“Keine Kompromisse!” (No Compromises!).

Heckler & Koch GmbH (HK; German pronunciation: [ˌhɛklɐ ʔʊnt ˈkɔx]) is a German defence manufacturing company that manufactures handguns, rifles, submachine guns, and grenade launchers. The company is located in Oberndorf am Neckar in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, and also has subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, France and the United States.

The Heckler & Koch Group comprises Heckler & Koch GmbH, Heckler & Koch Defense, NSAF Ltd., and Heckler & Koch France SAS. The company’s motto is “Keine Kompromisse!” (No Compromises!). HK provides firearms for many military and paramilitary units, including the SAS, KMar, the US Navy SEALs, Delta Force, HRT, Canada’s Joint Task Force 2, the German KSK and GSG 9, and many other counter-terrorist and hostage rescue teams.

Their products include the HK P2000, HK P7, HK MP5, HK P30, HK VP9, HK45, HK VP9SK, HK P30SK, HK USP, HK MR556, HK MR762, H&K HK416 and the HK USC, the MP5, UMP submachine guns, the G3, HK417 battle rifles, the HK33, G36, HK416 assault rifles, the MG5, HK21 General-purpose machine guns, the MP7 personal defense weapon, the USP series of handguns, and the PSG1 sniper rifle. All HK firearms are named by a prefix and the official designation, with suffixes used for variants.

In 1974, Heckler & Koch diversified into two more areas, HK Defense and Law Enforcement Technology and HK Hunting and Sports Firearms. Since then HK has designed and manufactured more than 100 different types of firearms and devices for the world’s military and law enforcement organizations as well as sports shooters and hunters.

In 1990, Heckler & Koch completed two decades of development of their revolutionary caseless weapon system and produced prototypes of the Heckler & Koch G11. The company also produced prototypes of the Heckler & Koch G41 intended for the Bundeswehr. Due to the international political climate at the time (East and West Germany uniting and defense budget cuts) the company was unable to secure funded contracts from the German government to support production of either weapon system and became financially vulnerable. The next year, Heckler & Koch was sold to British Aerospace’s Royal Ordnance division.

During 1994 and 1995, the German government awarded Heckler & Koch contracts for producing an updated standard assault rifle and updated standard sidearm for the Bundeswehr. Heckler & Koch developed and produced the Project HK50, a lightweight carbon fiber assault rifle, which became the HK G36 assault rifle. In addition, Heckler & Koch produced the Heckler & Koch USP derived as a variant of its Universale Selbstladepistole (USP) series of handguns (which had been in production since 1989). The P8 was adopted as the standard handgun for the Bundeswehr in 1994 and the G36 in 1995.

As the result of a 1999 merger between British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems, Heckler & Koch was owned by the resulting BAE Systems; it was contracted to refurbish the British Army’s SA80 rifles (which had been built by Royal Ordnance) This contract entailed a modification programme to the SA80 series of rifles to address a number of reliability issues with the SA80. In 2002, BAE Systems restructured and sold Heckler & Koch to a group of private investors, who created the German group holding company HK Beteiligungs GmbH.

In 2003, HK Beteiligungs GmbH’s business organization restructured as Heckler & Koch Jagd und Sportwaffen GmbH (HKJS) and its business was separated into the two business areas similar to the 1974 business mission areas, Defense and Law Enforcement and Sporting Firearms.