Munich massacre, Palestinian terrorist attack on Israeli Olympic team members at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich.
The Munich Games marked the first return of the Olympics to a German city since the 1936 Games in Berlin. Adolf Hitler’s use of those Games as a platform for the propagation of Nazi ideology was roundly criticized, as was the blatant racism and anti-Semitism that characterized the Games. The West German invitation had been extended, in part at least, to offer the world a contrast to the horrifying spectacle of Berlin.