50 years after the Munich Olympic attack, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier asks the families of the victims for forgiveness – for the lack of protection for the Israeli athletes and for the lack of education afterwards, as he wants to say on Monday afternoon at a memorial service at the Fürstenfeldbruck air base, according to the speech manuscript . He is doing this “as the head of state of this country and on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany”.
It took five decades to reach an agreement on adequate compensation. But even this will not be able to heal all wounds. “We cannot make up for what happened, nor what you experienced and suffered in terms of resistance, ignorance and injustice,” says Steinmeier to the bereaved. “That shames me.”
Eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team were killed in the attack by Palestinian terrorists on September 5, 1972. Only a few days ago, after a long struggle, the survivors and the federal government agreed on compensation totaling 28 million euros. In addition, there should be an extensive reappraisal of the events. Victims’ relatives had previously threatened to stay away from the commemoration events if there was no agreement.
The acknowledgment that the story of the assassination was also a “story of misjudgments and terrible, deadly mistakes, yes, of failure,” is long overdue, says Steinmeier. Far too many questions are still unanswered – such as why the surviving perpetrators were never prosecuted, why the German security forces were so overwhelmed or why files were kept under lock and key for decades. Steinmeier says he welcomes the fact that an Israeli-German commission of historians is now to provide answers.
The relatives have a right to finally learn the truth. “Years and decades of silence and suppression” followed the attack. At the official commemoration five years ago, at which a “memorial” was opened on the edge of the Olympic Village, Steinmeier was the only high-ranking German representative who also acknowledged mistakes made by the security authorities. “We are still struggling with this catastrophe today,” he said at the time.
The hostage-taking was bloodily ended by the police on September 5, 1972 at what was then the Bundeswehr airport in Fürstenfeldbruck in western Munich. From today’s perspective, the operation is considered a complete failure. All of the hostages and a Bavarian policeman died in the shooting, and five of the eight terrorists also died. The commemoration ceremony, at which Steinmeier speaks, will take place in Fürstenfeldbruck on Monday afternoon.
The Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) also acknowledged the mistakes made by the authorities and apologized for the Free State of Bavaria. He welcomed the agreement with the bereaved, but indirectly criticized the federal government: the debates were “small-scale” and “I didn’t think it was really worth it.”
“The failure was colossal,” says Ilana Romano
At another commemoration ceremony in Munich’s Olympic Park in the morning, the Bavarian Minister of Education also admitted to mistakes. “50 years ago, Germany failed to protect Israeli athletes,” said Michael Piazolo (Free Voters). We have learned from it, but that is no excuse for the mistakes of the time. He was happy “that we in Germany have finally taken responsibility,” said Piazolo – through a high amount of compensation to the bereaved, through the promise to historically process the events, and through “the fact that guilt was also acknowledged”. At this commemoration, the minister represented the Bavarian state government, which was largely responsible for the police operation at the time.
The mayor of Munich, Dieter Reiter (SPD), also said at the celebration that he had to “state with shame” on behalf of the city of Munich today that those responsible for the 1972 games had made “consequential mistakes”. “I’m sorry and I apologize that what humanity should have done after the attack was not done: admitting mistakes and taking responsibility for them.”
“The failure was colossal,” said Ilana Romano. She is the widow of murdered weightlifter Yossef Romano and one of the informal spokespersons for the bereaved. And she doesn’t just mean the work of the security authorities in 1972, which, among other things, would have ignored many indications of an impending attack. But also the incomplete processing of the events. Romano speaks of “five decades of judicial failure”.