Killing Machines from Germany

On November 2, 2023, an Israeli 120-millimeter tank shell hit the office of French press agency AFP in Gaza City, leaving behind dust and debris. In the first weeks of the Gaza war, the destruction of media infrastructure was a strategic goal pursued by the Israeli army (IDF), as reported by »Forbidden Stories«, an international network of journalists. Audio experts commissioned by French newspaper Le Monde were able to prove from the sound of the shot that the projectile was fired from an Israeli army tank. The drive unit of the Israeli standard tank »Merkava IV« is produced in Germany. In Friedrichshafen, a city on the northern shoreline of Lake Constance, Southern Germany, the company Rolls-Royce Solutions/MTU manufactures the basic elements of the engine powering the fighting machine. This report shows the central role German technology plays in the production of the Israeli armored vehicle with which the IDF commits serious human rights violations in the Palestinian territories.

The MTU factory has a long tradition in armaments production. Its predecessor company, Luftfahrzeug-Motorenbau GmbH, was founded in 1909, already producing aircraft engines for the military during the First World War. In 1918, the company was renamed Maybach-Motorenbau GmbH and built engines for the first private vehicles. During the Second World War, the company acted as an important supplier for the German Panzerwaffe on all fronts. Daimler-Benz bought the company in 1960. At the end of the 1960s, after several mergers, the company was renamed Motoren- und Turbinen-Union Friedrichshafen GmbH (MTU). Today, the company still produces tank engines for the German military (the Bundeswehr), for example the drive for the »Leopard« tank.

With the entry of Daimler, the business internationalized to the USA. After further company sales, the British Rolls-Royce Group finally took over MTU in 2014 and continued to run the brand. In 2019, MTU Friedrichshafen GmbH was renamed Rolls-Royce Solutions GmbH. According to the company portal North Data, this is the parent company of MTU America. In the USA, this branch of the Group produces the MT-883 engine for the Israeli military and other armies with the support of the US Army.

According to a spokesperson, Rolls-Royce Power Systems (RRPS) makes most of its money manufacturing generators for hospitals and data centers, as well as building engines for trains and civilian ships. The sale of military engines by Rolls-Royce Solutions would only make up a small proportion of total sales. According to the peace research institute SIPRI, the entire Rolls-Royce Group achieved a turnover of 19.12 billion US dollars in 2023, of which 33 percent (6.29 billion US dollars) was generated by its defense division. This puts the company in 23rd place among the world’s top armaments producers.

The Engine

MTU calls the assembly of all machine parts for a tank drive a »power pack«. It consists of »engine, transmission, cooling system, air filtration, energy system, preheating equipment, power management, and vehicle integrated features. All drive system designs and components come from a single source, ensuring that each component is perfectly integrated for reliability and optimal performance«, the defense company states in a brochure. This means that Rolls-Royce/MTU is responsible for the entire propulsion system, even if the individual components are manufactured by different suppliers.

The engines are produced once Israel orders them. There are no public documents on the specific production orders placed with the company by the Israeli army—neither MTU nor the Israeli Ministry of Defense commented on the orders when asked.

A spokesperson for Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG responded to a jW inquiry about the »Merkava IV« engine as follows: »Rolls-Royce supports NATO and its allies in the provision of propulsion solutions for defense purposes. Please understand that we cannot comment on the details of these activities.« The press officer moreover assured us over the phone: »It is no secret that military engines are manufactured in Friedrichshafen. We have been active in the security sector for years. If the German government or the US government had not approved the delivery of the engines to Israel, it would not have happened.«

As mentioned above, military engines for the Bundeswehr and other armies are manufactured in Friedrichshafen. MTU employs 7,000 people in Germany, 6,000 of whom work in Friedrichshafen. Delivery data from a US import database provided to jW by researchers from the campaign »Mask off Maersk« confirm that MTU manufactures all basic components such as the engine block, crankshaft, pistons, piston housing, oil pan, gears and electronic control parts for the engine in Germany. On the company’s English-language website, MTU also states that it produces gears and other components in Friedrichshafen and sends them directly to the MTU factory in South Carolina, USA, for engine production.

