The Odessa File
First edition
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| Author | Frederick Forsyth |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Thriller novel |
| Publisher | Hutchinson |
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Publication date
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1972 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 310 |
| ISBN | |
| Preceded by | The Day of the Jackal |
| Followed by | The Dogs of War |
The Odessa File is a thriller by Frederick Forsyth, first published in 1972, about the adventures of a young German 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 "Organization of Former Members of the SS". The novel alleges that ODESSA is an international Nazi organisation established before the defeat of Nazi Germany for the purpose of protecting former members of the SS after the war.
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 police. After reading Tauber's life story and learning that Tauber had been in Riga Ghetto commanded by Eduard Roschmann, "The Butcher of Riga", 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 diary passage in which Tauber describes having seen Roschmann shoot a German Army Captain who was wearing an unusual military decoration.
Miller pursues the story and visits the State Attorney General's office and other offices where he learns that no one is prepared to search for or prosecute former Nazis. But his investigations take him to famed war criminal investigator Simon Wiesenthal, who tells him about the society "ODESSA".
Miller is approached by a group of Jewish vigilantes with ties to the Mossad, who have vowed to search for German war criminals and kill them and have been attempting to infiltrate ODESSA. Miller is asked to infiltrate ODESSA and agrees. A repentant former SS member who is working with the vigilantes trains him to pass for a former SS sergeant. 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 escape.
Slowly Miller unravels the entire system. But Miller's identity has been compromised, in part by his insistence to use his own car which has already been 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 then installs a bomb in Miller's car, but because the sports car has a very stiff suspension the bomb is not triggered while Miller is driving it.
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Wikipedia