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 First edition | |
| Author | Frederick Forsyth |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Thriller |
| Publisher | Hutchinson |
Publication date | 1972 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 310 |
| ISBN | 0-09-113020-4 |
| Preceded by | The Day of the Jackal |
| Followed by | The Dogs of War |
The Odessa File is a thriller by English writerFrederick Forsyth, first published in 1972, about the adventures of a young German reporter attempting to discover the location of a formerSS concentration-camp commander.
The nameODESSA is an acronym for the German phrase "Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen", which translates as "Organisation of Former Members of the SS". The novel depicts ODESSA as an international Nazi organisation established shortly before the defeat ofNazi Germany for the purpose of protecting former members of the SS after the war.[1]
In November 1963, shortly after theassassination of John F. Kennedy, Peter Miller, a German freelance crime reporter, follows an ambulance to the apartment of Salomon Tauber, aHolocaust survivor who has committed suicide. The next day, Miller is given the dead man's diary by a friend in theHamburg police. After reading Tauber's life story and learning that he had been in theRiga Ghetto commanded byEduard Roschmann, Miller resolves to search for Roschmann, whom Tauber recognised a few days earlier, alive and prosperous, in Hamburg. Miller's attention is especially drawn to one passage in which Tauber describes having seen Roschmann shoot aGerman Army captain who was wearing adistinctive military decoration.
Pursuing the story, Miller visits the State Attorney General's office and learns that no one is prepared to search for or prosecute former Nazis. His investigations take him to famed war criminal investigatorSimon Wiesenthal, who tells him about "ODESSA." Miller is approached by a group of Jewishvigilantes with ties to theMossad, who have vowed to find and kill German war criminals and have been attempting to infiltrate ODESSA. At their request, Miller agrees to infiltrate ODESSA himself and is trained to pass for a formerWaffen-SS sergeant by a repentant formerSS member. Miller visits a lawyer working for ODESSA and, after passing severe scrutiny, is sent to meet a passport forger who supplies those members who wish to escapeWest Germany: Miller later breaks into the forger's house and obtains the titular "ODESSA File" from his safe.
Miller slowly unravels the entire system, but his cover is compromised, and ODESSA sets its top hitman on Miller's trail. Miller escapes one attempt on his life by sheer luck: the hitman later installs a bomb in Miller'sdistinctive sports 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 "Josef", an Israeli agent assigned to the vigilante group to tail Miller.
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 in Argentina, West German authorities (at the urging of the Israelis) will shut down his industrial facility that was producingmissile guidance systems for theEgyptian Army. ODESSA's plan throughout the novel – to obliterate the State of Israel by combining German technological knowledge with Egyptianbiological weapons – has been thwarted. In addition, Miller's information reaches the public and badly embarrasses the 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, anIsraeli Army paratrooper officer – returns to Israel to bedebriefed. He has taken Tauber's diary with him, and per the last request in the diary, Uri visitsYad Vashem and saysKaddish for the soul of Salomon Tauber.
The film adaptationThe Odessa File was released in 1974 starringJon Voight andMaximilian Schell. It was directed byRonald Neame with a score byAndrew 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 Argentine police, skipped bail, and fled toAsunción,Paraguay, where he died on 10 August 1977.
InThe Odessa File the head ofODESSA is given as SS GeneralRichard 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 GeneralHans-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 byHannes Messemer.)
Reviewing the novel on its initial release,The Guardian wrote that "in Forsyth's hands the 'documentary thriller' had assumed its most sophisticated form".[1] Other reviews noted that the book, although set in 1963, was timely on account of then-current events in the Middle East.[citation needed]
