Former SS man charged with 58 murders after student traces him
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Independent MindsA former SS sergeant who worked unnoticed for decades as manager of a rail station has been charged with 58 counts of murder after a student doing undergraduate research uncovered his alleged involvement in a massacre of Jewish forced labourers.
Andreas Forster, a student at the University of Vienna, was working on a project about the massacre, which took place in a forest near the Austrian village of Deutsch Schützen, when he stumbled across Adolf Storms' name in witness testimony.
According to his professor, Walter Manoschek, Mr Forster then obtained files from federal archives in Berlin that enabled him to link the former sergeant to the massacre.
Professor Manoschek visited Mr Storms, 90, at his home in the city of Duisburg several times last year after finding him in the phone book. He conducted about 12 hours of interviews in which Mr Storms repeatedly said that he did not remember the killings.
Mr Storms and unidentified accomplices are accused of forcing at least 57 of the Jewish labourers to hand over their valuables and kneel by a grave before shooting them dead from behind. The killings took place on 29 March 1945. Mr Storms is accused of shooting another Jew the following day, during a forced march from Deutsch Schützen to the village of Hartberg.
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 has also been identified as a former member of the 5th SS Panzer Division "Wiking".
The Duisburg court must decide whether there is enough evidence to bring the case to trial.
Mr Storms does not appear on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's list of most-wanted Nazi war criminals, but the organisation's top Nazi-hunter, Efraim Zuroff, said: "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 the Second World War and bring them to justice."
The remains of the victims of the Deutsch Schützen massacre were found in 1995 in a mass grave by the Austrian Jewish association. A plaque now marks the site.
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Comments
While a 90 year old Gentile is pursued and prosecuted for murdering Jews, Jews aged 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 years old or not pursued and prosecuted for murdering Gentiles.
Since 1947 thousands of Jews have committed hundreds of atrocities against Gentiles in the Middle East, particularly against Palestinians, many of them on a par with anything the Nazis did. Yet not only is nothing done but the perpetrators are regarded as heroes, for example Ariel Sharon, leader of the notorious Unit 101 and responsible for the massacre at Qibya and the slaughter at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.
Sickeningly, the moron President George W Bush called Sharon “a man of peace” and Sharon was also given a warm welcome to 10 Downing Street by that loyal servant of Israel, Tony Blair.
Indeed, many Jewish war criminals are walking the street of Britain as pillars of their local Jewish communities having served for their country, Israel, during their stints in the IDF.
I look forward to the day when a top Zionist-hunter from the Nakba Memorial Centre says "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 the unending Nakba and bring them to justice."
Only when I brush my teeth.
Also criticism of Isreal and the actions of the IDF is NOT anit-semetic.
I am far from racist and not nationalistic so when I take a step back and look I can see the hypocrasy staring me in the face.
More examples though of blatant double standards, America, Britain and Israel can commit horrendous war crimes but we are not allowed to comment on that but we have to have national Holocaust (tm) day and my child spends much of her time learning about events that happened generations ago and is told to studiously to ignore the genocide and apartheid in Palestine today.
The time for Jews to answer for transgressions against those whom only wanted to live peacefully is around the corner. Guaranteed Jews the world over will ask to let those Jewish transgressors in old age "be".
On the contrary - they who scream blue murder the loudest have to understand that they will be judged upon by what they preach and their deeds and not as to whether they are jews.
Friends do exactly that.
I am anti-Zionist, in its imperialist and oppressive incarnations, but please look beyond simple dichotomies of them and us!!
This is a story of justice for murdered civilians who had been almost forgotten about and now their families can say justice has been served. This has nothing to do with Israeli crimes in the Middle East and this kind of childish accusation and counter-accusation is exactly what holds the Middle East back from real peace.
Just be pleased that a murderer has been caught and leave your preoccupations where they belong; in your small minds.