BERLIN — In his annual report issued Tuesday, Germany’s ombudsman for the armed forces, Hellmut Königshaus, delivered a harshly critical assessment of training and leadership methods, just as a string of scandals threatened the reputation of the defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the country’s most popular politician.

After the release of the 70-page report, which garnered wide attention from the media, Mr. Königshaus said that young service members and supervisors had too little experience to see “when boundaries of breach of duty and criminal offense are crossed.”

In normal circumstances, such a report by Mr. Königshaus, a federal lawmaker who a year ago was appointed to be the military ombudsman, would not have received much attention were it not for the scandals of recent weeks.

The scandals have become major news, with Mr. Guttenberg, a suave, ambitious politician, having to bear the brunt of them. They include allegations of a mutiny on a naval training ship last November after a 25-year-old cadet fell to her death from rigging. The ship, the Gorch Fock, is a three-masted sailing vessel used to train naval cadets.