Germany: "Abu Ghraib style" abuse in army no isolated incident
01 January 2005
Peter Struck, the German defence minister, first insisted that incidents of abuse that were uncovered in German army barracks last year were isolated incidents. Now the Defence minister and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces, Willfried Penner, has condemned the apparently widespread abuse but still insists that the German army should not be put under "general suspicion". On 1 December 2004, in a defence committee meeting in parliament, Struck admitted that preliminary investigations had been initiated in more than ten cases, and according to the national paper
Süddeutsche Zeitung, the army has begun investigations in at least 17 locations: in Ahlen, Brandenburg, Bruchsal, Coesfeld, Dornstadt, Hamm, Kempten, Mayen, Nienburg, Parow, Sonthofen, Stuttgart, Wildeshausen, Wittmund, Varel, Doberlug and Calw. Around 30-40 army instructors are being investigated. The incidents are being compared to "Abu Ghraib-style" mock interrogations where "interrogators" hooded and beat their victims and applied electric shocks on the neck, stomach and genitals of the victims. Evidence apparently leaked to the media by the state prosecutor's office stated that some torture scenes were videotaped and one soldier was shown naked.
The scandal started after abusive training methods at an army base were reported at the Command of the Army Troops (
Heerestruppenkommando) in Koblenz on 20 October 2004. The army transferred the case to the public prosecutor's office the same month. At first, the allegations only seemed to be directed at instructors working at the army barracks in Coesfeld near Münster, who took it upon themselves to start "training" army conscripts (compulsory conscription is still in force in Germany) for "real operations". These "real scenarios" included forcing soldiers to do press-ups over an open knife blade; being hooded and shackled for hours; being verbally threatened; being forced to stand in water while electric shocks were administered; having water poured down the throat whilst the nose is held closed, amongst others.
The prosecution has reported that soldiers were ambushed, shackled and taken back to the barracks to suffer "abuse and degrading treatment" during four different night marches between July and September last year. Mostly staff sergeants but also their superiors and captain of the regiment stand accused, five of whom apparently led the team. The allegations were downplayed by defence lawyers who claimed that the soldiers could have ended the "training" at any point with an agreed code word, and that they had not made use of their right to lodge complaints with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces. The allegations only came to light when a soldier, who was transferred after his basic training to the Command for Army Troops in Koblenz, had informally asked colleagues at his new work-place if this sort of training had become standard procedure; an officer who worked in the legal department consequently reported the training methods to the Command. Mock hostage-taking is not allowed during the basic training army conscripts receive after an internal report showed that soldiers had received damage to their hearing during one of these exercises. The practice was removed from the training programme and limited to theoretical classes on hostage situations.
Initially, it seemed the incidents only occurred at Coesfeld, but at least 17 separate allegations of abuse have come to light since then. On 7 October, a 42-year old army officer from the German Air Force (
Luftwaffe) was sentenced to six months on probation for physical abuse and degrading treatment. At his trial, 51 cases in which Andreas B. had twisted soldiers arms, beat them, tied them to tables and verbally threatened them on the Wunstorf airbase in Lower Saxony between 2001 and 2003 came to light, (see
Statewatch vol 14 no 5).
There is a legal use of this form of "training", in the prep