ABSTRACT
The killing of eleven Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists has forever marked the 1972 Olympics. So much so that for many the threat of terrorism – and how to combat it – is unquestionably the most powerful legacy of the Munich Games. An event designed to show off the newly democratic Federal Republic was disfigured by political fanaticism and violence just as the Berlin Games for many were tainted with the memory of Nazism. This perception is understandable but unfortunate. It reduces the Munich Olympics to one horrific event and effectively obscures the wider legacies for the city, the region, and the West German state. Mega sporting events are frequently multifaceted and this was emphatically the case with Munich. Hence the purpose of this chapter, which is largely drawn from the concluding section of our major study, The 1972 Munich Olympics and the Making of Modern Germany (University of California Press, 2010), is to explore both the planned material and cultural transformation of the city as well as the unplanned consequences of the most horrific act in Olympic history.
