On Monday, the German head of state Frank-Walter Steinmeier asked the relatives of the Israeli victims of hostage-taking at the 1972 Munich Olympics for “forgiveness”. take responsibility for “failures” that accompanied this tragedy.
The commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the attack carried out by a Palestinian commando that killed eleven athletes brought Israelis and Germans together on Monday to try to heal the still open wounds of the tragedy.
On behalf of Germany, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier apologized to the relatives of the victimsif he has taken responsibility for the mistakes made by the German authorities.
“As Head of State of this country and on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany, I apologize for the lack of protection of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympic Games and for the lack of further explanation; for the fact that what happened could have happened “, said the head of state in the presence of his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog.
The ceremony took place at the Fürstenfeldbruck military base, about 30 kilometers west of Munich, where a poorly prepared police assault to free the hostages ended in a “bloodbath”, in the words of the German president.
“It is a great tragedy and a triple failure. The first failure concerns the preparation of the Games and the concept of safety. The second is the events of 5 and 6 September 1972. The third failure begins the day after the attack: silence , repression, oblivion, “added Steinmeier.
The attack, on the eleventh day of the Munich Games, left a indelible mark in the history of Olympism.
50 years after the attacks at the Munich Olympics
Eight members of the Palestinian Black September organization attacked the Israeli delegation at dawn in their accommodation in the Olympic Village.
Two Israeli athletes killed and took nine others hostage, hoping to exchange them for more than 200 Palestinian prisoners.
After long hours of negotiations, the intervention of the German security services in the military base failed “catastrophically”, said the German president.
The nine hostages died in the operation, together with a policeman from West Germany. Five of the eight hijackers were killed and the other three captured.
A total of 18 people died during the hostage-taking and many media outlets around the world described the events as the “Munich massacre”.
The “Games of Joy”, which would have made us forget those held in Berlin in 1936 under the Nazi regime, they have become a failure.
“We weren’t prepared for such an attack, yet we should have been,” admitted Steinmeier.
The police assault was poorly organized. German police “made no attempt to save lives,” said Zvi Zamir, then head of the foreign intelligence service (Mosad), in a declassified report in 2012.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided not to interrupt the Games.
According to Israeli President Isaac Herzog, the relatives of the deceased “hit a wall” every time they tried to get answers from Germany or the IOC.
“They don’t know what we’ve been through in the last 50 years,” Ankie Spitzer, whose husband Andrei was one of the coaches killed in Munich, told AFP.
The commemorations were about to become a fiasco with the threat of a boycott from families who have been fighting for decades to make Germany pay adequate compensation.
A last-minute deal was reached last week and Olaf Scholz’s government agreed to pay a 28 million euros (a similar figure in dollars), which will be partly taken over by the Federal State of Bavaria and the city of Munich.
The German government had previously offered € 10 million, of which around € 4.5 million had already been paid in 1972 and 2002.
“The attack was followed by years and decades of silence and repression, years of growing indifference to the fate of the survivors. Years of harshness,” Steinmeier said. “This is also a failure“, to complete.
Source: AFP
Source: Clarin
