Germany has marked the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Munich Olympics attacks on Israeli athletes and team members with a ceremony at the airfield near Munich where a failed rescue attempt took place.
Portraits of Munich massacre victims Photo: AFP
As flags across all state buildings in the Bavarian capital flew at half-mast, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, laid a wreath at the site.
The ceremony was attended by International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach and other officials.
Members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage on Sept. 5, 1972 at the athletes' village by Palestinians from the Black September group.
Eleven Israelis, a German policeman as well as five of the Palestinian gunmen died after a stand-off at the Olympic village and the nearby Fuerstenfeldbruck airfield, as rescue efforts erupted into gunfire.
The Games continued despite the attacks and the IOC for almost half a century ignored calls from the victims' families for an official act of remembrance at an Olympic Games ceremony.
The IOC eventually held a moment of silence and a reference to the Munich Games victims last year at the Tokyo summer Olympics opening ceremony - the first time in almost half a century.
The ceremony to mark the attacks was welcomed by relatives of the victims and Israel's government but Monday's memorial had been put at risk by families threatening to boycott it over Germany's compensation offer.
The German government and the Israeli families agreed last week on a compensation offer totalling $46 million.
The Germany president has asked for forgiveness for his country's failure to protect the Israeli athletes and team members.
"We cannot make right what happened," said Steinmeier.
Steinmeier said Germany should shoulder its share of responsibilities for the "catastrophic" failures to protect the athletes and for taking decades to compensate the victims' families.
"I am ashamed. As head of state of this country and in the name of the Federal Republic of Germany I ask for forgiveness for insufficient protection of the athletes, for insufficient resolution of this matter," Steinmeier said
"We also bear responsibility as hosts for not preventing what we should have prevented."
-Reuters
