The Munich Olympic Games were to present the Federal Republic of Germany as a young, cosmopolitan democracy. But the “friendly games” will always be remembered for the events of September 5, when the Palestinian organisation “Black September” took eleven Israeli athletes hostage. Shortly after midnight, the hostage situation ended in a failed rescue attempt. When the gunfire stopped, all eleven Israeli hostages, one West German police officer and five Palestinian terrorists lay dead. For the 50th anniversary, this four-part documentary series “Terror at the Games – The Munich Massacre” reconstructs the day from various perspectives, the day many consider to be the birth date of international terrorism. Surviving members of the Israeli team, German police officers and for the first time ever, the two surviving Palestinian hostage-takers, tell their stories.

With images that are to this day burned into our collective consciousness, and with previously unseen archive footage, the documentary series presents the events of 1972. It shows the failures of the German police and security service apparatus, but above all it makes the continuing Middle East conflict tangible and shows that the wounds of the victims’ families have still not healed.