51 years after the massacre, the historical reckoning begins. Who helped the assassins? Was there a secret deal? A tape discovery also raises the question of whether the involvement of right-wing extremists should be covered up.
51 years have passed since the Munich Olympic attack, in which a Palestinian terrorist squad murdered eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer on September 5, 1972. But many questions still remain unanswered. An international commission of historians, set up by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, is supposed to provide answers. The eight members have just completed their first working conference in Munich. Their research will last three years – and will shed light not only on the attack itself, but also on its history before and after. The SZ outlines three central aspects of what happened, where a particularly large number of questions remain unanswered and where the Commission could provide clarification. Of note is a recently surfaced tape recording that raises the question of whether German right-wing extremists’ support for the Olympic bombers should be covered up.