Der Spiegel: Germany had warning of Munich attack
The German government had advance warning of the 1972
Munich Olympics massacre, Der Spiegel reported online on Sunday.
A few weeks before the massacre, in which 11 Israeli
athletes were killed by the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September,
the report indicates that German intelligence and the German foreign ministry
received information indicating that a terror operation was being planned at
the Olympics.
A few days before the Olympics, an Italian paper reported
the same threat.
Despite these advance warnings, the report says that the
German government took no advance precautions and when the attackers came to
the Israeli athletes quarters, they simply walked right in without meeting any
extra security whatsoever.
Another layer of the surprising report is what Der
Spiegel implies was a systematic cover-up by the local and federal German
authorities of their pre-knowledge of the attack and their failures to prevent
the athletes' deaths.
According to Der Spiegel, shortly after the attack, a
memorandum was distributed within the government directing officials to refrain
from any criticism of other officials, self-criticism and to refrain from
providing information regarding the attack to the public.
After the attack, the German government also learned that
Black September had been poorly organized, despite in public saying that the
group had acted "with precision," Der Spiegel said.
One example of the group's operational problems were that
its members had even had trouble finding a vacant hotel room.
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