One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge Operation "Wrath of God" [Anglais] [Broché]

In the early hours of September 5, 1972, members of the ultraviolent Palestinian terrorist faction Black September scaled the perimeter fence surrounding the Olympic Village in Munich. Their target was the temporary home of the Israeli Olympic team. Within 24 hours, 11 Israelis, five terrorists, and a German policeman were dead.

Based largely on exhaustive investigation for the Oscar-winning documentary, One Day in September is the definitive account of the tragedy. Simon Reeve has gathered extraordinary information from a number of sources, including recently released Stasi files and interviews with key figures, including the families of the hostages, politicians, policemen, advisors, fellow athletes, media figures, and even the lone surviving member of the group that carried out the attack. Reeve's control over his material is admirable. He vividly paints images of the individuals involved, humanizing a narrative that cracks and buzzes with the compact tension of those 24 hours. At the same time, he provides the background to the attack, filling in vital historical context from the distant and recent past, such as the Arab-Jewish dispute that produced this and other terrorist actions and their responses.

Reeve conveys the public horror of Jews being incarcerated on German soil, which led the German authorities to make crucial judgments, with tragic results. Fatal errors were made that can only be fully understood through the underlying dynamics of not only Middle East history, but also postwar European politics, individual and institutional arrogance, inexperience, and political pressure--including from the International Olympic Committee. Reeve follows up the events of that day by exposing the full extent of the Israeli revenge mission, which over the next 20 years hunted down and killed those responsible for the attack. He has not only written a compelling book, but provided a considerable service in allowing readers to understand the forces of hatred and history that conspired toward inevitable, but no less tragic human consequences.

Those who were a part of the huge live media audience that watched helplessly as events unfolded will undoubtedly experience again the sense of dread at recalling those traumatized, shackled figures led out from the Olympic Village to their fate on a German airfield. Those who make the mistake of thinking the dark days of international terrorism are history will read One Day in September and remember that the same underlying tensions still cast shadows over our present and our future. --Fiona Buckland, Amazon.co.uk --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Adult/High School-A comprehensive and unsettling account of a horrific occurrence that shocked millions in 1972. The Summer Olympics were held in (West) Germany for the first time since 1936, amid hopes for an open, nonmilitaristic competition. Early on the morning of September 5th, eight mem-bers of a PLO faction called Black Septem-ber snuck into the Olympic Village and stormed the men's residence, seizing 11 Is-raeli athletes and coaches. Two were killed immediately, and the remaining nine (along with five of the terrorists) were slain less than 24 hours later in a badly bungled rescue at-tempt at Frstenfeldbruck airport. Reeve's book originated with research conducted for an Oscar-winning documentary, but the vol-ume goes beyond the film to present many disturbing and previously unknown facts. While the film focuses on the massacre itself, the text covers acts of retaliation and cover-up that continued for years afterward. Indeed, one vital source of information is an investigative report, the existence of which was denied by German officials for 20 years, and came to light only through the persistent ac- tions of family members of the murdered ath-letes. Despite the regrettable omission of an index, Reeve's book is an important one since it deals with many issues-terrorism, anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, and Middle East unrest.-Dori DeSpain, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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"An important book, a thorough primer on the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian standoff" --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"Rounded and frequently gripping. Reeve plays the massacre like a thriller, and delights in atmospheric details. Very moving testimony" --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

At 4:30 am on the morning of September 5, 1972, a small band of Arab terrorists invaded Munich's Olympic Village and took 11 Israeli athletes hostage. The Arabs' goal: to thrust the Palestinian cause into the world spotlight and free several hundred Arab prisoners. For the next 24 hours, the world watched as the drama unfolded, culminating in a bloodbath at Munich's Fürstenfeldbruck airport. Here those momentous, tension-filled hours are recreated in mesmerizing detail, as is the relentless 10-year Israeli manhunt, called Operation "Wrath of God," for those responsible.

