The German government said Friday it has set up an international commission of experts to review the events surrounding the 1972 attack on the Munich Olympics, a panel that was part of an agreement reached last year with relatives of the 11 Israeli team members who were killed by Palestinian terrorists.
The Interior Ministry named an eight-member panel of historians, most of them based in Israel or Germany. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser underlined Germany’s commitment to “a thorough reappraisal of what happened.”
The commission will also “rigorously examine the period before and after” the attack, Faeser said in a statement. “It is particularly important to me for their work to also thoroughly address the treatment of the family members after the attack.”
In September, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier apologized for multiple failures by his country before, during and after the attack as he joined his Israeli counterpart and relatives of the slain athletes at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary.
An agreement days earlier for the relatives to receive a total of 28 million euros ($30.7 million) in compensation — a sum that includes much smaller payments made earlier — headed off a threatened boycott of the event. Germany also agreed to acknowledge the failures by authorities at the time and to set up the review by historians.
(Source)
To read more about the Munich Massacre and the involvement of current Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, please click here.
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