German president: ‘Shameful’ it took Berlin decades to agree on Munich compensation
Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier admitted shame over the decades that it took for Berlin to agree compensation for the bereaved families of Israeli victims in the 1972 Munich Olympics attack, saying Germany had avoided responsibility over the massacre for too long.Israeli President Herzog’s speech at the 50th anniversary memorial of the Munich Olympics massacre
“That it took 50 years to reach this agreement in the last days is indeed shameful,” said Steinmeier, standing next to his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog, with whom he will be attending a commemoration ceremony in Munich on Monday.
A row over the financial offer previously made by Berlin to victims’ relatives had threatened to sour the ceremony, with families initially planning a boycott.
But a deal was finally agreed on Wednesday offering $28 million (NIS 94.4 million) in compensation. It also — for the first time — sees the German state acknowledging its “responsibility” in failings that led to the carnage.
In a speech at a state banquet for Herzog, Steinmeier acknowledged that “our responsibility as Germans includes shedding light on the many unanswered questions, the blind spots of the attack in Munich — and also the blind spots in our handling of the attack since then.”
“For far too long, we did not want to acknowledge the pain of the bereaved families. And for far too long, we did not want to acknowledge that we, too, had to shoulder some of the responsibility: it was our job to ensure the safety of the Israeli athletes,” he said, noting that some of the members of the Israeli team had been Holocaust survivors.
On September 5, 1972, eight gunmen of the Palestinian terror group Black September stormed into the Israeli team’s rooms at the Olympic village, shooting dead two and taking nine Israelis hostage.
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.
The Games were meant to showcase a new Germany 27 years after the Holocaust but instead opened a deep rift with Israel.
Herzog underlined the pain faced by the bereaved relatives, saying they simply “hit a wall” whenever they tried to raise the issue with Germany or even with the International Olympic Committee.
“I think there was tragic suppression here,” he said, noting the litany of failings that were “inhuman and incomprehensible” such as “the fact that the hostages were being led to slaughter and the Games went on.”
After an initial suspension, then-IOC president Avery Brundage had declared that “the Games must go on.”
Forty years later, the IOC was widely criticized for refusing to dedicate a moment of silence to the victims during the opening of the London Games
Below is the full text of the speech delivered by Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the massacre of 11 Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics:PMW: After 50 years, Munich Olympics massacre still a “quality operation” in PA narrative
Dear families of the murdered athletes; survivors of the Munich massacre; Your Excellency, my friend, the President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your brave and historic speech, which touched everyone’s hearts.
Your Excellencies, the Minister-President of Bavaria and Mayor of Munich; leaders and government officials from Germany and Israel; representatives and directors of the national Olympic committees; Jewish community leaders in Germany; loved ones, friends, families, and all those who cherish the memories of the murdered athletes, ladies and gentlemen.
“Why must my pain be endless, my wound incurable, resistant to healing?” So asks the Prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 15:18), and so we ask today. Even fifty years after the horrific murder of the eleven Israeli athletes here and in the Munich Olympic village, with inconceivable cruelty and in cold blood—the pain is eternal. That awful event remains a wound, resistant to healing.
All those of us who remember those dark and endless hours in that bitter September of 1972 carry in our hearts the same scar, the same moments in which we followed with excruciating anxiety and boundless concern the conflicting reports coming in every few hours from the Olympic village in Munich. We struggled to fathom that Jewish and Israeli athletes, judges, and coaches were being held by terrorists on German soil. We prayed so hard for a different ending. But our hearts were pained and broken; our hopes dashed.
Within a day, we received the most agonizing of news: ‘None survived.’ Although I was only a young boy, I shall never forget that awful morning, driving with my father to school and in the car hearing together the horrific news, and we stopped breathing. I shall never forget the tears that welled up in our eyes, the sense of total shock, the grief, the gloom, and the angst that engulfed an entire country when the so-called ‘Cheerful Games’ were instantly transformed into the darkest nadir in the history of world sports and in the annals of the Olympics.
Fifty years ago today, the world was shocked when Palestinian terrorists from Fatah’s terror organization Black September broke into the athletes' village at the Munich Olympics on Sept. 5, 1972, kidnapped, and ultimately murdered 11 Israeli athletes and coaches. Still today, the attack remains a dark stain on the Olympics and has settled in the collective global memory as an illustration of the horrors of terrorism.
In Palestinian ideology and memory the attack is just the opposite. It is a source of pride and honor, and PA and Fatah leaders glorify the murderous attack and revere its planners as “heroes” and role models.
When PA and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas recently refused to apologize for the Munich massacre during a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Schulz when a journalist asked him to, Palestinian Media Watch published examples and pointed out that Abbas’ reaction was not surprising at all. Rather it was an expected expression of PA and Fatah ideology. The PA and Fatah are proud of the Munich attack, which ranks among the top “quality operations” and most “successful” terror attacks in Palestinian history.
The following are additional PA/Fatah outpourings of praise and admiration from the last 3 years for the terrorists and their act of murdering the 11 Israeli athletes:
PA: Black September terrorists “gave the revolution… sacrifice and heroism,” they “must have constant presence and special status in our people’s memory”
Official PA TV News, on the anniversary of the death of Salah Khalaf “Abu Iyad,” head of the Black September terror organization
Official PA TV reporter: “The 31st anniversary of the death as a Martyr of the three Fatah leaders Salah Khalaf, Hayel Abd Al-Hamid (i.e., one of the founders of Fatah), and Fakhri Al-Omari – who gave the Palestinian revolution a large measure of sacrifice and heroism – the Insan National Action Association, the “Set Your Goal” organization, and the Fatah Movement’s Jenin branch marked the anniversary under the auspices of the Rumana village council…
These activities were carried out with the participation of official and popular bodies and included planting olive trees named after the three Martyrs… They are among the movement’s most important patriotic schools that must have a constant presence and a special status in our people’s memory.”
[Official PA TV News, Jan. 11, 2022]
PA TV: Black September terrorists “gave the revolution… sacrifice and heroism”