Tragedy Of The Munich Games, The

ABC´s Exclusive Coverage of the 1972 Tragedy

On September 5, 1972, eight Palestinian "Black September" terrorists entered the living quarters of the Israeli team at the Olympic Village in Munich, killed two, and took the other nine hostage. The tense, twenty-four-hour standoff that followed, and the botched rescue attempt in which all of the hostages were killed, turned the XX Olympiad, "the games of peace and joy," into a war zone.

This Emmy award winning documentary uses archival footage and all-new interviews to reveal how the Olympic dream of peaceful competition was shattered. Featured are ABC´s Peter Jennings (then a correspondent on the scene), Jim McKay, and Roone Arledge, other Olympians, German officials, police, and family members of the slain Israelis. From their outrage over the deal that freed the surviving terrorists to the reconciliation when they applauded the very first Palestinian team in 1996, this is the story of new hope rising out of terror.