Scan barcode
A review by socraticgadfly
Munich 1972: Tragedy, Terror, and Triumph at the Olympic Games by David Clay Large
5.0
This is really a four-star book, but, with multiple people three-starring it, and one even two-starring it, it needed a bump, so it got it.
Large looks at much more than the Israeli athlete kidnapping and eventual murder.
He discusses how Germans, in an anti-Nazi-appearances reaction to Berlin 1936, had security so low-key as to let this happen. Add in jurisdictional issues between city of Munich, state of Bavaria, and country of West Germany, and you've got a clusterfuck. Add on top of that, that Willy Brandt refused to ask Israel for commando help and the FRG had no trained force itself, and the final, deadly disaster was a ticking time bomb waiting to happen.
But, the book covers much more.
First, Large notes that the US basketball team, while perhaps having some grounds to complain, didn't get totally jobbed by the refs, either. (Also, if Hank Iba hadn't played a slowdown game, this wouldn't have happened in the first place.)
Second, there were Cold War politics.
Third, this was probably the first Olympics with major cost overruns.
And, there was the final Olympics of "Slavery Avery" Brundage running the IOC.
All that and more in this good book.
Large looks at much more than the Israeli athlete kidnapping and eventual murder.
He discusses how Germans, in an anti-Nazi-appearances reaction to Berlin 1936, had security so low-key as to let this happen. Add in jurisdictional issues between city of Munich, state of Bavaria, and country of West Germany, and you've got a clusterfuck. Add on top of that, that Willy Brandt refused to ask Israel for commando help and the FRG had no trained force itself, and the final, deadly disaster was a ticking time bomb waiting to happen.
But, the book covers much more.
First, Large notes that the US basketball team, while perhaps having some grounds to complain, didn't get totally jobbed by the refs, either. (Also, if Hank Iba hadn't played a slowdown game, this wouldn't have happened in the first place.)
Second, there were Cold War politics.
Third, this was probably the first Olympics with major cost overruns.
And, there was the final Olympics of "Slavery Avery" Brundage running the IOC.
All that and more in this good book.