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Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer had to admit an embarrassing defeat in one of her most important weapons projects on Friday. In a letter to the chairmen of the Defense Committee, Secretary of State Peter Tauber announced that the surprising contract confirmation from Thuringian arms manufacturer CG Haenel had to be withdrawn by the federal administration office due to possible patent infringement. . An informant told SPIEGEL that the project was “first reset to zero.”
Tauber’s writing reads cryptically, even by those familiar with the subject. The Secretary of State explains that following a complaint from competitor Heckler & Koch, “first verifiable”, they learned of a possible patent infringement by the selected supplier, CG Haenel. Since it cannot be ruled out that Heckler & Koch would be at a disadvantage as a result, the commitment to CG Haenel would have to be withdrawn. Now both offerings, namely the HK416 and the MK556 from CG Haenel, would be reviewed again.
According to information from SPIEGEL, there is a patent litigation surrounding the MK556 assault rifle magazine. Haenel has apparently been at odds with an American manufacturer for a long time that had certain components of the magazine protected by patents. However, from the perspective of the Thuringian gunsmiths, there is no protection. However, the manufacturer should have made the ongoing dispute transparent with the Bundeswehr’s main order request for the new assault rifle, according to procurement law experts.
Just a few weeks ago, the ministry surprisingly announced that after three years of testing, CG Haenel had been selected for the main order, which in total should be worth around 600 million euros. Until then, all the experts up to the ministry had assumed that, as in the last decades, the contract would be awarded to Heckler & Koch, since the armory is considered the gold standard worldwide. However, with the MK556, CG Haenel offered an equivalent but significantly cheaper weapon.
Politically dangerous
For Minister Kramp-Karrenbauer, the process is more than annoying, politically it is even extremely dangerous. Hardly any other weapons project has received as much public attention as the search for a new standard rifle for around 180,000 soldiers. The project volume looks downright miserable compared to buying new tanks or planes. However, as in the failure plagued renovation of the sailing training ship “Gorch Fock”, the performance of the top commander is compared to prestigious projects such as the successor to the G36.
The first reactions are correspondingly clear. Green defense expert Tobias Lindner spoke of a “gigantic embarrassment” for the ministry, which did not discover the formal flaw despite a selection process that took years. He demanded a harsh clarification from the minister, who on Wednesday had avoided questions about the case in the Defense Committee. I wanted to know how big the financial damage is, then Lindner. Then Kramp-Karrenbauer would have to “also draw personnel conclusions from these processes.”
There was also taunting and malice on the part of the SPD coalition partner. For example, the housekeeper Dennis Rohde wrote on Twitter about a “disaster” for the German armed forces, the purchase of weapons by the ministry was characterized by a “completely unacceptable quality”. At the end of his tweet, Rohde asked sharply who was really responsible for such mishaps. His friend from the party, Thomas Hitschler, made his anger with a short “So angry!” on Twitter air.
The second failure
Kramp-Karrenbauer will have to put up with sharp questions about his management in the coming days. Recruitment is not arranged directly in the ministry, but in the procurement office. However, early in his tenure, CDU policy had promised to closely monitor major weapons projects. He also decided that the selection processes should be monitored in his legal department. The move was risky, because ultimately, the minister has political responsibility for the breakdowns.
The breakdown in the G36’s successor is already the second failure in a Kramp-Karrenbauer armaments project. The acquisition of a new and urgently needed transport helicopter for the German Armed Forces had to be canceled at the end of September. Officially, the offers received were said to be too expensive. However, insiders reported that the Bundeswehr had contributed to the cost explosion by constantly adding additional new applications. It was precisely these so-called gold wheel solutions that Kramp-Karrenbauer really wanted to abolish.
The minister’s reaction to the current incident was left fully open on Friday. The only sign of life was a tweet. In it, Kramp-Karrenbauer congratulated the World Food Organization (WHO) on the Nobel Peace Prize.
