The German president considered this Sunday shameful that Germany has taken 50 years to reach an agreement to compensate the families of the Israeli victims in the attack that took place at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.
“That it has taken 50 years to achieve this reconciliation in recent days is really shameful,” admitted Frank-Walter Steinmeier to Israeli President Isaac Herzog, received on an official visit, on the eve of the ceremony that will mark the tragedy on Monday.
After decades of secret negotiations on the matter, the German government announced on Wednesday that it had concluded a compensation agreement, when it was feared that the victims’ relatives would boycott the ceremony, considering the values proposed by Berlin too low. .
The German head of state and his Israeli counterpart will be present at the planned ceremony in Munich. Steinmeier said on Sunday that he wanted to acknowledge “certain errors of judgment, certain misbehavior, certain failings” by German authorities surrounding this event, including neglect during the 50 years that followed the Israeli hostage-taking.
On September 5, 1972, eight members of the Palestinian organization Black September broke into an apartment of an Israeli delegation in the Munich Olympic Village, killed two Israeli athletes and took nine other members of the entourage hostage, hoping to an 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 partly blamed. Five Palestinian terrorists were killed and three others arrested.
With the agreement, the government of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed to pay a compensation sum of 28 million euros, partially paid by Bavaria and the city of Munich.
Documents related to the case will also be declassified to allow German and Israeli historians to better understand the matter.
Source: Observadora
