Federal Ministry of Defence (Germany) in the context of State of Defence (Germany)

The capital resolution (German: Hauptstadtbeschluss) was made by the German Bundestag on 20 June 1991, as a result of German reunification, to move its headquarters, as well as the headquarters of half the federal ministries, from Bonn to Berlin. Ministries which remained in Bonn, such as the Federal Ministry of Defence, established secondary offices in Berlin; likewise the seats in Bonn turned to second offices for ministries which moved to Berlin.

The term capital resolution is misleading, since Berlin had already become the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990 as one of the stipulations of the Unification Treaty, and the resolution was to make it the seat of government as well.

The Bundeswehr Centre of Military History and Social Sciences (Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr, abbreviated as ZMSBw) is a German research institution focused on military history and social sciences. Located in Potsdam, it is a part of Germany's Federal Ministry of Defence. The organisation was formed in 2013 by merging the Military History Research Office (MGFA) and the Bundeswehr Institute of Social Sciences [de] and is subordinate to the Center of Leadership Culture.

Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (German: [ˈhɛlmuːt ˈʃmɪt] ; 23 December 1918 – 10 November 2015) was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. He was the longest lived chancellor in German history and had the longest post-chancellorship, at over 33 years.

Before becoming chancellor, he served as the minister of defence (1969–1972) and the minister of finance (1972–1974) in the government of Willy Brandt. In the latter role he gained credit for his financial policies. He had also briefly been minister of economics and acting foreign minister.

The Bendlerblock (German pronunciation: [ˈbɛndlɐˌblɔk] ) is a building complex in the Tiergarten district of Berlin, Germany, located on Stauffenbergstraße (formerly named Bendlerstraße). Erected in 1914 as headquarters of several Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) offices, it served the Ministry of the Reichswehr after World War I. Significantly enlarged under Nazi rule, it was used by several departments of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) from 1938, especially the Oberkommando des Heeres and the Abwehr intelligence agency.

The building is notable as the headquarters of a resistance band of Wehrmacht officers who staged the 20 July plot against Adolf Hitler in 1944. As the leaders of the conspiracy were summarily shot in the courtyard, the Bendlerblock also includes the Memorial to the German Resistance. Since 1993, the building complex has served as a secondary seat of the German Federal Ministry of Defence.

The Haenel MK 556 (German: Maschinenkarabiner) is a gas-operated selective-fire 5.56×45mm NATO assault rifle designed by German company C.G. Haenel. The MK 556 was finalised in September 2020, and it is a fully automatic version of an earlier Haenel design, the CR 223, which was already in limited use by law enforcement agencies since 2017. On 14 September 2020, the Haenel MK 556 was selected by the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) as a replacement for the G36, before the decision was revoked over patent infringement and legal concerns.

In order to replace the G36, the German Federal Ministry of Defence put forth the "Assault Rifle System", which the MK 556 won, leading to a purchase of the rifle, which was withdrawn on 9 October 2020, citing suspicion of breaches of public procurement law and concerns about alleged patent infringements by C.G. Haenel to the detriment of the other bidder company, Heckler & Koch. The German Federal Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) had this communicated to the Defence Committee of the German Federal Parliament. The decision followed a crisis meeting with representatives of the procurement office. The offers of the bidders will be reassessed by the procurement office against this background.