Talk:Munich massacre

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Talk archives
Archive 1

Contents

[edit] Broken Link

The link to an interview with the "mastermind" of the attacks is broken and needs to be removed or replaced: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060223/ap_on_re_mi_ea/munich_mastermind 4.243.227.32 08:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

A google search on the string "Munich Attack Mastermind Feels No Regret" finds several non-identical articles dealing with the death of the "mastermind". Several of those are obsolete. I replaced the broken link (yahoo news) with a working one.merryXIV 16:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] To Israeli/jewish Wikipedia editors

Please, refrain from constantly reverting any edits that you deem would tarnish the image of your country.--213.216.199.6 10:55, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

you wrote provocative unsourced comments and then comments referenced by a movie which what you wrote seems your personal WP:OR about the conclusions derived from the movie. thank you. Amoruso 00:25, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Look, I just saw this documentary (NOT a movie) on TV and decided to check out the Wikipedia article. Well, needless to say, I was disappointed.
Munich: Mossad's revenge (Channel 4)
Day after Munich
I don't have time for edit war, and if everyone else feels okay to not mention about the hundreds and hundreds uninvolved victims of Israeli retaliation, then let it be. --213.216.199.6 07:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Feel free to add any information you think is necessary so long as you include appropriate references. As for the retaliation, you will find more in the articles Operation Wrath of God and Operation Spring of Youth. Joshdboz 00:59, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, it's extremely difficult to find "appropriate references" as none of mine ends in .il (Israel) in its domain name.--213.216.199.6 08:38, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I watched the documentary and it is certainly a credible source. Just make sure you cite it to avoid people reverting your work. Joshdboz 19:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your comment, finally a voice of reason. I won't do any editing for now, as I wan't to read more, but I need to express this:
I feel very sad over the fact that it takes me — a guy who just saw a documentary — to correct a LIE BY OMISSION.
Wikipedia should be above this.--213.216.199.6 12:42, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page move

I've moved this page back to the original title as there seemed to be no consensus for it to be moved, and because this is widely known as the Munich Massacre. Also, someone had added a lot of POV to the intro and others had added a bunch of tags, so I returned to a stable version and removed the tags. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:16, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Well there were 4 users discussing the move and the consensus was for change. There is no minimum number of votes; if people don't vote the assumption is they don't mind or don't care. I don't know why you didn't vote then, but it's rude to move it back unilaterally. By all means reopen the debate and muster supporters if you can. I'm quite happy to leave it here if you can demonstrate a consensus; you have not done so. jnestorius(talk) 17:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

All of 4 editors? "Munich massacre" is by far the most common name, with over 108,000 Google hits. "Munich Olympic massacre" gets 12,600 hits by comparison. Wikipedia generally uses common names for article titles. From which other Munich massacre were you trying to disambiguate it? Jayjg (talk) 18:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

These points were discussed at the vote, which see. If you and SlimVirgin can get two other Wikipedians to vote with you to change back, then fine. If it's as obvious as you say that should be easy. Let's do things properly, that's all. jnestorius(talk) 18:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I can see only two editors who supported the change. Could you say which other Munich massacre you're trying to distinguish it from? Also, you said previously it sounds as though it might be a neo-Nazi attack or even a football match. I'm afraid you've lost me there. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
It was 2 Support + 1 Weak support for Munich Olympics massacre; 1 Support + 1 Mild oppose + 1 Oppose for Munich massacre. The fourth user, User:Aldux, voted on other options but expressed no preference on those two. I'm not wasting time discussing the substantive points further unless you're going to formally request a Move. jnestorius(talk) 19:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

2 support and 1 weak support is hardly a consensus for anything, and the poll is extremelly confusing. You need to get much broader Wikipedia input for that kind of move, especially when it existed quite happily where it was for years. Why don't you try that request again? Also, it would really be helpful if you answered the question; which other Munich massacre are you trying to distinguish this from? Jayjg (talk) 19:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

And the weak support wrote: " ... how many Munich massacres can you name? Only one. The Munich massacre. But, if you realy have to change the current name, let it be "Munich Olympics massacre". Alhough I think "0lympics" is pretty much redundant here." That's not a support in my book. Anyway, regardless, with or without that vote, there is no consensus to move it. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay; I'm not going to bother opening another vote, because I think I'd lose. I don't mind about the name, I'm just peeved at the procedure. That said, the procedure seems vague so I don't blame you. I have raised the issue at Wikipedia talk:Consensus#What if you reach a consensus and there's nobody there?.

Regarding the confusing poll: check out Approval voting.

