It was almost half a century ago, but many of those affected are still suffering today: On the evening of September 26, 1980, a right-wing extremist bomber exploded at the main entrance to the Oktoberfest. Twelve people died and around 200 were injured. In the morning, representatives of the city, the bereaved and the DGB youth, who had kept the memory alive for years, remembered them.
Helpers and their emotional wounds
This year, the organizers also focused attention on those who were first there and helped. One of them was Ramin Assisi.
He reported how he used a belt to stop the blood of a man whose leg had been blown away. How he was unable to help another man with a serious facial injury - and how he never forgot the scream his wife let out after the victim's slow death.
Assisi described how he subsequently suppressed what had happened. “I functioned, I worked, I thought I had gotten away.” However, 35 years later, when pictures of the attack were printed in the newspaper with new investigations into the crime, he suffered a breakdown with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was taken to the clinic and was unable to work. Assisi therefore drew attention to the fact that mental wounds, just like physical ones, do not heal without good care.
At the same time, Assisi remembered those who did not come home that day and their families who have lived with their loss ever since. «What happened here was no accident, no fate, no coincidence. It had an author and it had a spirit. The man who planted the bomb acted out of right-wing extremist convictions," emphasized Assisi. "The enormous shadow that National Socialism cast over the last century extended to the Theresienwiese on this September evening - and, and we have to say this soberly, it extends to our days."
Assassination is an obligation for the present
Munich's Second Mayor Mona Fuchs said that this day obliges the city to provide solidarity and empathetic support to those affected. "And the other thing is: to resolutely oppose every misanthropy, every misanthropic ideology - in this day and age, of course, more than ever."
Since the anniversary fell on a Saturday this year, the commemoration at the memorial took place earlier than usual, before the opening of the Oktoberfest and the rush of visitors. Those affected criticized this. The commemoration is kept away from the guests, but it is part of the celebration, said survivor Robert Höckmayr.
Mayor Dominik Krause (Greens), who did not take part in the commemoration because of the decision on the Olympic bid, made a short remembrance when entering the festival grounds on the opening day. It was the first time that the procession of festival hosts and brewery teams stopped briefly for this. Krause explained his initiative by wanting to show that the attack was also part of the Oktoberfest.
Right-wing extremist background only confirmed 40 years ago
The right-wing extremist background had been wiped away over decades; there was talk of a lone perpetrator with personal problems. It was only when the Federal Prosecutor's Office resumed the investigation in 2024 - essentially at the initiative of a lawyer and a BR journalist - that the crime was reclassified as a right-wing extremist-motivated act in 2020.
On the 40th anniversary, Frank-Walter Steinmeier was the first federal president to attend the now large-scale memorial service. “Looking away is no longer allowed,” he emphasized at the time.
