BERLIN — Fifty years ago, Fürstenfeldbruck airfield was the scene of a bloody firefight. When it was over, two burned-out helicopters were neatly parked on the bullet-riddled tarmac, a symbol of German failure in the face of a terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics that left 11 athletes and one German policeman dead.
On Monday, the airfield just west of Munich was the site of a solemn German apology, the first and most important official acknowledgment of the gross mishandling of a terror attack against Israeli citizens on German soil at the 1972 Olympic Games.
“As head of state of this country and on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany, I ask your forgiveness,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany said, addressing the victims’ families.