Attentat à la Fête de la Bière

The Octoberfest or Munich Beer Festival is one of Germany's greatest tourist attractions as well as a mainstay of Bavarian popular culture. In 1980, just before the federal parliamentary elections in which conservative icon and minister-president of Bavaria Franz Josef Strauss was one the two main contenders, a bomb exploded at one of the entrance points of the festival, killing 13 people and maiming about 200 more. This was the largest terrorist attack in postwar history in Germany even until today.

One of the killed was identified as the man who also deposited the bomb, a young man with neo-fascist affiliations. Despite many open questions, the authorities quickly settled on him as the lone assailant and closed the books.

Radio journalist Ulrich Chaussy is one the eminent investigators who have tried to cast aspersions on the official version and to get this case re-investigated. While his factual account of the attentat is gripping, his script does a lesser job at mixing fact and fiction in order to produce a gripping conspiracy movie. I guess the main reason he can't offer a conclusive alternative version of what really happened. In this case the facts are more gripping than the fiction. Still a watchable movie with notable performances which will hopefully fan discussion about the gruesome events -- and the dodgy investigations that followed them -- of 1980.