Germany's president apologized Monday for multiple failures by his country before, during and after the 1972 attack on the Munich OIympics as he joined his Israeli counterpart and relatives of the 11 Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian militants at the games 50 years ago.
BERLIN - Germany's president apologized Monday for multiple failures by his country before, during and after the 1972 attack on theOIympics as he joined his Israeli counterpart and relatives of the 11 Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian militants at the games 50 years ago.- the scene of a botched rescue attempt that left nine of the Israeli athletes, a West German police officer and five of the assailants dead - came days after an agreement ended a long dispute over compensation.
“We are talking about a great tragedy and a triple failure,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. “The first regards the preparation of the games and the security concept; the second the events of Sept. 5 and 6, 1972. The third failure begins the day after the attack: the silence, the denial, the forgetting.”
Before dawn on Sept. 5, 1972, eight members of a Palestinian group called Black September clambered over the unguarded fence of the Olympic village. They burst into the building where the Israeli team was staying, killing wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Yossi Romano. Sharpshooters at the airfield opened fire. The attackers threw a grenade into one of the helicopters carrying hostages, which exploded, and shot the hostages in the other helicopter.
“We cannot make up for what happened, or for what you experienced and suffered in the way of resistance, ignorance and injustice,” Steinmeier told the victims' relatives. “That shames me.”
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