The Munich accident

[sharksfan2000]

I think a big problem to unraveling the reality of the Munich story is that many of the people who were involved, either directly or indirectly, seem to have their own agenda to push. Mick Fleetwood, Rainer Langhans, and Peter himself have reasons to spin the tale in ways that benefit them. And even if they don't have a personal agenda to push, it's natural that each person will have seen things through their individual experiences and how it affected them personally, plus many of those who have talked or written of the incident were not present during the entire time so they can only guess what else may have happened. Add to that the fact that pretty much everyone involved was using one or more substances that night so memories of the event are sure to be affected by that too.

It seems pretty clear that Peter was going to leave the band soon in any case. IIRC I've read that it took some persuasion to get Peter to return with the band to the UK after the winter 1970 US tour was over - he'd wanted to stay and spend more time in the US, as he would do later that year. So at the very least I think we can put to rest the story that the Munich incident suddenly propelled him to quit the band (though it's possible that it might have provided the last push for him to announce he was leaving).

In the end, it's doubtful that we'll ever know just what happened in Munich...though it sure would be interesting to hear those tapes someday, if they still exist.