David Mark Berger

David Mark Berger (* June 24, 1944 in Shaker Heights, Ohio; † September 6, 1972 in Fürstenfeldbruck ) was an American- Israeli weightlifter who died in the hostage-taking of Munich.

David Mark Berger was trained as a lawyer. At the 1972 Summer Olympics he performed for Israel as a weightlifter. He was taken with ten of his teammates by terrorists as hostage and murdered.

Berger studied from 1962 to 1966 at Tulane University Psychology, where he distinguished himself both as a student and as a weightlifter. In his third year he was NCAA champion in the 148 -pound class. He earned a master's degree in business administration at Columbia University and then a PhD in law. At the same time he has devoted herself to the weight lifting.

In the years 1965 and 1969, he participated in the Maccabiah Games. Had Berger won his first participation bronze, so he succeeded in 1969 to win a gold medal. 1970 Berger immigrated to Israel, where he became engaged to an Israeli student. He wanted after completing his compulsory military service to work as a lawyer in Tel Aviv. In 1971 he won the silver medal at the Asian Games. He was inducted into the Israeli Olympic team in 1972. He retired early from the competition, but remained in Munich to help his comrades. He was taken hostage. As the only hostage he did not die from gunshot wounds, but from the effects of smoke inhalation, which was an after-effect of the hand grenade that was fired by the terrorists in Fürstenfeldbruck.

While his comrades were buried in Israel, brought a U.S. Air Force machine Berger's corpse in the U.S., where he was buried in his hometown of Shaker Heights.

The events surrounding the kidnapping of Munich were discussed in the movies One Day in September and Munich.

The David Berger National Memorial was erected in 1975 in memory of David Mark Berger.