The story of this place
West Germany designed the 1972 Munich Olympics as the 'Heitere Spiele' — the Cheerful Games — a deliberate contrast to Hitler's militaristic 1936 spectacle, with Frei Otto's revolutionary tent-like canopies evoking lightness and openness. On 5 September 1972 the Palestinian group Black September took eleven Israeli athletes and coaches hostage in the Olympic Village. A botched rescue at Fürstenfeldbruck airbase ended with all eleven hostages, five attackers and a policeman dead. The IOC controversially continued the Games after a memorial service. A plaque at the Village and a memorial in the park honour the victims of the massacre that changed Olympic security forever.