CDU. With. Feeling. Germany refrains from exporting small arms.

An end to small arms exports from Germany? No more deaths from German weapons? A supposed campaign by the CDU wants to achieve this goal. “ CDU-mit-gefuehl.de ” and writes: “ The Christian voter base of the CDU is calling on Chancellor Angela Merkel to implement a ban on small arms exports in Germany.”

A petition is linked to this, which should once again reflect the will of the citizens. In addition to the petition and the website, there is also a Facebook presence.

In addition, there is this video and in the background there were letters claiming that Merkel's Christian CDU voter base was demanding a ban on the export of small arms. Heckler & Koch recalled all weapons from the USA for ethical reasons and the weapons company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems would be awarded a peace prize receive.

Really? No! This is an action that was carefully prepared over a long period of time and took place on several levels.  

Bang! Collective exposes the German arms industry in a series of actions

After months of preparation, the Berliner Peng! Collectively we have prepared a series of activities together with Schauspiel Dortmund. This included a campaign by the fictitious CDU local branch Schwenke, in which the CDU voter base was called on to sign a petition calling for a ban on the export of small arms. The fake campaign was so convincing that even major international media outlets such as Fox News, New York Times, Washington Post and Radio Vatican fell for the report.

In a second campaign, the artists sent 200 letters to arms dealers in the USA in which Heckler & Koch announced a recall of all weapons. For fear of civil unrest and an extremely unpredictable foreign policy under Trump, German management could no longer classify the USA as a safe export country. The action caused uncertainty in the USA, arms dealers called Peng! using the telephone number provided. Collectively, Heckler & Koch later posted an official denial on their website .

In the third and most elaborate campaign, the collective invited representatives of the arms industry to the “German-French Prize for Security and Peace” award ceremony. A representative from ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems accepted the invitation and came to the event at the rented luxury hotel in Berlin. Before the prize could be handed over, however, he became skeptical and left the event without a word.

“80% of the population is against arms exports, yet the politicians in charge are not addressing the issue. On the contrary, the federal government has approved more arms exports every year in recent years, until this development reached a sad peak in the history of the Federal Republic in 2015 with a volume of over 12 billion euros. “German weapons are currently in almost all crisis regions and in many regimes that disregard human rights,” says Jessica Gräber from Peng! Collective. “In the Basic Law we have Article 26, in which Germany’s commitment to peace is anchored. In practice, however, it is undermined by industry-oriented and completely non-transparent approval practices. We therefore see it as our task to save Article 26.” The collective therefore calls on its website to vote for one of five bills to revise the War Weapons Control Act. This draft law should then be introduced into the Bundestag with the support of parliamentarians. On June 21st there will be a theater evening at the Schauspiel Dortmund in which the campaign will be presented and the voting results will be evaluated.

Bang!

Then it rattles in your memory, because bang! is already represented in our archive with another creative campaign. “Germany says sorry” [ 1 ] it was said in April 2016, as part of which Peng! when the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs issued an apology to citizens for unfair treatment.

This campaign also caused a stir, but also criticism from the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (less because of the content, but more because of the use of symbolism):

And the very clear statement by Heckler & Koch on its own website, as well as the Thyssenkrupp employee who actually appeared at the fictitious peace prize ceremony, show that the current campaign to stop arms exports is once again having a major influence.