A picture shows the front of Old Trafford stadium with a clock commemorating the 1958 Munich air disaster, and the statue of former Manchester United manager Matt Busby. Photo: VCG

A German security guard has been arrested for making a 'Hitler salute' in front of a group of Israeli athletes visiting a memorial to the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, police said on Wednesday.

The 16 athletes from the Israeli European Championships team were visiting the Olympic Park in Munich on Tuesday evening when the banned straight-armed gesture was made, police said in a statement.

"One of the four security guards present was observed at around 7:20 pm making a National Socialist gesture [forbidden 'Hitler salute']," the statement said.

Police immediately arrested the suspect, a 19-year-old from Berlin, and he has been banned from all further European Championships events.

The athletes themselves had not noticed the gesture, they said.

The arrest comes at a sensitive time, with Munich hosting the European Championships ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Olympics massacre, in which 11 Israelis were murdered.

On September 5, 1972, eight gunmen broke into the Israeli team's flat at the Olympic village, shooting dead two and taking nine Israelis hostage, threatening to kill them unless 232 Palestinian prisoners were released. 

West German police responded with a bungled rescue operation in which all nine hostages were killed, along with five of the eight hostage-takers and a police officer. 

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas also further inflamed the situation during a visit to Berlin on Tuesday when he failed to condemn the massacre and instead compared crimes committed against the Palestinians to the Holocaust.

At a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Abbas was asked if he would apologize on behalf of the Palestinian gunmen who carried out the Munich massacre. 

Abbas did not give a direct reply, but instead compared it to the situation in the Palestinian territories, and accused Israel of committing "50 massacres, 50 Holocausts" against Palestinians since 1947.

Israeli's incoming ambassador to Berlin, Ron Prosor, retweeted a report in national daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung saying that the Munich security guard was of "Arab descent" and drew a link to the Abbas incident.

"The ink's not dry on the Holocaust denial of Mahmud #Abbas and his refusal to apologize for the massacre of #Munich72," he wrote. 

"This Arabic-language incitement must be stopped. No tolerance for anti-Semitism - nowhere."

AFP