Munich (dpa/lby) – In the dispute over compensation payments to the families of the victims of the 1972 Olympic attack, Bavaria’s anti-Semitism commissioner Ludwig Spaenle (CSU) has launched another initiative to find a solution. Spaenle wrote a letter to Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in which he proposes compensation payments after the Lockerbie attack in 1988 as a model, he said on Sunday. In the letter, which is available to the German Press Agency, he also calls on the Chancellor to reach an amicable solution to the compensation issue before September 5th.
Spaenle accuses the Federal Republic of government failure in the matter and demands that Germany must accept its historical responsibility, investigate the background of the crime that is still unclear to this day and adequately compensate the relatives of the terror victims and the survivors. These also use the compensation payments for the Lockerbie attack, in which ten million US dollars were later paid per victim, as a model.
Spaenle said on Sunday that he was particularly interested in the procedure for paying compensation: In the case of the Lockerbie terrorist attack, an international solution had been found for compensation. “Internationally, the responsibility of the Libyan regime at the time for the Munich attack is beyond question,” writes Spaenle, criticizing the German government’s unwillingness to join an international diplomatic initiative to pay compensation from frozen Gaddafi regime funds.
A commemoration ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the Munich Olympics attack is planned for September 5th. At that time, Palestinian assassins stormed the Israeli accommodation and took hostages. The events later shifted to the Fürstenfeldbruck airfield. The assassins wanted to fly out to Cairo in Egypt. The attempt to free the hostages ended in disaster. In the end, eleven Olympians, a police officer and five terrorists were dead.
There has been a dispute over the question of financial compensation beyond payments already made for decades. The bereaved have also been vehemently committed to dealing with the background and consequences of the assassination for decades.
