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ERFURT, Germany, April 27 (Reuters) - The German town of Erfurt was struggling on Saturday to understand why a failed student shot dead 17 people in his former school before killing himself in the country's worst murder spree in post-war history.

The eastern medieval town of a 197,000 people was in a state of deep shock after a 19-year-old youth returned to his high school armed with a pump-action shotgun and handgun slaughtered 14 teachers, two pupils, a police officer and then himself.

German media reported the young killer's name as Robert Steinhof and N-TV television revealed a photograph of an ordinary looking teenager with short hair in a dark shirt and smiling pleasantly.

More than 1,000 people attended sombre church ceremonies on a rainy Friday evening, searching for answers amid the carnage that has made a sleepy town 320 km (200 miles) south of Berlin the scene of one of the worst school slayings.

Hundreds of flowers placed by mourners were placed in front of police barricades in front of the school building and before the town hall.

"It is the darkest day in history for our town," Mayor Manfred Ruge told German television. "We all wish we could somehow turn back the clock."

Masked and clad in black, the gunman pumped bullets into teachers he found in the corridors and classrooms as he stalked his victims throughout the upper floors of the early 20th century Jugendstil school building. Six others were wounded.

"There were dead bodies lying everywhere in the corridors," said Thomas Rethfeldt, 18, whose teacher was shot in the head as she opened the door at the start of the shooting. The students barricaded themselves in the classroom until police freed them an hour later.

"I never thought anything like this could ever happen in a place like Erfurt," he added in a quiet, shaken voice. "I thought this must be a bad film. I thought this kind of thing only happened in America."

A number of students who escaped unharmed from the school said a second gunmen had been in the school. Police said late on Friday they were investigating the reports and said they could not rule out the possibility a second assailant had escaped.

The scale of the murder, rivalling some of the worst school killings ever, stunned Germans, who long felt they had some of the toughest gun-control laws in the world and were far removed from the type of wanton violence that has haunted the United States and Britain.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said he was staggered and unable to find words to describe his horror. Flags on the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin as well as buildings throughout Erfurt flew at half-mast.

Tears filled the eyes of grief-stricken people attending Erfurt's church services. Many lit candles for the dead as bells rang out.

"It's just all so unbelievable," said Margaret Kamps, a librarian at the school who locked the door to the basement library after 25 sobbing students sought refuge.

"The children were shocked and many were weeping," she added, standing outside Erfurt's gothic cathedral to commiserate with friends and students.

"I locked the door and we tried to stay quiet. The police came after 90 minutes and got us out."

German news quoted the police as saying the gunman shot himself as armed police moved in on him. They also said that they had found another 500 bullets stashed in a bathroom that they believed the assailant had planted and planned to use before killing himself.

"The munitions found match the two guns he had," a police spokeswoman said, but declined to comment on media reports that the assailant had been identified.

The killer, who has not been named by officials, was expelled from the school several months ago and banned from taking his "Abitur", a high-school exam required for entry into university. He had also had to repeat a year, although the reason was not immediately known.

Several students said he had been thrown out of school for playing truant and passing forged excuse notes to school authorities in the picturesque town in the state of Thuringia.

"He had good grades," said Isabelle Hartung, 18, who said she knew him. She added marks were not the reason he was expelled.

"He once told me he wanted to be famous and known to everyone. Now when I think back to what he said it really freaks me out."

The drama began shortly before 11 a.m. (0900 GMT) when the school janitor rang police to report hearing shots in school.

"We were sitting in class doing our work and we heard a shooting sound," said Filip Niemann, a student who survived the bloodbath. "We joked about it and the teacher smiled."

"The teacher let us go out and see what was happening and when we left the classroom, three to four metres in front of us, there was a masked person in black holding his gun at his shoulder," said the teenager, visibly shocked and his voice trembling.

"He stretched out his gun and fired. We saw a teacher fall to the ground. We just turned and ran. I heard from other kids the gunmen opened classroom doors and aimed at teachers."

One of two police officers who arrived at the school after the janitor's phone call was immediately shot dead, police said.

Police had initially spoken of two gunmen, but later said they believed the student had been acting alone. Local media reported witnesses had spoken of a second gunman and police said they were checking reports he may have slipped out of the building with other students during the chaos of the evacuation.

They were also reportedly checking the plumbing of the building for any trace of a second assailant.

About 700 students between the ages of 10 and 19 attend the Gutenberg high school on the outskirts of Erfurt. Some were trapped in classrooms for hours, too terrified to leave as the gunman roamed. A piece of paper simply reading "Hilfe" (Help) appeared on an upper floor window during the afternoon.

Later on Friday evening someone put up another sign reading "Warum?" (Why?)

Other mass killings at schools in recent years include the 1996 murder of 16 children and their teacher in the Scottish town of Dunblane by a lone gunman who later killed himself.

In April 1999 in the United States, two student gunmen killed 12 other students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.

Both events caused soul-searching in Britain and America about a loss of moral values and insufficient gun laws.

Germany already has strict laws governing the right to a gun, but experts say the country is awash with illegal weapons smuggled into the country from eastern Europe and the Balkans.

"Even if I believed in God, I would not believe in him any more, How could he let something like this happen?" Niemann said.

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