Germany marks 40 years since Munich Olympics killings

Relatives of 11 Israeli victims of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre are due to join survivors and politicians to pay tribute at the site of their killings 40 years ago in Germany later Wednesday. The ceremony is set to begin at 1400 GMT at Fuerstenfeldbruck air base, west of Munich, to mark the sombre anniversary which has prompted new questions about the tragic turn of events on German soil. Flags are due to fly at half-mast on southern Bavarian state public buildings as an ecumenical memorial service takes place at the base, the site of the climax of the hostage-taking by members of a radical Palestinian group known as "Black September". Six survivors and 11 relatives of the Israeli athletes and coaches taken hostage and subsequently killed are due to attend the commemoration, to be addressed among others by Ankie Spitzer, widow of fencing coach Andre Spitzer. German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich and Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom will also be among about 500 political and sports representatives. A memorial tree will also be planted near the air base's former control tower. The 40th anniversary has given rise to new research into the horrifying chain of events at the summer Munich Games, which were meant to showcase the new face of Germany nearly three decades after World War II. On September 5, 1972, gunmen broke into the Israeli team's flat at the Olympic village, immediately killing two of the athletes and taking nine others hostage to demand the release of 232 Palestinian prisoners. A bungled rescue operation resulted in all the hostages being killed along with a West German policeman and five of the eight hostage-takers. The news sent shockwaves through Germany just 27 years after the Holocaust and opened a deep rift with Israel. Israeli sprinter Esther Roth-Shachamorov relived the terror in an interview with AFP this week. "I remember an exhausting and frightening day," she said. "We saw the Germans conducting negotiations with the terrorists through the balcony. They were threatening every two hours that if 200 Palestinians were not released, they would throw an Israeli down on the street," she added. Henry Hershkovitz, who was on the Olympic shooting team and has returned to the stadium, was quoted Wednesday by the German daily Berliner Zeitung as saying: "We were like a family and most of this family was killed." Former fencer Yehuda Weinstain said in the paper: "The Games admittedly went on but their spirit had been murdered." Forty years later the events continue to provoke controversy. Last week, Israel released official documents on the killings, including specially declassified material and an official account from the former Israeli intelligence head, lambasting the performance of the German security services. The German police "didn't make even a minimal effort to save human lives," former Mossad head Zvi Zamir said at the time after returning from Munich. He said elite German snipers had been equipped only with pistols, and that personnel carriers meant for the rescue operation had arrived late. "They had no follow-up plan, nor any means of improvising an alternative," he said. Meanwhile Hamburg-based investigative magazine Der Spiegel in July accused the German government and Olympic organisers of covering up grave mistakes.Months before the hostage-taking, the German interior ministry and the Bavarian state police warned federal authorities in vain of the possibility of "terrorist acts" at the Games, the magazine said. The Spiegel report recalled that the Olympic village was surrounded by a simple chain link fence without security reinforcements. The head of the Munich police evidently feared that a robust security presence would revive ugly memories of the 1936 Games in Berlin, presided over by Adolf Hitler.