German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has paid tribute to the nine victims of a racist attack at a shopping centre in Munich 10 years ago.<\/p>\n
In a moving address in Munich on Wednesday, Steinmeier spoke out strongly against racism and anti-Semitism – and against any categorization of people solely based on their origin.<\/p>\n
“Let us finally realize this: It is not just individual people who have a history of migration – our entire country does. Germany is a country with a migrant background. That is what defines us,” said Steinmeier.<\/p>\n
Nine people killed<\/p>\n
On July 22, 2016, an 18-year-old shot dead eight teenagers and an adult woman at Munich’s Olympia shopping centre – people who fitted his racist stereotype. Others were injured.<\/p>\n
When he was cornered by police officers some two and a half hours later, he shot himself.<\/p>\n
Steinmeier: There must be no place for racism<\/p>\n
Steinmeier said: “This racist act affects not only the victims and their families and friends, not only the city of Munich, not only the Free State of Bavaria; it affects our entire country, and it concerns all of us in this country.”<\/p>\n
“The victims of Munich will remain in our memory,” he emphasized.<\/p>\n
The perpetrator’s hatred and intent to destroy were directed against people whom he regarded as inferior, people whom he denied the right to live.<\/p>\n
“We are familiar with this ideology. Throughout history, Germans have murdered millions of people in the name of this ideology,” the president added.<\/p>\n
“We must never accept that such thinking gains ground in our country again. Not among those who have lived here for generations; not among those who have immigrated more recently,” he warned.<\/p>\n
“Anti-Semitism and racism must have no place in our society. It is the duty of us all to ensure this,” Steinmeier asserted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has paid tribute to the nine victims of a racist attack at a shopping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[46418,8875,5,46416,46415,46417],"class_list":["post-59357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-city-of-munich","tag-frank-walter-steinmeier","tag-germany","tag-olympia-shopping-centre","tag-racist-attack","tag-shopping-centre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}