Last week’s Munich murders continued to reverberate today in West Germany. Chancellor Willy Brandt called for a “frank” and “ruthless” inquiry into the events in which 11 members of Israel’s Olympic squad were killed by Arab terrorists and five terrorists and a German policeman were slain during an airport shoot-out.
In Munich, Interior Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher urged the Bonn government to ban all Arab tourism into West Germany “for the foreseeable future.” Police in Munich have meanwhile cordoned off the entire Olympic Village after receiving an anonymous tip that there may be more terrorist outrages. The games end tomorrow.
The Black September, the extremist terrorist group responsible for the Munich blood-bath, warned that Germany would suffer a disaster “from which it will not soon recover” unless three captured terrorists are set free. West German authorities warned German Jews not to open mail or parcels they might receive during the Rosh Hashana holidays on the chance they might be booby-trapped. Munich police have been ordered to tighten surveillance of Arabs in the city and tight security has been ordered around the city’s foreign embassies.
SHORTCOMINGS CANNOT BE CONCEALED
Brandt’s demand for a full dress inquiry appeared to be at least in part an indirect response to criticism from some Israeli quarters that West German security forces bungled their attempt to rescue the Israel Olympians held hostage by the terrorists. Brandt’s statement issued by his office here said “Only a frank presentation of all the facts, even if they are painful, will serve Germany’s interests.” An interim report on the autopsies performed on the Israeli athletes indicated that all had been shot and four were burned as well.
In an interview published earlier in the Munich newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung. Brandt indicated that a board of inquiry should be set up in the Bundestag. “It is my deep conviction that we cannot allow the impression to arise anywhere that we have not put all our cards on the table,” he said. He added. “Shortcomings–and naturally there are shortcomings in such a context–cannot be concealed.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
