This year, 5 and 6 September will mark the 51th anniversary of the attack by Palestinian terrorists on the Israeli team at the Summer Olympics in Munich. Eleven Israeli athletes, one police officer and five of the terrorists were killed during the taking of hostages and the Bavarian police’s botched attempt to free them. The attack abruptly shattered the carefully orchestrated image of the “cheerful Games”.

The panel discussion will address the widely diverging approaches of the Federal Republic of Germany and Israel to dealing with this incident. While the attack quickly gained an important place in Israel’s culture of remembrance, Germany has only developed a self-critical form of publicly remembering the victims quite recently.

The public panel discussion is part of the first conference of the research project to examine and reappraise the attack on the Israeli Olympic team, which will take place in Munich from 5 to 7 September 2023. Initiated by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community (BMI), the project is being conducted by an international commission of historians and the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ). Its mission is to investigate unresolved issues as well as the background and aftermath of the attack.

Participants

DR ROMAN DEININGER is chief reporter at Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ). In 2021, together with Uwe Ritzer, he published the book “Die Spiele des Jahrhunderts. Olympia 1972, der Terror und das neue Deutschland” (The Games of the Century: The 1972 Olympic Games, Terror and the New Germany).

PROF. DR KAY SCHILLER is a professor of modern European history at Durham University in Northern England. In 2010, together with Christopher Young, he published the book “The 1972 Munich Olympics and the Making of Modern Germany”.

PROF. DR SHLOMO SHPIRO is a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv and member of the international commission of historians to reappraise the attack on the Israeli Olympic team.

PROF. DR PETRA TERHOEVEN is a professor of European culture and contemporary history at Georg-August University of Göttingen and member of the international commission of historians to reappraise the attack on the Israeli Olympic team.

Moderator

PD DR EVA OBERLOSKAMP works at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ). Currently, she is the academic manager of the IfZ research unit to reappraise the terrorist attack on the Israeli athletes.

Welcoming speeches

PROF. DR MARKUS SCHWAIGER
President of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities

DR LUDWIG SPAENLE
Bavarian State Government Commissioner for Jewish Life and against Antisemitism, for Remembrance and Historical Heritage

JULIANE SEIFERT
State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community

ANKIE SPITZER
Widow of murdered fencing coach Andrei Spitzer

LOCATION
Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Alfons-Goppel-Str. 11 (Residenz)
Plenarsaal, 1st floor
80539 Munich, Germany

REGISTRATION
Please register for this event by sending an email to: anmeldung[at]badw.de

LIVE STREAM AND TRANSLATION
The event will be held in German. You may also visit badw.de to live-stream the panel discussion (8:00 PM Israeli time - no regsitration required). Simultaneous interpretation into Hebrew will be provided for the live-stream.

COOPERATION
This event has been organised in partnership between the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History, the commission of historians to examine and reappraise the attack on the Israeli Olympic team in 1972 and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.