The dispute has been smoldering for decades: the survivors of the victims of the 1972 Olympic attack are fighting for access to the files – and more compensation. Now the federal government seems to be moving. But is the offer really enough?
A few weeks before the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Munich Olympic attack in 1972, a dispute over further compensation payments escalated. After a new offer from the federal government became known, the spokeswoman for the victims’ families, Ankie Spitzer, told the editorial network Germany on Wednesday: “The sum that was offered to us is insulting.” Munich.
During the assassination, a Palestinian commando entered the Olympic site and took members of the Israeli team hostage. A total of eleven Israeli athletes and a German policeman died in the hostage-taking and a failed rescue operation.
A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior announced new compensation payments in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” on Wednesday. It had been decided “to articulate again the serious consequences for the victims’ relatives in immaterial and material terms”. This is the result of a “reassessment” of the Olympic attack and its consequences by the federal government “in the past few weeks”.
According to the report, the ministry spokesman did not provide any information about the amount of the German compensation offer. “Trustful talks are currently being held with the representatives of the victims’ families”. The “renewed financial benefits” should be provided jointly by the federal government, the Free State of Bavaria and the state capital Munich.
According to the editorial network Germany, the new German ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, presented the new German offer to the victims’ families last Friday at the embassy in Tel Aviv. Accordingly, according to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the offer includes a comprehensive historical review and an opening of the archives “as well as an offer of further recognition services to the surviving relatives of the victims of the attack”.
Spitzer said of the offer: “We are upset and disappointed.” If it stayed that way, the relatives would not come to Munich for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the assassination in early September.
According to the victims’ families, the German proposal provides for a total payment of ten million euros for all survivors. However, earlier payments from the years 1972 and 2002 totaling around four and a half million euros should be taken into account. Spitzer said this does not meet international standards in similar cases. “We never wanted to talk publicly about money, but now we’re forced to do it.”
According to current plans, Israel’s President Yitzchak Herzog is to travel to Germany with the families. According to the editorial network Germany, government talks between Germany and Israel should now look for a solution to the compensation issue by August 15. Legally, the bereaved had already failed more than 20 years ago with their demand for higher benefits.
The spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” that the commemoration event should be “an occasion for a clear political classification of the events of 1972”. This also includes the appointment of a commission of German and Israeli historians “to comprehensively review the events”.
