, Afif demanded the release of a significant number of Palestinians and non-Arab prisoners held in Israel, as well as one of the West German–imprisoned founders of the Red Army Faction, Ulrike Meinhof. The list included 328 detainees. West German police from the Bavarian State Police ambushed the terrorists, killing five of the eight Black September members, but the rescue attempt failed, resulting in the deaths of all the hostages. A West German police officer was also killed in the crossfire. The West German government faced criticism for the rescue attempt and its handling of the incident. The three surviving perpetrators were arrested but were released the following month in a hostage exchange after the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 615. By then the Israeli government had launched an assassination campaign, which authorised M
March 5
The panel discussion will address the widely diverging approaches of the Federal Republic of Germany and Israel to dealing with this incident. While the attack quickly gained an important place in Israel’s culture of remembrance, Germany has only developed a self-critical form of publicly remembering the victims quite recently.
The public panel discussion is part of the first conference of the research project to examine and reappraise the attack on the Israeli Olympic team, which will take place in Munich from 5 to 7 September 2023. Initiated by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community (BMI), the project is being conducted by an international commission of historians and the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ). Its mission is to investigate unresolved issues as well as the background and aftermath of the attack.
Participants
DR ROMAN DEININGER is chief reporter at Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ). In 2021, together with Uwe Ritzer, he published the book “Die Spiele des Jahrhunderts. Olympia 1972, der Terror und das neue Deutschland” (The Games of the Century: The 1972 Olympic Games, Terror and the New Germany).
PROF. DR KAY SCHILLER is a professor of modern European history at Durham University in Northern England. In 2010, together with Christopher Young, he published the book “The 1972 Munich Olympics and the Making of Modern Germany”.
PROF. DR SHLOMO SHPIRO is a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv and member of the international commission of historians to reappraise the attack on the Israeli O Munich massacre