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Haenel MK 556 was selected by the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) as a replacement for the G36, before the decision was revoked over patent infringement and legal concerns.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of Defence put forth the "Assault Rifle System", which the MK 556 won, leading to a purchase of the rifle, which was withdrawn on 9 October 2020, citing suspicion of breaches of public procurement law and concerns about alleged patent infringements by C.G. Haenel to the detriment of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.
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