US swimming star mark spitz with his seven gold medals, 16-year-old ulrike meyfarth, who surprisingly won the gold medal as a high jumper, or olympic hostess silvia sommerlath, who landed the swedish crown prince in munich, are still talked about today. Every woman that a shadow falls on the cheerful games by the attack of palastinian terrorists. Athletes from israel's olympic team are taken as hostages, and in the days of 3. To 5. September 17 people are killed.
Hardly anyone talks about the helpers in the background. Men and women, without whose intervention the games would not have worked. From the district of kulmbach the following people are on duty in munich: gunter limmer from kulmbach, organization and judge in the swimming hall, horst teller (†/2009), judge in the swimming hall, and dietmar reimann (†/2004), driver, barbara lutz from waldau as olympic hostess as well as hermann anselstetter, mayor of wirsberg, group leader in the visitor and control service in the swimming hall.
The mayor of neudrossenfeld, dieter schaar, as a participant in the olympic youth camp of the german volleyball federation, and his predecessor, hans bar, who as a journalist also reports on the games for the readers of kulmbach, are also very closely involved.
For the five weeks in munich, gunter limmer only gets a pocket money of 330 marks. Eight people live in a cramped apartment. But that's not important to him: he meets the olympic heroes, including mark spitz, from whom he gets an autograph.
Like gunter limmer, hans bar doesn't forget the days of munich: the journalist, who mostly transmitted his reports by phone, remembers it as if it were yesterday. Also to the press conference after the attack by palastinian terrorists who took athletes from the israeli olympic team as hostages: "everything was quiet as a mouse".
"The games must go on!"
In retrospect, the neudrossenfeld oldburg master considers it right that the sport did not bow to the assassins. It would have been wrong to stop the games, says the young-at-heart septuagenarian. IOC president avery brundage was right: "the games must go on!"
It has become the most famous sentence of the munich games.