Beautiful German weapons sale of the week. Because somebody has to admire them.
German arms exports hit new record during Merkel’s last days – The former government approved almost €5 billion in warships and missile defense deals as it prepared to leave office. New Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was then finance minister, has also received criticism.
Germany’s weapons exports reached a record level this year, thanks to the last-minute approval of deals worth nearly €5 billion ($5.6 billion) by then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration.
Beautiful German weapon sale of the week – this time with extra added suspended jail terms!
Because somebody has to admire them.
A German court has handed suspended jail terms to two ex-employees of gun maker Heckler & Koch and fined the firm €3.7m (£3.2m) for illegal arms deliveries to Mexico.
The Stuttgart court acquitted three other H&K ex-employees.
H&K was found to have breached German arms export rules by shipping nearly 5,000 G36 assault rifles and smaller firearms to strife-torn regions.
Mexico is plagued by warfare involving drug gangs and paramilitaries.
Heckler & Koch muss wegen Ausfuhren von Gewehren nach Mexiko mehrere Millionen Euro Strafe bezahlen. Zudem wurden zwei Ex-Angestellte zu Bewährungsstrafen verurteilt.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday Turkey’s military offensive in Syria’s northern town of Afrin was unacceptable and she criticized Russia for “just watching” the continuing attacks by Syrian forces on eastern Ghouta.
Obwohl die Bundesregierung die türkische Offensive in Afrin als “inakzeptabel” bezeichnet, genehmigte sie seit deren Beginn Rüstungsexporte in Millionenhöhe an die Türkei.
German tanks are apparently being used by Turkish forces in their current offensive against the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria and many Germans are demanding an immediate explanation.
German tanks are meant to be admired and purchased, of course, but no one here ever expected that anybody in the real world would ever actually want to use the damned things. The German army certainly never would. Or could, I should say (most of them are broken).
Jiminy. Somebody could get hurt by one of those things if the Turks aren’t careful. Does the foreign minister know about this?
Bei ihrer Offensive gegen die Kurden-Miliz YPG setzen die türkischen Streitkräfte offenbar auch deutsche Panzer ein: Deutsche und türkische Nachrichtenagenturen berichteten, dass Bilder von der Militäroperation Panzer vom Typ Leopard 2 A4 aus deutscher Produktion zeigten. Die Türkei hatte Leopard-2-Panzer bereits im Kampf gegen die Terrormiliz Islamischer Staat (IS) in Syrien eingesetzt.
Israel’s state attorney has ordered the opening of a criminal investigation into an arms deal with a German company involving members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s entourage, the justice ministry said on Monday.
Well they’ve got a 1.1 billion Eurofighter over here. Lawsuit, I mean.
Austria is seeking as much as 1.1 billion euros ($1.16 billion) from Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH and its main shareholder, Airbus Group SE, after a probe concluded the companies deceived the government in a 2003 purchase of fighter jets.
“We can’t accept that Austrian taxpayers are co-funding bribes by way of the purchase price. We have clear evidence that Eurofighter and Airbus deceived Austria. This deception has caused massive financial damage.”
German weapons manufacturing company Heckler & Koch has announced a major change of business strategy.
In the future the company will only sell its weapons to countries that are “unequivocally democratic” and “clearly not corrupt.” A frantic search has now begun by Heckler & Koch customer care professionals to locate any countries out there that might possibly meet these requirements before the liquidator is called in but the results have been less than encouraging and time is running out fast.
“Wir wollen nur noch solide Länder beliefern, also zweifelsfrei demokratisch, eindeutig nicht korrupt und in der Nato oder Nato-nah.”
Despite it’s often pacifist positions on global security issues, Germany is also in the seemingly contradictory position of being one of the world’s largest arms exporters.
Observing Hermann 