Shareholder Jürgen Grässlin
Regarding item 4 on the agenda:
»The members of the supervisory board are not discharged.
Substantiation:
The chaotic situation at the Heckler & Koch AG did not settle down in the 2019 fiscal year and has not ended to this day. This fact is not only due to the blatantly wrong decisions of the supervisory board. The change of the main shareholder from Andreas Heeschen to the Luxembourg industrial holding company »Compagnie de Développement de l'Eau« (CDE) with Nicolas Walewski from France is also partly responsible. The tough conflicts, the seemingly dubious shifts in money and shares, and the personnel-related decisions that have taken place behind the scenes have not been disclosed to us shareholders - transparency is absent.
We, the Critical Shareholders, measure the announcement of the new H&K monarch Walewski in the press release of 17.07.2020, according to which CDE will continue to stand by the »Green Country Strategy« by the actual arms exports. For it is to be feared that in reality – as is the case with other French-led arms-producing and -exporting companies – the arms export policy will continue to be primarily profit-oriented in future.
It is to be feared that the undermining of the self-imposed »Green Country Strategy«, which is propagated to improve the image of the company, will continue to be practiced in the same way as it was in 2019. This includes the export of pistols, submachine guns, grenade launchers, assault rifles, machine guns and sniper rifles to special units of NATO partners France, Great Britain and the USA, respectively. And this despite their repeatedly inhuman and partly illegal military operations all over the world.
In addition, it should be noted that the Special Forces Command (KSK) of the German Armed Forces have also been comprehensively armed with small arms from Heckler & Koch despite frightening right-wing extremist tendencies.
In addition, the Federal Security Council approved small arms exports to Singapore and South Korea outside of the EU and NATO in July 2020 – probably at H&K's request. See the counter-motion of the Critical Shareholders* of Heckler & Koch on the discharge of the executive board.
For years the personnel carousel at H&K has been in full swing. Alleged »Experts« are hired, highly praised and then »released« again. The list of those who left voluntarily or were made to leave is immensely long.
Only one year ago, at the 2019 annual general meeting, Harald Kujat was elected as a member of the supervisory board and shortly afterwards as chairman of the supervisory board - he succeeded Dieter John. According to the H&K press release at the time, the retired general »will from now on strengthen the company with his extraordinary expertise and his voice that is respected beyond the borders of Germany« (source: H&K press release of 12.07.2019). Kujat failed not only in the task of securing the follow-up order for the G36 rifle for H&K through his contacts in the Ministry of Defence. Apparently, he was also up against Walewski's financial policy.
With this annual general meeting alone, Nicolaus Bocklandt and Martin Heiner Sorg are leaving the supervisory board in addition to chairman Kujat. Heckler & Koch has long been Germany's arms producer with the highest fluctuation on the management level.
Moreover, the H&K board of directors continues to fail blatantly on a moral and ethical level: H&K still refuses to pay the fine of 3.7 million euros in accordance with the verdict of the Stuttgart Regional Court. This had been imposed by the Stuttgart judiciary in February 2019 – after the criminal charges filed by myself (2010) and my attorney Holger Rothbauer (2012) – because of the illegal G36 rifle exports to the forbidden provinces of war in Mexico.
Worse still, to this day the supervisory board refuses to set up a compensation fund - or even a kind of social fund, as proposed by H&K itself – for the victims of H&K's weapons export policy. Meanwhile, H&K weapons continue to be fired and used to commit murder across the world.
All these misdevelopments and misdirected actions are the result of fundamental strategy disaster. Because in 2019, the H&K management has also failed to set the course towards arms conversion, the conversion to a sensible, sustainable production.
For the reasons stated above, we ask the shareholders of H&K AG: Join our countermotions and transfer your voting rights to the »Critical Shareholders of Heckler & Koch«, which involves a number of organizations through the »Aktion Aufschrei - Stoppt den Waffenhandel!« / Action Cry Out - Stop the Arms Trade! (RIB e.V., DFG-VK, Ohne Rüstung leben, pax christi, IPPNW, urgewald, other peace initiatives etc.).
Contacts and Information: cc ArmsInformationCentre (RIB e.V.) with the GLOBAL NET - STOP THE ARMS TRADE, Stühlingerstr. 7, 79106 Freiburg, (www.rib-ev.de / www.gn-stat.org) and the Dachverband der Kritischen AktionärInnen in Köln, (www.kritischeaktionaere.de).«
Translation: Ruth Rohde