The Odessa File

The Odessa File is a thriller by English writer Frederick Forsyth,

first published in 1972, about the adventures of a young German The Odessa File
reporter attempting to discover the location of a former SS
concentration-camp commander.

The name ODESSA is an acronym for the German phrase

"Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen", which translates
as "Organisation of Former Members of the SS". The novel
alleges that ODESSA was an international Nazi organisation
established before the defeat of Nazi Germany for the purpose of
protecting former members of the SS after the war.

Plot
In November 1963, shortly after the assassination of John F.
Kennedy, Peter Miller, a German freelance crime reporter, follows
an ambulance to the apartment of Salomon Tauber, a Holocaust
survivor who has committed suicide. The next day, Miller is given
the dead man's diary by a friend in the Hamburger Polizei. After
reading Tauber's life story and learning that Tauber had been in the
Riga Ghetto commanded by Eduard Roschmann, "The Butcher of First edition
Riga", Miller resolves to search for Roschmann whom Tauber Author Frederick Forsyth
recognised a few days earlier, alive and prosperous, in Hamburg.
Miller's attention is especially drawn to one diary passage in which Country United Kingdom
Tauber describes having seen Roschmann shoot a German Army Language English
captain who was wearing a distinctive military decoration. Genre Thriller
Miller pursues the story and visits the State Attorney General's Publisher Hutchinson
office and other offices where he learns that no one is prepared to Publication 1972
search for or prosecute former Nazis. But his investigations take date
him to famed war criminal investigator Simon Wiesenthal, who
Media type Print (hardback &
tells him about "ODESSA".
paperback)
Miller is approached by a group of Jewish vigilantes with ties to Pages 310
the Mossad, who have vowed to search for German war criminals
ISBN 0-09-113020-4
and kill them and have been attempting to infiltrate ODESSA. At
their request, Miller agrees to infiltrate ODESSA himself and is Preceded by The Day of the
trained to pass for a former Waffen-SS sergeant by a repentant ex- Jackal 
member of the SS. Miller visits a lawyer working for ODESSA Followed by The Dogs of War 
and after passing severe scrutiny is sent to meet a passport forger
who supplies those members who wish to escape.

Slowly Miller unravels the entire system, but his cover is compromised, in part by his insistence on using
his own distinctive sports car, which is associated with the journalist Miller, not the SS man he is
impersonating, and ODESSA sets its top hitman on Miller's trail. Miller escapes one trap by sheer luck: the
hitman later installs a bomb in Miller's car, but the car's stiff suspension prevents it from going off.

Eventually Miller confronts Roschmann at gunpoint and forces him to read from Tauber's diary.
Roschmann attempts to justify his actions to his "fellow Aryan", but is taken aback when Miller says he has
not tracked down Roschmann for being a mass murderer of Jews. Rather, Miller directs him to the passage
describing Roschmann's murder of the army captain, who Miller reveals to have been his father Erwin. All
of Roschmann's arrogance and bravado deserts him, and he is reduced to begging for his life. Instead of
killing him, however, Miller handcuffs Roschmann to the fireplace and says he plans to have him arrested
and prosecuted.

Miller is caught off guard when Roschmann's bodyguard returns to the house, disarms him and knocks him
unconscious. The bodyguard drives to the village in Miller's car to telephone for help, but is killed when he
drives over a snow-covered pole, an impact hard enough to trigger the bomb. Roschmann manages to
escape, eventually flying to Argentina. The hitman who has been sent to kill Miller is instead killed by an
Israeli agent Josef.

While Miller is recovering in hospital, he is told what happened while he was unconscious. Josef warns
him not to tell anyone the story. He does disclose that with Roschmann (code-named "Vulkan") in
Argentina, West German authorities (at the urging of the Israelis) will shut down his industrial facility that
was producing missile guidance systems for the Egyptian Army. ODESSA's plan throughout the novel – to
obliterate the State of Israel by combining German technological know-how with Egyptian biological
weapons – has been thwarted. In addition, Miller's information reaches the public and badly embarrasses
the West German authorities enough for them to arrest and prosecute a large number of ODESSA
members, though the book notes that ODESSA continues to exist and usually succeeds in keeping former
SS members from facing justice.

Josef – in reality Major Uri Ben-Shaul, an Israeli Army officer – returns to Israel to be debriefed, and
performs one final duty. He has taken Tauber's diary with him and per the last request in the diary, Uri visits
Yad Vashem and says Kaddish for the soul of Salomon Tauber.

Film adaptation and SS Captain Eduard Roschmann

The film adaptation The Odessa File was released in 1974 starring Jon Voight and Maximilian Schell. It
was directed by Ronald Neame with a score by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is based rather loosely on the
book, but it brought about the exposure of the real-life "Butcher of Riga", Eduard Roschmann. After the
film was released to the public, he was arrested by the Argentinian police, skipped bail, and fled to
Asunción, Paraguay, where he died on 10 August 1977.

Real life SS members in the novel

In The Odessa File the head of ODESSA is given as SS General Richard Glücks, who is determined to
destroy the State of Israel nearly two decades after the end of World War II, while the head of ODESSA in
Germany is a former SS Officer called the "Werwolf", who is implied to be SS General Hans-Adolf
Prützmann. (If the real Glücks had still been alive, he would have been 74 years old and Prützmann would
have been 62 in 1963. The part of Glücks in the 1974 movie was played by Hannes Messemer).

External links
The Odessa File (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071935/) at IMDb
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