by Philip Barker at Furstenfeldbruck Airport
50 years separated two days of memorial events in Munich.
In 1972, a service of remembrance was held in the Olympic Stadium barely hours after the news had been revealed that all 11 Israelis taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists had perished.
The orchestra played the funeral march from the second movement of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s “Eroica Symphony.”
“Even in the world of crime there are still taboos, a final boundary of brutality, that makes people shrink back,” Munich 1972 Olympic Organising Committee President Willi Daume said.
“Those at fault in the Olympic Village have broken through this boundary.”
International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Avery Brundage began his address, “Every civilized person is dismayed by this barbaric and criminal raid on the peaceful Olympic site by terrorists. With our Israeli friends, we mourn the victims of this brutal attack.”
He then continued with words which brought great criticism.
“The Games of the XXth Olympiad have been the target of two terrible attacks because we have lost the struggle against political repression in the case of Rhodesia.”
Comparing the attack to a pre-Olympic dispute over the participation of Rhodesian competitors sparked outrage, but Brundage was unrepentant.
He concluded his speech with famous words, “we cannot allow a handful of terrorists to destroy this core of international cooperation and good will which the Olympic Games represent. The Games must go on!”
There were many who believe they were resumed with indecent haste.
In the half century since, the German authorities have been accused of trying to block out the attack from collective memory.
It is only recently that secret government papers have finally been made available for public scrutiny and that agreement for compensation was reached with the victims’ families.
They gathered for a Ceremony at Olympic Park, within sight of the Olympic village and then later at Furstenfeldbruck Airbase, held metres from where the final firefight between security forces and terrorists had taken place on the same night in 1972.
German President Frank Walter Steinmeier insisted that the government of the day had failed in its duty to protect the Israeli Olympic team.
“The story of the attack is a story of mistakes and fatal misjudgement, we were not prepared for an attack of this kind but we ought to have been,” Steinmeier told an audience which included Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog and members of the victims’ families.
There was also the host’s responsibility to take care of sports people from all over the world,” he added.
“We were not able to live up to the trust that Israel had placed in Germany,” he admitted.
“It is bitterly disheartening that there has not been one word of sympathy from the countries of the perpetrators but it doesn’t absolve us as host for not having prevented what we had an obligation to prevent.”
It had emerged that in 1972, the security forces did not have enough sharpshooters and even that they did not know how many were in the terrorist group.
It was also revealed that the assault forces were not equipped with radios for communication.
Steimeier hailed the decision to finally open up government papers for scrutiny by an investigation team drawn from Germany and Israel.
“I welcome the proposal to commission experts from both countries, their work may well bring uncomfortable truths.”
IOC President Thomas Bach pledged to help the enquiry.
“We welcome the fact that an independent commission is to shed full light on the darkness surrounding the actions of state agencies. If we can in any way contribute to this clarification with information, we shall do so,” he said.
On an emotional day, four teenage students drawn from the congregation of the Olympiakirche at the Olympic village recited the names of those who had died, just as Israeli Chef de Mission Shmuel Lalkin had done in 1972.
The final words were from Ankie Spitzer, widow of fencing coach Andrei and spokeswoman for the relatives in their years of campaigning.
“I will never stop talking about it, so that it will never, ever happen again and those who are responsible for it will pay the price.” she said.
“At the end of the day you are still gone and nothing can change that, when they murdered you, they also killed a part of me and of all those people who loved you, they murdered our hopes, our dreams, our future but not my love for you.”
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