Germany’s President asks families of 1972 Olympics victims for forgiveness

Fifty years after a kidnapping during the 1972 Munich Olympics ended in bloodshed, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier asked the victims’ families for forgiveness.
“I ask you, as the Head of State of this country and on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany, for your forgiveness for the lack of protection for the Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich.
“Also, for the lack of information afterwards; and for the fact that what happened could happen,” Steinmeier said on Monday at a commemoration event in Fürstenfeldbruck near Munich.
Top officials from both countries, including Israeli President Isaac Herzog, as well as bereaved families paid tribute to the victims of the events.
Eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team as well as five of their Palestinian kidnappers and a German policeman were killed.
They died during a botched operation by German police to free the hostages on September 5, 1972.
After hours of negotiations, the kidnappers and their hostages had been taken in helicopters from the Olympic village to Fürstenfeldbruck air base in the southern state of Bavaria.
This was done so that they could be flown out on a passenger plane.
As they disembarked, they were fired upon by German security forces.
The goal of the kidnappers had been to secure the release of 230 Palestinians in Israeli custody.
Steinmeier thanked the victims’ relatives and Herzog for attending the memorial event.
“Without all of you, without the relatives and without the presence of the state of Israel, I could not have imagined a dignified commemoration,” the German president asserted.
Steinmeier also noted that after the violent events in Munich in 1972, mistakes had been made: “The attack was followed by years and decades of silence and suppression.”
Many questions remain unanswered to this day, such as why the surviving perpetrators were deported so quickly and what connections they had to German extremists.
Steinmeier said it is good that the German federal government is now proposing the establishment of an Israeli-German commission of historians “in order to shed more light on this dark chapter.”
After decades of wrangling, the relatives of the Israeli victims reached an agreement on compensation with the German government at the end of last week.
This was only a few days before Monday’s commemorations.
Herzog welcomed the compensation, calling it an “important, just, moral step.”
The German government agreed with the bereaved families on a compensation payment of 28 million euros (27.8 million dollars).
The deal avoided a scandal as it had been unclear for some time whether the families and Herzog would take part in Monday’s commemoration ceremony.
To the anguish of the families had been added the pain of indifference and the feeling of being abandoned, Herzog remarked.
He thanked Steinmeier for his “courageous, historic speech” asking for forgiveness.