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
No one is superior to anyone else on the basis of their background, the German head of state stressed. “We must all fight against it, each in their own way and in their own place; We must combat a climate that is hostile towards people with a migrant background.”<\/p>\n
Far-right motive long unrecognized<\/p>\n
Ten years ago, the investigating authorities were quick to describe the incident as a rampage carried out by a lone perpetrator.<\/p>\n
Yet the date itself pointed to his right-wing, racist convictions: Five years earlier, on July 22, 2011, racist perpetrator Anders Behring Breivik had killed 77 people, most of them young, in Norway.<\/p>\n
It was not until October 2019 – more than three years after the attack at the Munich shopping centre – that investigators classified it as having a far-right extremist motive.<\/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":59409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8875,5,46416,46415,46444,46417,46445],"class_list":["post-59408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-frank-walter-steinmeier","tag-germany","tag-olympia-shopping-centre","tag-racist-attack","tag-racist-stereotype","tag-shopping-centre","tag-victims"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59408","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=59408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}