* Zeitler says banks must consent to publish results
* No German banks expected to tap rescue fund - sources
* Test on sovereign exposure might evoke political problems
(Adds detail, background)
By Arno Schuetze and Philipp Halstrick
FRANKFURT, July 1 (Reuters) - No German bank is in acute danger from a probe into the health of Europe's lenders, banking and regulatory sources said, and there is enough cash available to fill any gaps if the situation worsens.
Europe's banking watchdogs have been holding stress tests to see how lenders would be affected by a sharp downturn in the economy or other shocks, aiming to boost confidence and bring a a negative spiral in financial markets to a halt.
They are working ahead of an end-of-July deadline to publish the test results.
"I do not believe that any of the 16 German banks tested could fall under the crucial 6 percent in terms of the Tier 1 ratio," a senior banking source said.
This source did not see the country's eight landesbanks -- regional wholsesale banks owned by local states and savings banks -- at risk either, given the high level of support they already have from their current owners.
The United States and Britain tested banks in 2009 and Europe's Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) -- which groups the 27-nation bloc's national supervisors -- is now doing the same for 25 banks.
The supervisors will collect data on capitalisation and non-performing loans, and will then see what the impact on capital is from a further increase in bad loans.
They have looked at a list of around 25 larger European banks in a first round of tests that started in March, the sources said, and they will now look at a wider group of 100 banks that include German and Spanish regional banks.
There is fewer data about Germany's landesbanks and Spain's cajas, and the fear is that many of Europe's biggest problems lie with these smaller players.
In the unlikely case that a German bank would fail to pass the mark in the test, the Bundesbank would ask them to access capital markets or get funds from rescue fund Soffin, which still has 300 billion euros ($367.1 billion) in funds.
Soffin has pumped billions of euros into the country's second-biggest lender Commerzbank, and took over property lender Hypo Real Estate.
The Financial Times on Thursday quoted an unnamed senior banker as saying the tests may force two to four German banks to seek help from Soffin.
BANKRUPT COUNTRY?
One unresolved issue was the way in which sovereign debt exposure should become a part of the test, regulatory and banking sources said, with regulators seen wary of running scenarios in which a country went bankrupt.
"If the ECB says the probability of a Greek default is X percent, this will evoke political problems," one source said.
Instead, the regulators could use some form of a proxy by looking at financial market spreads of sovereign debts, some of the sources said. The ECB and national central banks advise CEBS on the stress tests which could instead.
Some of the 16 German banks in the test were reluctant to supply the data as long as the assumptions for the tests remained unclear, or because they didn't want the results out in the public, according to financial sources.
"They are fine about disclosing the key results of the test but do not want see all the sensitive data published," another financial source said.
A European Central Bank tender on Thursday eased some of the fears about euro zone banks that have unnerved financial markets in recent months, suggesting they can cope with the repayment of almost half a trillion euros in emergency loans.
According to banking and regulatory sources the sample of 25 banks did not include just the biggest banks, but also looked at other aspects of "systemic relevance".
For example, the relatively small Austrian banks Erste Group and RZB were in the group of 25 due to their eastern Europe exposure.
Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters this week that the first three to be tested in Germany -- Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and landesbank BayernLB -- passed the initial tests.
($1=.8172 Euro)
(Writing by Douwe Miedema, additional reporting by Lionel Laurent in Paris, Jonathan Gould and Angelika Gruber in Frankfurt, and Boris Groendahl in Vienna, Editing by Sitaraman Shankar)