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‘Memories of war’ returned, witness of 1972 Olympics attack recounts

Daniel Wighton (AFP)

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Rostock, Germany

Mon, September 5, 2022

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Token of memory: A photo taken on Aug. 17 shows a commemorative plaque with the Olympic Rings in front of the Memorial to the Victims of the 1972 Olympic Attack at the Olympic Park in Munich, southern Germany. (AFP/Ina Fassbender)

Survivor of a terror attack at the Olympic Village in Munich in September 1972 reminsices the tragedy.

Klaus Langhoff experienced World War II as a child and found memories of the carnage flooding back when he went to Munich in 1972 as a handballer captaining East Germany at the Olympics.

Langhoff and his teammates were staying just across from the apartment block that Palestinian gunmen stormed into on Sept. 5, 1972, taking the Israeli team hostage.

As the day wore on, he witnessed helplessly the terrifying scenes unfolding from his balcony—from gunmen dropping the lifeless body of an Israeli coach on the street to the tense negotiations carried out between the hostage-takers and the West German police.

"It was like part of a war," said Langhoff, who had seen corpses of German soldiers lying in hastily dug graves as a six-year-old.

"These memories of the war came back" when he saw the hostage takers carrying out the body of Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and leaving it on the street, he told AFP.

The shock had been doubly hard to bear as the Games had started off so well, said Langhoff, who still cuts an imposing figure at the age of 82.