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

simon reeve

At 4:30 a.m. on September 5, 1972, a band of Palestinian terrorists took eleven Israeli athletes and coaches hostage at the Summer Olympics in Munich. More than 900 million viewers followed the chilling, twenty-hour event on television, as German authorities desperately negotiated with the terrorists. Finally, late in the evening, two helicopters bore the terrorists and their surviving hostages to Munich’s little-used Fürstenfeldbruck airfield, where events went tragically awry. Within minutes all of the Israeli athletes, five of the terrorists, and one German policeman were dead.

Why did the rescue mission fail so miserably? And why were the reports compiled by the German authorities concealed from the public for more than two decades? Reeves takes on a catastrophe that permanently shifted the political spectrum with a fast-paced narrative that covers the events detail by detail. Based on years of exhaustive research, One Day in September is the definitive account of one of the most devastating and politically explosive tragedies of the late twentieth century, one that set the tone for nearly thirty years of renewed conflict in the Middle East.

Genres historynonfictionsportspoliticsisraelterrorismtrue crimegermanywarmilitary fiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,2000

This edition

Format: 336 pages, Paperback
Published: January 4, 2006 by Arcade Publishing
ISBN: 9781559708135
ASIN: 1559708131
Language: English

About the author

simon reeve

Simon Reeve is an English author and broadcaster. In recent years he's been travelling around little-known regions of the world for a series of BBC television documentaries.