During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, members of a Palestinian organization entered an apartment of the Israeli delegation in the Olympic village, killing two Israeli athletes and taking nine other people hostage. All outrages were dead when the German police intervened.
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The German head of state reflects on the mistakes of the past. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, admitted on Sunday September 4 that he was “ashamed” that Germany took 50 years to reach a compensation agreement with the relatives of the Israeli victims of the bloody hostage-taking at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
“That it has taken 50 years to achieve this reconciliation in recent days is truly shameful”declared Frank-Walter Steinmeier in front of the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, whom he received during an official visit on the occasion of the commemorations of this tragedy scheduled for Monday.
After decades of confidential negotiations, the German government announced an agreement on compensation, in extremis before the ceremonies that the families of the victims had threatened to boycott. The latter had previously considered the amounts proposed by Berlin to be too low.
The German head of state and his Israeli counterpart will be present at the commemorations scheduled for Monday in Munich. The German leader has indicated that he intends to recognize “certain errors of judgment, certain erroneous behaviors, certain faults committed” by the authorities of his country around this tragedy, of which “repression and oblivion” for 50 years after the hostage taking.
On September 5, 1972, eight members of the Palestinian “Black September” organization broke into an apartment of the Israeli delegation in the Olympic Village, killing two Israeli athletes and taking nine other members of the delegation hostage, in the hope of exchange for 232 Palestinian prisoners.
The intervention of the German security services ended with the death of all the hostages, a bloody outcome for which the West German authorities were held partly responsible. Five Palestinian attackers had been shot and three others arrested. The government of Olaf Scholz has agreed to release an envelope of 28 million euros, partly paid by Bavaria and the city of Munich.