Paris Olympics 2024: Munich 72 attack, “50 years of lies, manipulation and denial, a real cold case”

Les portraits des onze Israéliens et du policier tué lors des JO de 1972. EPA – RONALD WITTEK

Former reporter at Midi Libre, France Football and l’Équipe, Eric Champel publishes with "Les Fantômes de Munich" an investigative book which reveals the enormous gray areas surrounding the Palestinian attack against Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

How did you come up with the idea for this investigative book?

I decreed it one morning in the spring of 2022, it was more of an intuition that came to me. When I started working on it, I realized that it was a cold case. with a lot of gray areas and that all the issues surrounding Munich 72 were found in the context of the Paris 2024 Games, that there was a real resonance. With the attacks of October 7, 2023 in Israel, we can clearly see that the same mechanisms are at work: a gathering of young people, Palestinians who attack, Israeli hostages and, as in Munich in 1972, there was a report warning of this risk of attack but which was ignored.

Former reporter at Midi Libre and L'Équipe, Eric Champel has carried out remarkable investigative work in Germany to shed new light on the facts. Eric Champel

Why did you ignore this report from psychologist Sieber which announced the tragedy ?

The Germans wanted at all costs for it to be the Games of joy and effervescence in opposition to those of Nazism in 1936. The police officers were in Courrèges costumes, without weapons. They were absolutely naive. Above all, we should not arrive with an anxiety-provoking report when all of this was supported. It still took 50 years for the German government to recognize its wrongs, apologize to the families and compensate them. 50 years of lies, manipulation and denial. The police and the German authorities wanted to avoid any form of questioning and put a lid on all this while 27 years after the end of the holocaust, Jewish blood was spilled on German soil. It was a terrible repetition of history.

What led to this drama, to this deadly assault during which all the Israeli hostages were killed?

The question is why there was so much unpreparedness on the part of the German police? Everything was done in spite of common sense, like the improvised snipers who climbed onto the roofs live on television images. The negotiations have dragged on for too long and we have reached a point of no return. We boarded the plane, the terrorists felt that it was a trap. It was a succession of inconsistencies and incompetence which resulted in carnage. Why were Mossad special forces not called in?? This is the great regret of the Israelis.

Also read: Jo Paris 2024: Munich 72, the terrible attack which marked the Olympics in its flesh and in its memory

There is this incredible release of arrested Palestinian terrorists, two months after the tragedy. All after an arranged hostage situation?

It looks like it. There were only around ten passengers on the plane. The terrorists' papers to leave Germany were already ready, a triumphant welcome awaited them in Libya. We can think that the Germans bought social peace by releasing the last incarcerated terrorists in exchange for the guarantee that there would be no more attacks on their soil. Don't forget those very troubled 70s with the Bader gang, etc.

Should the Games have been stopped?

It’s easy to say in hindsight. The mistake of Brundage, the IOC president at the time, was his speech "The games must go on". The IOC was unable to take stock of this event. This raises the question, what would we do today. The Olympic truce is completely virtual, the wars will not stop during the Paris Games . Munich marks the end of this notion of a protected stadium.

Such a scenario is possible in Paris ?

I don't think so. In 1972, information between services did not circulate like it does today. In the meantime, there were still the attacks of 2015. There is a real capacity to fight against terrorism and to anticipate possible attacks with real means. The threat to the Games, in my opinion, lies more in the manipulation of information with artificial intelligence and cyberattacks. And then perhaps an isolated act. We will undoubtedly organize secure Games in a bunkered city, but at what price?? Is the game worth it??

A book in the form of a counter-investigation, published by Solar. Solar