The design of these stadia was considered revolutionary, with sweeping canopies of acrylic glass stabilized by metal ropes, used on such a large scale for the first time.

[8] The event was overshadowed by the Munich massacre in the second week, in which 11 Israeli athletes and coaches and a West German police officer at the Olympic Village were killed by the Palestinian militant organisation Black September.

Two of the hostages who resisted were killed in the first moments of the break-in; the subsequent standoff in the Olympic Village lasted for almost 18 hours.

Late in the evening of 5 September that same day, the terrorists and their nine remaining hostages were transferred by helicopter to the military airport of Fürstenfeldbruck, ostensibly to board a plane bound for an undetermined Arab country.

Although arrested and imprisoned pending trial, they were released by the West German government on 29 October 1972, in exchange for the hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615.

[12] Jamal Al-Gashey, who is believed to be the sole survivor, is still living today in hiding in an unspecified African country with his wife and two children.

[citation needed] The massacre led the German federal government to re-examine its anti-terrorism policies, which at the time were dominated by a pacifist approach imposed after World War II.

[16] In her film 1972, Artist Sarah Morris interviews Georg Sieber, a former police psychiatrist who advised the Olympics' security team, about the events and aftermath of Black September.

[26] This includes sports-related costs only, that is, (i) operational costs incurred by the organizing committee for the purpose of staging the Games, e.g., expenditures for technology, transportation, workforce, administration, security, catering, ceremonies, and medical services, and (ii) direct capital costs incurred by the host city and country or private investors to build, e.g., the competition venues, the Olympic village, international broadcast center, and media and press center, which are required to host the Games.

The 1972 Summer Olympic programme featured 195 events in the following 21 sports: Eleven nations made their first Olympic appearance in Munich: Albania, Dahomey (now Benin), Gabon, North Korea, Lesotho, Malawi, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Swaziland, Togo, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso).

Rhodesia's invitation to take part in the 1972 Summer Games was withdrawn by the International Olympic Committee four days before the opening ceremony, in response to African countries' (such as Ethiopia and Kenya) protests against the Rhodesian government.

‡ No medals were awarded on 5 September as all Olympic competitions were suspended during that day although events that were being held at the time of the suspension were allowed to finish to their conclusion.