When "Black September" was About to Strike in January
Die Presse, January 19, 2023
German original: https://www.diepresse.com/6238430/als-der-schwarze-september-im-jaenner-zuschlagen-wollte
by Thomas Riegler
In early 1973, Palestinians wanted to take Jewish hostages with the help of neo-Nazis. But the attack on the Schönau camp in Lower Austria was thwarted in time. It then also led to the founding of the Cobra special unit.
In early 1973, Palestinians wanted to take Jewish hostages with the help of neo-Nazis. But the attack on the Schönau camp in Lower Austria was thwarted in time. It then also led to the formation of the special Cobra unit.
It was only a detail, but it stood out: one of the passports of three alleged Israeli tourists had been issued on a Jewish holiday. It couldn't have been. The porter at a hotel near the Westbahnhof became suspicious. When the state police's "hotel control" came by to take a routine look at the guest registrations, the man raised the alarm. The officers laid in wait. The trio was confronted as they came down from the room.
Sure enough, they were not Israelis, but Palestinian terrorists. They were part of the "Black September" group that had taken eleven Israeli athletes hostage at the Munich Olympics just a few months earlier, on September 5, 1972. Two of the athletes were immediately murdered, nine others died in a failed rescue attempt. The name "Black September" has been synonymous with terror ever since.
In 1973, Austria would have been threatened with a similar signal as the Olympic attack, if the terrorists had had their way. They had a symbolic target in their sights. Since 1965, a transit camp for Jewish emigrants from the Eastern Bloc had been located in Schönau an der Triesting Castle. Austria was their transit station, or so the Soviet Union demanded. By 1986, a total of 270,000 Jews were to emigrate via Austria to Israel and other countries. In the Arab world, this was seen as a demographic strengthening of Israel that had to be stopped. This was the task of "Black September," which was in fact a front organization of the secret service of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
According to a report by the Swiss Federal Police, the terrorists had been ordered to wait and scout the area. Then they were to attack Schönau in a group of "about 12 armed men" and take hostages. Shootings were "calculated in." But the operation failed already in the preparatory stage. As mentioned at the beginning, the first of two terrorist teams to enter the country was arrested at the hotel on January 20, 1973. There were also warnings from foreign intelligence services. A second team, also consisting of three men, was still trying to escape. But the Palestinians were apprehended in Tarvis, Italy, on January 27, 1973, and deported back.
Investigations revealed that "Black September" had help on the ground. Two right-wing extremists from Norbert Burger's National Democratic Party (NDP) had supported the Palestinians. One of them was the then 33-year-old Gerhard B. The son of a British occupation soldier, he had worked in Benghazi, Libya, for several years until he had to leave the country as a result of the Six-Day War (1967). Back in Vienna, B. founded an import-export company. In 1971, he met the Viennese contact of "Black September," Zuhair Shibl. He was a Jordanian born in 1931. The man had been in Vienna since 1969 and had married an Austrian woman that year "only according to Islamic law."
In March 1973, an Austrian state police officer made inquiries about Shibl with the officer for "Arab terrorism" in the British Home Office. According to this "Mr. Black," Shibl was noted as the "head" of PLO structures in Kuwait. In addition, a 1960 intelligence briefing described him "as a man fond of fast cars and drugs."
Shibl was also in contact with another NDP man. This was Harald E, then 25 years old. He had given the second trio of hostage-takers shelter in an apartment in the Großfeldsiedlung from January 22 to 26, 1973. Together with Shibl, he supplied the Palestinians with food. When they then wanted to leave, E. chauffeured the three men in a rented car to Arnoldstein, on the Carinthian border. From there, the terrorists set off for Italy, but did not get far.
When E. was being searched out, another NDP man "appeared" on the scene while the house was still being searched on February 14, 1973. The latter then tried to flush documents incriminating E. down the toilet. He had not wanted the evidence to disappear, but had used it instead of the toilet paper, was his justification, which was not believed.
Weapons never found.
The weapons for the Schönau raid were never found. It was not at all clear whether and how they should have been obtained. However, Shibl had asked E. "whether there were Kalashnikov rifles in the Austrian army, from which it can be concluded that he might have had something to do with the procurement of weapons.
Shibl could not be found out. He had left for Beirut in time at the beginning of February 1973. The hapless six-man hostage-taking squad, on the other hand, was deported from Austria to Syria in March 1973. There the men were probably promptly liquidated by the fascist Phalange militia.
The Austrian helpers had nothing comparable to fear. The case against B. was dropped, while E. was acquitted for lack of evidence. As an interview transcript from the Ministry of the Interior reveals, the aim was to get to the bottom of the "connection established for the first time" between right-wing extremists and Palestinian terrorists, but found no evidence of systematic cooperation: "According to our findings, the extreme right-wing NDP party is unlikely to have had any knowledge of this support from its members." However, one report notes that E., for example, was "visibly eager" to present his connection with the terrorists as a "solo effort of which his party friends knew nothing." Investigators had also noticed that Shibl had worn an NDP badge on his jacket lapel.
The Gendarmerie Command.
In order to ensure security for Jewish emigrants in the future, a separate association was launched on May 1, 1973: The Gendarmeriekommando (GK) Bad Vöslau. The volunteer force of 80 officers took over, in addition to the object protection in Schönau, the securing of the arrival or the departure of the emigrants at the airport Schwechat. The "Kronen Zeitung" then reported that the "code word" of this special group was "Kobra". In fact, the radio call name was "Scorpion," but "Kobra" stuck.
What could not be prevented was that international terrorism struck again on September 28, 1973: Two Arabs from the obscure group "Eagles of the Palestinian Revolution" took three Jewish emigrants and a customs officer hostage on a train coming from Bratislava. In order not to endanger human lives, Chancellor Bruno Kreisky decided to give in. The transit camp Schönau was closed, in return the hostages were released and the two terrorists were allowed to leave under safe conduct. However, the "Jewish transit" continued uninterrupted. There was no further attack against it.
This was also due to the fact that the protective measures were further strengthened. The former GK Bad Vöslau was professionalized as a special unit in 1978 and exists today as Einsatzkommando Cobra. The vacated Schönau Castle had served as the first headquarters. Today, it is privately owned. Nothing reminds of the world political importance of the place or of the events 50 years ago.
About the Author
Thomas Riegler is a historian in Vienna and a researcher at the Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies (ACIPSS). His new book, "Austria's Secret Services: A New History," was published last year.