The Munich massacre is an informal name for events that occurred during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Bavaria in south West Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually killed by the Palestinian group Black September. Shortly after the crisis began, the Palestinians demanded the release of 234 prisoners held in Israeli jails. They also demanded the release of all members of the German Red Army Faction being held in German prisons. Black September called the operation ‘Ikrit’ and ‘Biram’ after two Christian Palestinian villages whose inhabitants were expelled by the Haganah in 1948.

The kidnappers killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches and a West German police officer. Five of the eight members of Black September were killed by police officers during a failed rescue attempt. The three surviving assassins were captured, but later released by West Germany following the hijacking by Black September of a Lufthansa airliner. Israel responded to the killings with Operation Spring of Youth and Operation Wrath of God, during which Palestinians suspected of involvement in the massacre were systematically tracked down and killed by Israeli intelligence and special forces. The Israeli operations cost the lives of one innocent in Norway and of four passersby in Lebanon during the killing of Ali Hassan Salameh.

At the time of the hostage-taking, the Games were well into their second week. The West German Olympic Organising Committee had encouraged an open and friendly atmosphere in the Olympic Village, to help erase memories of the militaristic image of wartime Germany and, specifically, of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which had been exploited by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler for propaganda purposes. The documentary film One Day in September claims that security in the athletes’ village was intentionally lax and that athletes often came and went from the village without presenting proper identification. Many athletes bypassed security checkpoints, and climbed over the chainlink fence surrounding the village.