Regarding the points: I said Nazi, not neo-Nazi. I'm sure there must have been some massacres in Munich by the Nazis. That's why I said "plausibly" called, not "actually" called. The football match was Engand 5-1 Germany in 2001. Again, I don't think many people actually call the match "the Munich massacre" (here's one). The point was, as a description it's potentially ambiguous; as a canonical name, potential ambiguity would be irrelevant. You feel the name is canonical: I disagree, as reasonable people may. jnestorius(talk) 17:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I added my votes against the change in the archive. Irongargoyle 22:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

An archive is an archive, it should not be changed. I have reverted your changes and those of User:Dujang Prang (who supported Munich Massacre and opposed the others; the pre-revert version is this one for the record.) By all means record your opposition here, but not on the archived page. That said, I think SlimVirgin ought to have left the Requested Move section on this Talk: page. You don't need to archive everything; if a Talk page is too long, archive what is no longer live, and keep the recent sections on the Main page. But I don't want to be the one to undo that as it might look like personal pettiness on my part. If someone else wants to move it back out of the archive (and re-add Irongargoyle and Dujang Prang's votes), you have my blessing. jnestorius(talk) 17:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes

The footnotes don't seem to correspond in any way to the text. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

It's going to be a big job fixing these, because there's no indication of which footnote refers to which part of the article, so I'm going to start from scratch, but I'll only be working on it a bit at a time. I'll use the new ref style. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This isn't

Neutral, neutralize or delete

Could you be more specific? -- Jonel | Speak 22:20, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I am new to Wikipedia, can someone tell me if this article presents a neutral point of view? There are 36 uses of the word 'terrorist', isnt fedayeen more applicable in this situation? Terrorist is a very loaded word. There are many other biases terms such as 'slip away' instead of 'escaped'. Also, please let me know if I made any mistakes in this posting. Osabek 08:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, the term terrorist is used in many established news magazines and newspapers in describing the group's actions. So this is not a POV description. --Siva1979Talk to me 08:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
This incident defined terrorism and put hostage-taking and the Palestinians into the spotlight, largely because of the ability of most of the world to watch events unfold minute by minute on TV. I think the use of terrorist is fine in this case, especially when quoting published sources, of which this terrorist attack is only surpassed by sept 11 2001 Greynurse 11:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
The use of the words terrorist, murder, etc. may have a place in this article, but I think this needs a major overhaul regardless. Often times these terms aren't even the most specific, because they can easily be replaced with "militant", "hostage-taker", "shot and killed", etc. I'm not trying to push any point of view, but these topics are prime targets of emotional readers who feel very strongly one way or the other. Using terms that are almost intrinsically provocative does not help in the least. Joshdboz 00:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I also think that the word terrorist is overused, and may not be seen as acceptable in this case by many people.

[edit] assasination of "principal planners"

There is a lot of evidence to suggest that few (if any) of those assasinated by Israel were "principle planners" from the Black September group (or even members). As I understand it, most were just high-profile Palestinian ex-pats, outspoken in their opposition of the state of Israel. A recent Channel 4 documentry in the UK points towards this (see Channel 4 Munich Site) - 128.232.240.178 22:40, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Operation Boulder

From Racial and Ethnic Groups, by Richard T. Schaefer "following the 1972 munich olympics attack, president richard nixon initiated operation boulder, which allowed for coordination intelligence activities by the CIA, FBI, and other agencities to spy on and harass any Arab Americans engaging in political activity. with the objective to block support for the Palestinian cause, the three-year effort was to be directed against anyone of Arabic Background." (David and Ayoyby 2004) Upon trying to write an essay on Operation Boulder I have discovered there is no information concerning it on Wikipedia. It seems to be heavily related to this event, so perhaps someone should add something about it on this page. Obviously I cannot write the article, as you can see, the only information I have about it seems incredibly biased. Something about Operation Boulder might be a good idea, though.--Wormywyrm 02:30, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

If the Operation existed at all. A2Kafir 04:30, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Heres some more information on the cited source from Schaefer's text:
David, Gary and Kenneth Kahtan Ayouby. 2004. "Perpetual Suspects and permanent others: arab americans and the war and terrorism." Pp. 30-71 in Guerras e Imigracioes, edited by Marco Aurelio Machado de Oliveira. Universida de Federal de Mato Grosso Do Sul.
As expected, this obscure book is not in my library. May as well ignore Operation Boulder for now. --Wormywyrm 07:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Failed GA Application

This article has failed its Good Article nomination. This is for a number of reasons, which you can see in the list below. The reasons are substantial enough not to warrant getting a 7-day hold period - this article has a long way to go before achieving GA status. It can be done though, so please rectify the problems and resubmit when you think it adheres to the good article criteria.