It is unclear whether MTU has the piston housing and other large parts cast in Germany as well. To clarify this, jW made an inquiry at the Gienanth foundry in Schwandorf, Bavaria. The company’s managing director was prepared to discuss engine production in December 2024. He stated: In Eisenberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, the parent company Gienanth produces 4,000 engine blocks per year, having MTU as a customer. However, the Managing Director of Fronberg Guss rules out production of the piston housing for the MT-883 in his foundry: »We don’t manufacture tank engines. There is a much greater capacity in Eisenberg,« he explains. Reading between the lines: »Tank engines may be produced in Eisenberg. You should ask them.«

Press spokeswoman for Gienanth GmbH in Eisenberg, Jutta Haag, refused to provide information about the company’s supply of the customer MTU and asked jW to refrain from further contacting employees via Linkedin. Rather than Gienanth, MTU would certainly help with the research, the spokeswoman says, referring to the customer ordering the engine housings. Yet, MTU still refused to provide specific information about its military engines upon request.

This lack of transparency is one of the reasons why peace activists have been protesting against MTU and other armaments producers in the Lake Constance area for years. On the website waffenvombodensee.com, pastor Rainer Schmid and his fellow campaigners document the activities of the arms companies on the lake bordering Switzerland. The pacifists have paid particular attention to MTU: They have already identified MTU Plant 2, located right next to the lake, as a production hall for tank engines, but have not yet been able to find any details on the manufacture of the engines for the »Merkava IV«.

But delivery data received from the USA shows that the finished engine parts are transported by truck or train to the container ports of Amsterdam, Bremerhaven and Stadersand near Hamburg. From there, large shipping companies such as MSC or smaller maritime logistics companies ship the freight across the Atlantic to both North and South Carolina with the help of the logistics company Expeditors International of Washington. In 2024, MTU shipped 86 container loads of engine parts weighing several tons to the USA via Bremerhaven alone.

Production in South Carolina

Trucks transport the parts from the ports of Charleston and Wilmington to the factory in Graniteville. In an inconspicuous factory building located in a forest, technicians process the individual parts into the MT-883 main battle tank engine. To ensure up-to-date production conditions, Rolls-Royce/MTU relocated production from Detroit to the south and has been manufacturing the MT-883 »Merkava« engine in Aiken County, South Carolina, since 2010. According to a 2005 study by human rights organization Oxfam, one of the reasons why the production takes place in the USA is financial support from the state: »German arms companies have benefited from the German government’s previous benevolent turning a blind eye to further export business via the USA. In numerous instances, financing through the FMS program (Foreign Military Sales, jW) made the export business possible. However, the core requirement for the allocation of FMS funds is that the final assembly takes place in the USA—at least officially. One example: MTU Friedrichshafen dismantled its own ›MT 883‹ diesel engines into individual parts and exported them to the USA. There they were (…) reassembled and (…) exported to Israel, where they were then installed in the latest ›Merkava IV‹ main battle tanks.«

»The Foreign Military Sales program is the US government’s method of delivering US weapons to eligible foreign buyers, usually allies and partner states,« says Noam Perry, a lawyer and activist with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), in response to junge Welt’s inquiry. Perry collects information about US arms exports to Israel on his website.

The Israeli armored personnel carrier »Namer« is practically a »Merkava IV« tank without a turret. In most official documents, only its designation »Namer« can be found as a contractual product. The Israelis can use the transporter as the basis for the »Merkava IV«. The US military administration documents the promotion of the contract between Israel and MTU on the Defense Department’s website, among other places. »We don’t know when it started being manufactured in the US, but it has been for decades,« says Perry.

According to the Federal Register, the US Department of Defense approved the sale of 240 engines for the Israeli troop carrier »Namer« worth 238 million US dollars in 2019. These MT-883 engines are built at the MTU factory in Graniteville, where workers assemble the individual parts exported from Germany. Regarding the Aiken County factory MTU states on its website: »The plant has also grown to incorporate military propulsion systems, assembling and conducting complete overhauls of MTU Series 883 engines and power packs used in military applications.« The company MTU America did not respond to inquiries from junge Welt.

MTU tries to offer apprentices in Aiken County career prospects in the defense industry: In a YouTube video from the training organization, MTU apprentice Bryson Green is shown assembling engines. In the background, cast-iron engine frames and boxes containing individual parts can be seen, but no foundry or larger special machines for the production of complex electrotechnology, which are visible in videos filmed in MTU’s Friedrichshafen factory. These statements and videos from the factory support the information found in the delivery documents that the large individual parts for the engine are sent from Germany, and that only the series assembly of the MT-883 engines takes place in Graniteville. In an NBC report about the company offering internships to high school students, trainee Nigeria Williams can be seen in front of an unfinished twelve-cylinder engine, which is most likely the MT-883. Here, the junior tank engine builder proudly talks about her internship trip to the MTU headquarters in Germany.⁶

There are indications of further German-American cooperation in the manufacture of other engine parts. The radiator of the »Power Pack« of the MT-883 engine looks like the radiator shown in a Mahle brochure on special military vehicles. The Mahle company has its headquarters in Stuttgart. When asked by jW, Mahle spokeswoman Manuela Höhne wrote: »Please understand that we do not comment on individual customer relationships or projects.« According to the database highergov.com, Mahle manufactures the radiator for the »Merkava III« AVDS 1790 engine in the USA.

The German company Vincorion also builds the power generator for the »Merkava IV« according to a public application for a contract from the US military, also available on highergov.com. This is presumably the generator model »EPG Husky«, manufactured in a factory operated by the company in Essen. The generator provides the tank’s power supply and enables certain functions of the MTU engine. When asked, press spokesman Florian Hanauer from the company’s headquarters in Wedel did not comment on this specific component for the »Merkava« engine.

Transport to Israel

Since the year 2000, Israel has ordered a total of 1,370 engines. 1,110 had been delivered until 2024, on average 50 per year. »The MT-883 Ka (1500 hp) diesel engine for ›Merkava IV‹ tanks and Namer APC, which are produced in Israel, and the modernization of old ›Namer‹; assembled in the USA from components produced in Germany.« These are the findings of the arms export report compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI. A freight document on highergov.org, which junge Welt has analyzed, makes the transport from the USA to Israel transparent: According to the contract between MTU and the Israeli military, brokered by the FMS program, the logistics firm GB Packaging is commissioned with the transport. The company also appears in other documents under the name Interglobal Forwarding Services. The warehouse is located in the port of New Jersey near New York. From here, shipments are sent to Israel by container ship or plane—to the container port in Haifa in the north, to the container port in Ashdod in the south or to Ben Gurion Airport east of Tel Aviv.

Logistics giant Maersk regularly sends entire shiploads of armaments from the USA to Israel. Researchers from the »Mask Off Maersk« campaign were able to prove that a container ship sails from the port of New Jersey to Israel once a week, having carried tank engines on seven occasions between 2023 and 2024. This statement is consistent with the information provided by Israeli customs on the import of tank engines from the USA.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense refuses to comment on German engine technology used in Israeli battle tanks. But there are clear indications as to where the installation of German engines in the Israeli tanks takes place: Israel’s largest tank factory, one of the biggest in the world, is located in Tel Hashomer. Its assembly halls are conveniently located between Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport in the south-east of the city—this is the place »where the ›Merkava‹ tanks are assembled and repaired«, according to the military portal warhistory.org. The German Press Agency (dpa) also named the location of the »›Merkava‹ factory at the Tel Hashomer base« in a 2022 news report on the introduction of the new Israeli infantry fighting vehicle »Eitan«, which also features an MTU engine.

The company Ashot Ashkelon manufactures the transmission for the »Power Pack« of the »Merkava IV« and the »Namer« under license from the German company Renk in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. When asked about the company’s cooperation with the Renk and Royce-Rolls/MTU groups, Eran Frenkel, Ashot Ashkelon’s marketing manager, declined to answer. In November 2024, the Israeli Ministry of Defense confirmed a new contract with Ashot Ashkelon worth 46 million US dollars for new transmissions for »Merkava« tanks and »Namer« APCs in a press release, as these vehicles »have proven their effectiveness during the current war«. In April, the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced another contract with Ashot Ashkelon worth 26 million US dollars for transmissions and other components for the »Merkava« and »Namer« for the next five years.

According to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, the Israeli company Bental Industries manufactures electric motors for the »Merkava IV« turbo starter. The company Beth-El states on its website it produces air filters for the »Power Pack« of the »Merkava« engine in Israel. It can be assumed that companies that supply components for the »Power Pack« also cooperate with MTU or even manufacture the components under license from MTU in order to ensure the smooth functioning of the engine.

The Israeli army has several armored brigades stationed throughout the country or directly deployed in the border region with Lebanon, on the Golan Heights in Syria, in the West Bank or in Gaza. The »Tank and APC Administration« of the Ministry of Defense ensures that the armored forces are constantly supplied with new combat vehicles straight from the factory.

Heavy-duty trucks transport the tanks to their destination. These are also sponsored by the US government. In the military workshops in the barracks or near the front, the MTU engine powering the »Merkava IV« is lifted out of the tank, serviced, repaired or replaced if it is faulty. In a video about the tank mechanics’ »Company 7181«, soldiers working on the MT-883 engine can be seen. Here the MTU logo on the cylinder guard is clearly visible.

War Crimes

Once at the front, the »Merkava IV« tank is used as a deadly weapon against anything that moves. Hamas fighters are by far not the only ones being shot at in Gaza—according to the journalist network »Forbidden Stories«, in addition to the AFP office in Gaza, the neighboring office of the Palestinian Media Group was also targeted in November 2023. Israeli tanks were used to impede live coverage of the attack on the city. Other war crimes are known to have been committed at Al-Shifa and other hospitals, as well as in refugee camps, which were shelled by »Merkava IV« tanks. Israeli soldiers also reported the destruction of Palestinian farms and farmland by Israeli tanks after the 2014 invasion of Gaza. During Israel’s most recent invasion of Lebanon in October 2024, Israeli soldiers even opened fire on UN troops with their »Merkava IV« tanks.

The debate on banning the export of German weapons to Israel has gained momentum with the war in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. In particular, the lawsuit brought before the International Criminal Court by Nicaragua, Cuba, and South Africa against the Federal Republic of Germany for aiding and abetting genocide and the protests of various human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, »Aufschrei Waffenhandel« or the »Joint Conference on Church and Development« (GKKE) have fueled the debate. Meanwhile, the German government had suspended or greatly slowed down the approval of arms exports to Israel.

The Research Service of the German Bundestag puts the export licenses for arms exports for 2023 at 326.5 million euros. In 2024, the number of licenses decreased. At a press conference in October 2024, the German government was asked about the increased arms deliveries to Israel in 2023, where it reaffirmed its intention to continue deliveries despite all criticism and against all opposition.

The reports on German arms exports are not very insightful: There are 22 categories for military equipment. However, it is unclear under which category the parts for the tank engine fall. Hence, jW asked the Ministry of Economics for clarification. Are the MT-883 engines from Rolls-Royce/MTU approved for Israel under export list item A0006 as »parts for battle tanks, armored vehicles«? Or are only the individual parts that are sent to the USA for further processing approved as »castings and unfinished products« under item A0016? Raphaela Queck, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Economic Affairs, declined to answer this specific question about the individual categories. Regarding the MTU engine, she merely stated: »Regarding your question about the supply chains in the German and Israeli defense industry, please contact the respective companies.« Thus, both the ministry and MTU remain silent on this matter, and there seems to be no way of obtaining official figures on this questionable export product.

Raphaela Queck concludingly refers to an inquiry from Sevim Dagdelen, politician for the party Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht and a former member of parliament, on export licenses to Israel in 2024, which also concern the MTU tank engine. However, the question of whether the engine or parts of it are licensed as dual-use goods was dismissed by the German government in the familiar manner. In a response to an inquiry from Dagdelen in March, the German government stated it would be supplying more military equipment to Israel again in 2025. Between January 1 and March 16, 2025, Berlin approved arms exports to Israel worth 24.46 million euros. This is almost three times as much military equipment as in the same period last year. All licenses issued were for »other military equipment«. This also includes category A0006 for armored vehicles, as stated by Dagdelen in the Berliner Zeitung on 26 March. This means that further engines for the »Merkava IV« tank have been approved this year.

The German government conceals details of arms exports to Israel—in particular the specific arms companies are not named and therefore not held accountable. As the example of MTU shows, the German arms industry earns millions from Israel’s military operations against the Palestinians. Thousands of civilians have been murdered in this conflict. A country is being occupied, and its population displaced in violation of international law. The German government supports these war crimes, as this analysis has shown.