Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Famous students included Max Slevogt, Franz von Lenbach and Wilhelm Leibl; and, in
the early 20th century, Lovis Corinth, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc and oth-
ers who went on to become modern art pioneers.
'THE GAMES MUST GO ON'
The 1972 Summer Olympics presented Munich with an historic chance. It was the first time since
1936 that the Games would be held in the country. The motto was the Happy Games, the emblem
a blue solar Bright Sun. The city built a shiny Olympic Park, including buildings with striking
Plexiglas tents that, at the time, were revolutionary in design. It was the opportunity to present a
new, democratic Germany full of pride and optimism.
In the final week of the Olympics, members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September
killed two Israeli athletes and took nine others hostage at the Olympic Village, demanding the re-
lease of political prisoners and escape aircraft. During a failed rescue attempt by German security
forces at Fürstenfeldbruck, a military base west of Munich, all the hostages and most of the ter-
rorists were killed. The competition was suspended briefly before Avery Brundage, the Interna-
tional Olympic Committee president, famously declared 'the Games must go on'. The bloody in-
cident cast a pall over the entire Olympics and sporting events in Germany for years to follow.
The Munich Olympic tragedy is chronicled in an Oscar-winning documentary One Day in
September (2000), by Kevin McDonald, and also inspired Steven Spielberg's searing Munich
(2005). The killings prompted German security to rethink its methods and create the country's
elite counter-terrorist unit, GSG 9.
Olympiapark & Around
Olympiapark
Offline map Google map
(Olympic Park; www.olympiapark-muenchen.de ; audio tour €7, plus €50 refundable de-
posit, adventure tour adult/concession €9.50/6.50, stadium tour adult/concession €7.50/5;
stadium tour 11am Apr-Oct; Olympiazenturm) The area to the north of the city
where soldiers once paraded and the world's first Zeppelin landed in 1909 found a new
role in the 1960s as the Olympiapark. Built for the 1972 Olympic Summer Games, it has
quite a small-scale feel and some may be amazed that the games could once have been
held at such a petite venue.
OLYMPIC SITE
Search WWH ::




Custom Search