"In the early hours of 5 September 1972 the perimeter fence surrounding the Olympic Village in Munich was scaled by terrorists. Their target was the temporary home of the Israeli Olympic team, and within 24 hours seventeen men were dead: eleven Israelis, five terrorists and a German policeman. The attack by Black September, an ultra-violent faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, was seen on television by more than 900 million viewers. The world watched as Jews suffered again on German soil. Yet despite the immediate attention given to the disaster crucial questions went unanswered. Why did so many die? And why have German officials covered up details of the massacre? Based largely on exhaustive investigations for the film One Day in September, this book is the definitive account of the massacre. With the help of previously secret documents, photographs and dozens of interviews, it reconstructs the tension of the day - and exposes the full extent of the Israeli 'Wrath of God' revenge mission, which over the next twenty years saw Israeli agents systematically murder their way across Europe and the Middle East. One Day in September is the most compelling account yet written of events in Munich, of the devastating impact the attack had on the relatives of terrorists and athletes alike - and of the long shadow the massacre still casts over the modern world." One Day in September was published in 2000 by Faber and Faber in Britain, Arcade in the USA, and by Penguin in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. It has also been published and sold in a number of other countries around the world. The film One Day in September, narrated by the actor Michael Douglas, won the Oscar for Best Documentary. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Simon Reeve is a journalist and writer. He worked for the Sunday Times for five years before leaving to finish co-writing The Millennium Bomb, published in 1996. He has since contributed to books on corruption, organized crime, and terrorism, and has written investigative feature articles for publications ranging from Time to Esquire.

Chapter One It was 4.30 a.m. on the morning of 5 September 1972, when a small posse of shadowy figures arrived on the outskirts of the Olympic Village in Munich and made their way silently to the six-foot perimeter fence supposed to offer protection to the thousands of athletes sleeping within. Creeping through the darkness carrying heavy sports bags, the group made for a length of the fence near Gate 25A, which was locked at midnight but left unguarded. The 35-year-old leader of the small troop, Luttif Issa, a.k.a. ‘Issa’, had carefully chosen the point at which his men were to enter the village. On previous nights he had seen athletes climbing the fence near Gate 25A while returning drunk from late-night parties. Security was lax and none of the athletes had been stopped. So Issa dressed his seven colleagues in tracksuits, reasoning that if guards saw them they would assume they were just sportsmen returning to their quarters. Jamal Al-Gashey, at 18 one of the younger members of the group, remembers the tension building as they approached the fence. There they came across a few drunk American athletes returning to their beds by the same route. ‘They had been forced to leave the village in secret for their night out,’ Al-Gashey remembered. ‘We could see they were Americans ... and they were going to go over the [fence] as well.’ Issa quickly decided the foreign athletes could give his group cover if they helped each other over the fence. ‘We got chatting,’ said Al-Gashey, ‘and then we helped each other over.’ Al-Gashey lifted one of the US team up onto the fence, which was topped not by barbed wire but small round cones, and then the American turned and helped to pull Al-Gashey up and over. Several officials, including six German postmen on their way to the temporary post office in the Village Plaza, saw between eight and 12 people in two groups with sports bags climbing the fence at around 4.10 a.m. As Issa had assumed, none of these passers-by challenged them because they thought the fence-climbers were just athletes returning home. ‘We walked for a while with the American athletes,’ Al-Gashey recounted, ‘then said goodbye.’ The group split up and stole through the sleeping Village to a drab three-storey block on Connollystrasse, one of three broad pedestrianized streets, adorned with shrubbery and fountains, snaking from east to west through the Village. Even if the unarmed Olympic guards or the Munich police had been alerted it would probably have been too late. The eight men were terrorists from Black September, an extremist faction within the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The fedayeen (‘fighters for the faith’) were carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenades, hidden under clothing in the sports bags , and they were fully prepared to fight their way to their target: 31 Connollystrasse, the building in the heart of the Olympic Village that housed the Israeli delegation to the Olympic Games. New entrants were about to make their mark on the XXth Olympiad. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.