Arms industry: Germany exports war weapons for 1.5 billion euros

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Heckler and Koch assault rifle (archive image): Made in Germany

Photo: DPA

The Ukraine war is likely to bring full order books to the German armaments industry.

But the arms manufacturers' business was already excellent last year: Germany exported war weapons for 1.51 billion euros in 2021 - this is the highest value since 2017. More than 60 percent of this went to non-NATO countries, the European Union and comparable countries .

Deliveries to these so-called third countries are particularly controversial because some of them have been criticized for human rights violations or are involved in regional conflicts.

The numbers come from a response from the Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection to a request from Left-wing MP Sevim Dagdelen.

According to this, the value of war weapons deliveries increased in 2021 for the third year in a row.

In 2020, exports were still recorded for 1.38 billion euros.

The ten main recipient countries last year were Egypt, Israel, Qatar, Turkey, Great Britain, Norway and the EU countries Italy, the Netherlands, Latvia and Austria.

The left-wing politician Dagdelen primarily criticized the deliveries to the NATO partner Turkey.

"The fact that Turkey is one of the largest recipients of German weapons of war, despite invasions in Iraq, Syria and Libya that violate international law and military threats towards Greece and Cyprus, makes any invocation of a value-based foreign policy by the traffic light government a mere farce," she said.

mic/dpa-AFX