Neo-Nazi Aided Palestinian Perpetrators of 1972 Munich Massacre, Report Says
German weekly Der Spiegel bases report on 2,000-page file
compiled by Berlin authorities, made public nearly 40 years after the
attack at the 1972 summer Olympics, which resulted in the death of 11
Israeli athletes.
Neo-Nazi
activists aided the Palestinian terrorists who perpetrated the massacre
of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics in 1972, the German
weekly Der Spiegel reported on Sunday.
The report
is based on a 2,000-page file compiled by the Federal Office for the
Protection of the Constitution, which was made public at the request of
Der Spiegel, ahead of the 40th anniversary of the Munich massacre, to be
marked this coming September.
At the
1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, terrorists from Fatah's Black September
organization took hostage members of Israel's Olympic squad. Two Israeli
athletes were killed in the initial hostage-taking and nine were killed
during a botched German rescue attempt at a Munich airport.
A document
released on Sunday, detailing a correspondence between local police in
Dortmund and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution,
reveals that seven weeks prior to the attack a man named Saad Walli,
described as having "an Arab appearance", held a suspicious meeting with
a neo-Nazi activist named Willi Pohl.
Saad Walli
was the alias of Abu Daoud, one of Black September's leaders and an
organizer of the Munich attack, who died in Damascus two years ago.
The newly
revealed correspondence does not indicate that German federal security
forces and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
acted in any way to arrest Abu Daoud, despite having preliminary
information.
According
to Der Spiegel, the neo-Nazi activist aided Abu Daoud in obtaining fake
credentials, including passports and other documents. In addition, he is
quoted as saying that he "drove Abu Daoud around Germany, where he met
Palestinians in various cities."
Currently,
Pohl makes a living from writing detective novels, using a different
name, and indicates that "without knowing it," he was linked "to the
perpetrators of the massacre at the Olympics."
The German
activist was also reportedly linked to a follow-up attack planned by
Palestinian militants after the Munich massacre. Following instructions
by Abu Jihad, then Yasser Arafat's deputy and Fatah's second in command,
Pohl was to plan an abduction attack at the Koln cathedral and in the
city halls of several major German cities.
However,
he was arrested in Munich with grenades and fire arms in his possession
in October 1972. Pohl was also found to be holding a threatening letter,
meant to be sent to a German judge who had been in charge of the trial
of three of the attack's planners.
Morevoer,
the police report exposed by Der Spiegel indicates that Pohl aided the
terrorists to obtain weapons, possibly including those used in the
massacre itself. "They originated from a very rare production line," the
report wrote of the seized arms, saying the arms included "Belgian
casings and Swedish explosives, made only for Saudi Arabia."
"Identical weapons were used by Palestinian terrorists to kill the hostages at the Olympics," Der Spiegel added.
Pohl was
sentenced to a short jail term for "unauthorized possession of
firearms," only to be released four days after his sentencing and,
eventually, making his way to Beirut.
According
to Der Spiegel, German authorities feared a terrorist attack could be
initiated to release the neo-Nazi activist, similar to the one that took
place less than two months following the massacre, when a Lufthansa
plane was abducted, prompting the release of three of the attack's planners from a German jail.
Ofer Aderet
Haaretz Correspondent
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