A former SS sergeant who worked unnoticed for decades as a train-station manager was charged with 58 counts of murder Tuesday after a student doing undergraduate research uncovered his alleged involvement in a massacre of Jewish forced laborers.

University of Vienna student Andreas Forster was working on a
project about the slaying in a forest near the Austrian village of
Deutsch Schuetzen when he stumbled across Adolf Storms' name in
witness testimony.

Forster then obtained files from federal archives in Berlin that
enabled him to link the former sergeant to the massacre, his
professor Walter Manoschek told The Associated Press.

Manoschek visited Storms, 90, at his home in the city of
Duisburg several times last year after finding him in the phone
book. The professor conducted about 12 hours of interviews in which
Storms repeatedly said that he does not remember the killings.

Forster and Manoschek notified authorities and state prosecutors
near Storms' hometown in the industrial Ruhrgebiet region of
western Germany filed the charges against him Tuesday.

Storms and unidentified accomplices are accused of forcing at
least 57 of the Jewish laborers to hand over their valuables and
kneel by a grave before fatally shooting them from behind.

A day after the March 29, 1945 massacre, Storms is accused of
shooting another Jew who could no longer walk during a forced march
in Austria from Deutsch Schuetzen to the village of Hartberg,
according to the court.

The court described the suspect simply as a "retiree from
Duisburg," but German authorities have previously identified him
as Adolf S. His full name was given in previous trials in Austria
related to other suspects in the massacre. He also been identified
as a former member of the 5th SS Panzer Division "Wiking."

The Duisburg court still must decide whether there is enough
evidence to bring the case to trial. Authorities did not disclose
his attorney's name and the phone at his home in Duisburg went
unanswered.

Storms does not appear on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of
most-wanted Nazi war criminals, but the organization's top
Nazi-hunter, Efraim Zuroff, said he was "very encouraged by the
indictment."

"He wasn't on our radar - he wasn't on anyone's radar - and
this is a case that clearly shows it is possible, even at this
point, to identify perpetrators who bear responsibility for serious
crimes committed during World War II and bring them to justice,"
Zuroff said.

The remains of the victims of the Deutsch Schuetzen massacre
were found in 1995 in a mass grave by the Austrian Jewish
association. A plaque now marks the site.

Storms was interned in an American prisoner of war camp
following the war, but was released in 1946. It was not uncommon
for possible war criminals to go undetected in the chaotic
aftermath of the war.

Storms worked as a train-station manager after the war until his
retirement. The Austrian press has reported he changed the spelling
of his name.

Manoschek described Storms as "fully there" mentally but in
poor physical health.

Prosecutor Andreas Brendel said there no living witnesses to the
forest massacre but statements made during an Austrian trial of
others involved can be used as evidence against the suspect.

Brendel said three former members of the Hitler Youth who were
helping the SS guard the prisoners on the march have provided
witness statements in Austria. A fourth former Hitler Youth member,
now living in Canada, is being interviewed this week, he told the
AP.

According to Manoschek, several of the former Hitler Youth were
tried in 1946 and convicted and sentenced to two years in prison
for their involvement.