Klaus Bechler
Klaus Bechler (born 1942) is a former German helicopter engineer of the West German Border Guard (Bundesgrenzschutz) who volunteered to transport eight Black September terrorists and their nine Israeli hostages from the Munich Olympic Village to Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base in what became known as the Munich Massacre. He is one of the few survivors of the event. Bechler was based at Oberschleißheim at the Fliegerstaffel Süd. On 4 September, Bechler had been in the Olympic stadium and saw the German high jumper, Ulrike Meyfarth, win gold. Munich Massacre Bechler's first realisation of the events of 5 September was when he was awoken at 6:30 that morning and informed that his scheduled day off was cancelled. Having watched the hostage crisis unfold live on television, at 18:00 Bechler was ordered along with several other helicopters to fly to Munich in the direction of the city center. He landed at the Wehrbereichskommando 6, an emergency landing pad of the Bundeswehr where he learned from his superiors that it was possible that the terrorists and the hostages would be flown out of the Olympic Village. According to Bechler, Hans Dietrich Genscher stated that the mission to transport the terrorists and their hostages was