[edit] Failed "good article" nomination

This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of November 14, 2006, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: This article does indeed have "compelling prose". However, it reads like a novel or account, rather than an encyclopedia entry. It also follows a logical, hierarchical structure
2. Factually accurate?: All statements must be factually accurate and verifiable. This article contains no where near enough references to achieve this goal, and consequently reads like an account. Examples: "Security was kept deliberately relaxed, and it was not uncommon for athletes to come and go from the Village without presenting proper ID." How do you know? Which source did you get that from? Remember, no original research!
3. Broad in coverage?: The text is pretty thorough, with a background of what the games were like, description of the event itself and discourse on the aftermath. However, a person could not come to this article without prior knowledge of the event or its wider context. Who were Black September? Why did they target the Israelis? Why did this happen in 1972 but not in the '60s? The event is not in context. If a person who knew nothing of the Arab-Israeli conflict saw a link to "Munich Massacre" and thought "That sounds interesting, I'll read about that", they would be lost in this article. All it takes is a couple of lines on who Black September were, what their aims were, and why they did what they did.
4. Neutral point of view?: An article name like this sets an anti-NPOV tone, but since it is widely known as the Munich Massacre, it is not appropriate to try to neutralise it. The main body of the text, however, is not written in NPOV. "Countdown to Catastrophe" is not NPOV, and is a heading! "The mistakes made were mind-boggling" - neither neutral, nor referenced. This is not an essay! Also, "Could the Disaster have been presented?". This is ambiguous - is the "disaster" the Black September takeover or the German police's bungling? Either way, it is certainly not NPOV.
5. Article stability? The article is fairly stable in terms of notable edits, which is acceptable.
6. Images?: This is not a strict requirement. The article makes average use of pictures, could perhaps do with one or two more.

When these issues are addressed, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. Thanks for your work so far. --Chrisfow 22:40, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Could the massacre have been prevented? section

This section is horribly POV and should be dramatically re-written, sourced with cites, and POV removed. As is, it's speculation and presumes faults without cites by outside parties concluding mistakes. --Durin 00:38, 25 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Could the massacre have been prevented?Section needs overhaul

This section is a textbook case of OR. Its definitely not unencylopedic, it has a lot of useful information, and covers an area of the topic which is of interest, but while it may seem obvious that the operation was botched and "could have been prevented", the section is nothing more than an opinion piece. Find a source that makes the contentions, and attribute any such opinions to a source. Until then I'm moving it to here.

The shootout with the well-trained and suicidal Black September members showed an egregious lack of preparation on the part of the German authorities. It is clear that they were not prepared to deal with this sort of terror situation, which led directly to the founding, less than two months later, of GSG 9. The mistakes made included the following: * Because of complications in the laws that existed at the time, the Federal army of West Germany could not participate in the attempted rescue. The responsibility was entirely in the hands of the Munich police and the Bavarian authorities. * It was known a full half-hour before the terrorists and hostages had even arrived at Fürstenfeldbruck that the number of terrorists was larger than first believed. Despite this new information, Schreiber stubbornly decided to continue with the rescue operation. It is a basic tenet of sniping operations that enough snipers (at least two for each known terrorist, or in this case a minimum of ten) should have been deployed to neutralize all of the terrorists with the first volley of shots. It was this most basic failure of intelligence that led to the subsequent disaster. * The helicopters were supposed to have been landed sideways to the control tower, which would have allowed the snipers clear shots into them. Instead, the helicopters were landed facing the control tower, which not only cost the snipers shooting opportunities, but gave the terrorists a place to hide after it became clear that the Germans were attempting to rescue the hostages. * The five German snipers did not have radio contact with one another (or with the German authorities leading the rescue operation) and were unable to coordinate their fire. The only contact the snipers had with the operational leadership was with Georg Wolf, who was lying next to the three snipers on the control tower and gave orders directly to them. The two snipers at ground level had been given vague instructions to shoot when the other snipers began shooting, and were basically left to fend for themselves. * None of the snipers were equipped with steel helmets or bullet-proof vests. * The Heckler & Koch G3 battle rifles being used were considered by several experts to be inadequate for the distance at which the snipers were trying to shoot the terrorists. The G3, the standard service rifle of the Bundeswehr at that time, had a 20-inch barrel; at the distances the snipers were required to shoot, a 27-inch barrel would have ensured far greater accuracy. Additionally, none of the rifles were equipped with telescopic or infrared sights. * Incredibly, the shooter known only as "Sniper 2" (the one stationed behind the signal tower) was positioned directly in the line of friendly fire, without any protective gear and without any other police being aware of his location except the other sniper who was with him at ground level. "Sniper 2" didn't fire a single shot until late in the gunfight, when hostage-taker Khalid Jawad attempted to escape on foot and ran right at the exposed sniper. "Sniper 2" killed the fleeing terrorist but was in turn wounded by one of his fellow policemen, who was unaware that he was shooting at one of his own men. One of the helicopter pilots, Ganner Ebel, was also wounded by what turned out to be “friendly fire.” (Both Ebel and the sniper recovered from their injuries) * No tanks or armored personnel carriers were at the scene at Fürstenfeldbruck, and were only called in after the gunfight was well underway. It should also be pointed out that none of the fake crew on the 727 was prosecuted or even reprimanded for what amounted to dereliction of duty and insubordination in abandoning their posts. It is indicative of the depth of the cover-up by the German authorities that many of the police officers and border guards who were approached for interviews by the One Day in September production team were threatened with the loss of their pensions if they talked. Many of the most telling errors made by the Germans during the "rescue attempt" were detailed by Heinz Hohensinn, who had participated in the operation, but had taken early retirement and had no pension to lose.

