Germany

CBC Global Ammunition is a holding company which owns a number of subsidaries around the world, specialising in ammunition for portable weapons. The subsidiaries included: Companhia Brasileira de Cartuchos (CBC), Brazil; Czech company Sellier & Bellot; MEN in Germany; and Magtech, based in Minnesota in the USA.

Activists in Germany have disrupted the annual general meeting of arms company Rheinmetall, holding banners protesting the use of tanks manufactured by the company by the Turkish military in Kurdish regions.

Arms company Heckler & Koch have been found guilty in a German court of illegally supplying arms to Mexico.

The British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has urged Germany to end it’s ban of weapons exports to Saudi Arabia. Hunt has written to his counterpart Heiko Maas, and described how the ban is impacting British companies ability to fulfil their own contracts with Saudi Arabia on a visit to Berlin to discuss Brexit.

Sig Sauer is a brand name used by two sister companies based in Germany and the USA. Both companies specialise in the production of pistols and firearms, arming military and police forces around the world.

In 2009, Sig Sauer, a firearms company based in New Hampshire, USA, secured a $306 million deal with the Colombian National Police to provide nearly 100,00 hand guns.

Following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arbian embassy in Istanbul on October 2nd, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany will halt all arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

In Germany, activists have staged protests and blockades at the factory of arms company Rheinmetall, a huge international arms company, as part of a week long disarmament camp in Unterluss, in the north of Germany.

Rheinmetall is a German defence and automotive company founded in 1889, and is Germany's biggest arms manufacturer. In the 2017 fiscal year, Rheinmetall's defence sales were €3.036 billion (the automotive segment were €2.861 billion), and the company employs a total of 23,726 people.

A number of German peace organisations and peace activists have published a widely shared demand for the German government to finally join the UN Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty process.

Activists in Germany and the UK organised actions during public military days in their countries.

The trial of six ex-employees of German weapons manufacturer Heckler & Koch has begun in Germany. The six ex-employees are accused of illegally exporting 4,500 assault rifles and other guns to Mexico, where they ended up in states effected by violence subject to a ban by the German state.