Sarahsteff's List: Security of Munich Olympics

• The 1972 Summer Olympics were supposed to be the “Carefree Games,” helping shed the image of the Germans as a cold, inhospitable people
• Only 36 years before, another German city played host to an Olympic Games, and the hallmark of the 1936 Berlin Games was the Nazi propaganda that suffused the Games and portended World War II.
• the German organizers were happy to embrace the world’s naiveté and go ahead with their idea of the Olympics as a light, airy affair.
• The 1972 Games were to be free from militarism and scrubbed of the Nazi stain, sending the message that Germany was now a liberal, peaceful, fun-loving country.
• This was the first time the Olympics had a mascot: a cute little dachshund named Waldi
• Olympic security guards known as Olys were clad in light blue suits, and they didn’t carry weapons
• Only $2 million was spent on security at the Munich Games.
• Athletes were encouraged to live it up, their late-night carousing at the biergartens of Munich often ending with the Olympians scaling the fences to sneak back into the Olympic Village.

6 more annotations...