Brentt 00:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Read Groussard, Reeve and Klein. Every single one of the facts in this section, which is pertinent to the article, are documented in those books - in some cases, there is overlapping citation in all three. The fact that the Germans horribly botched up the rescue operation, leading directly to the deaths of nine hostages, should be neither minimized or whitewashed. Facts are facts, and thus are not POV - this is what happened that night. To deny the facts of the Furstenfeldbruck shootout would be equivalent to saying that the hostages' deaths were the 100% responsibility of the terrorists, which is known not to be so (and please don't think that, as a Jew, I'm going to minimize the responsibility of the terrorists, either!).

Since citation is amply provided in all three books, I'm restoring the section (which, BTW, I originally wrote).

BassPlyr23 09:37, 26 November 2006 (EST)

[edit] The days before "irony"

Hello, I'm new to this article, please excuse me.

My comment is on a sentence in the "The days before" section. As a reader, I am not clear on what the irony of Andre Spitzer's placing of the wreath is. Can someone make this a little more clear in the article?

Is it because he's Romanian born?

The sentence I'm referring to starts as follows,

"Ironically, fencing coach Andre Spitzer"

- Rockthing 13:49, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

The irony has to do with the fact that Spitzer would later become one of the hostages and would die in Germany.

BassPlyr23 09:52, 26 November 2006 (EST)

I see, thank you. I wonder, if this can somehow be made clearer later in the article? Or am I just totally missing the obvious. I'll have to read through it again.
Again, thank you for your explanation.
- Rockthing 16:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Machine gunned; the police were carrying machine guns?

Please do excuse the petty issue I have here, but: were the athletes shot with a machine gun like an m60, or with AK-47s? And were German police carrying guns with bipods, or were they assault rifles? Although most readers of Wikipedia are fine with leaving AKs and M16s as machine guns, in military usage they would be called assault rifles. If Wikipedia is about excruciating accuracy (which is what I have seen) then I would like to have the terms changed to "shot to death" and "carrying assault rifles". Besides, in common usage shot to death sounds a lot better than making "machine gun" into a verb. Again, though most civilians will be fine with the usage, Assault rifle is a much more accurate term in this case. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.16.162.161 (talk) 04:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

According to the book "Terrorism - Inside a world phenomenon" by Barry Davies, the German police were using bolt action rifles and the terrorists were using AK47's. Barry Davies (probably not his real name) claims to be ex-SAS so probably knows his weapons. Andysm 18:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article needs work and editing

Hi, I believe that this article needs to be trimmed for length and copyedited for tone and style. As another editor (Chrisfow) argued elsewhere in this Talk page, this article "...reads like a novel or account, rather than an encyclopedia entry. It also follows a logical, hierarchical structure." This editor also argues that there are sections which lack references (e.g., "Security was kept deliberately relaxed, and it was not uncommon for athletes to come and go from the Village without presenting proper ID." ...the editor asked "How do you know? Which source did you get that from? Remember, no original research!"). As well, the editor argued that a person could "...not come to this article without prior knowledge of the event or its wider context. Who were Black September? Why did they target the Israelis? . As well, the editor notes that there are statements like "The mistakes made were mind-boggling" which are "neither neutral, nor referenced. This is not an essay!" I would like to work with other editors to improve this article. SlimVirgin, in particular, I would like to hear your views on whether the article needs to be improved...Nazamo 15:36, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

From "Terrorism - Inside a world phenomenon" by Barry Davies "The Olympic village had been deliberately planned with the minimum of security, reducing the unpleasant memories of the past. The Israeli team were billeted in Connollystrasse 31, separated from the public by a wire fence and the odd patrolling guard." Andysm 19:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
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