terminology GSG-9

Grenzschutzgruppe 9 or
Border Guard Group 9

The GSG-9 is Germany’s anti-terrorist commando group. Despite West Germany suffering from dozens of home-grown terrorist actions during the first three years of the 1970s, the GSG-9 did not come into being because of native terrorists. Rather, the GSG-9 was created in response to the Munich Olympic massacre of 1972, when the Palestinian terrorist group, Black September, kidnapped and killed 11 Israeli athletes.

The GSG-9 made its reputation on the night of October 17, 1977, when they stormed a hi-jacked Lufthansa plane in Mogadishu, Somalia, rescuing all 90 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers.