Five German army officers were found guilty yesterday of abusing army recruits in the most embarrassing scandal to rock the military since the Second World War.

The five military trainers, including two sergeant-majors, each received suspended sentences. They were found guilty of beating, mocking, applying electric shocks and pumping water into the nostrils of recruits. The trainers denied abusing the recruits, claiming that the treatment was an essential part of preparing the new troops for overseas combat missions.

Wolfgang Schweer, for the state prosecutor, told the civilian court in Münster that the training exercises in the summer of 2004 were illegal from the start. “Such hostage-taking exercises, according to the army's own guidelines, should involve only long-serving soldiers about to be deployed abroad. These were young recruits who were not being sent anywhere.” About 163 recruits were involved.

On one occasion the soldiers returned exhausted from an all-night march. Within 30 minutes they were seized by the trainers who covered their heads with boot bags, tied them up and transported them to a sand quarry. There they had to kneel, were verbally abused, had water pumped into their trousers and were forced to do press-ups with logs on their backs. The hoods were briefly removed and the recruits had to lie down with a sergeant on their backs while a waterpipe was stuffed into their noses.

During a second exercise the recruits were sprayed with water as they stood with electrical cables from a field telephone attached to their necks, thighs and calves. Judge Thomas Mattonet let himself be electrocuted with the same phone wires in the courtroom so as to establish the severity of the shock. “About as strong as an electric sheep fence in the countryside,” he decided.

The two sergeant-majors, whose names were withheld pending an appeal, received a 22-month suspended prison sentence. They had both served with the Isaf force in Afghanistan and had been twice decorated.

The court case has proved a difficult test for the German Army as it is drawn reluctantly deeper into armed operations in Afghanistan and other crisis areas. The trial raised questions about the role of brutal training methods and the violation of the guiding spirit of the modern German army, which is to create “responsible citizens in uniform”.

About 35 defence lawyers were engaged to fight what was seen as a landmark case. It only came to light when one of the soldiers grumbled in the canteen about the electric shocks. An army lawyer overheard the remark and got the facts from the troops.

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