The Odessa File

by Frederick Forsyth

Book Overview

The suicide of an elderly German Jew explodes into revelation after revelation: of a Mafia-like organization called Odessa ...of a real-life fugitive known as the "Butcher of Riga"..of a young German... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B001QYQ7J2
• Release Date: January 1973
• Publisher: Book Club Associates
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A book you can't put down

I bought this book in a whim, I've never read a book by Forsyth but I really wanted a spy/thriller novel. Once I got through the first chapter I got sucked in and couldn't put it down! I finished it in one day. Anyone who loves books with twists and turns should read this.

A Story to Remember

Even the start of the novel is gripping, and it is fraught with coincidences. If John F. Kennedy hadn't been shot, Peter Miller would not have pulled over to listen to the radio announcement. He would have missed the ambulance that he eventually followed. As an investigative journalist he thought he might be following a story. The ambulance's destination was the suicide of an old Holocaust survivor. "No story here," the detective advises him. Shortly thereafter the detective calls to tell him that the old man left behind a diary that describes the unspeakable cruelty he experienced in a concentration camp. Miller reads the story into the night. His attention is turned to one incident he reads over and over again. The diary ends with the old man's plea that someone please say Kaddish, the Jewish Prayer for the dead, for the sake of his soul. The coincidences build from here. The next day Miller decides to hunt a Nazi camp commandant, but not for the reasons we suspect. The story takes Peter Miller through other parts of Germany and Austria where he is being chased by the people he is pursuing. The journalist eventually finds and confronts the Nazi. The ultimate coincidence is revealed. His personal mission has far-reaching consequences. In the end we learn about the fate of the characters, some fateful and some ordinary. This was the most stirring part for me. A young Israeli paratrooper enters the Hall of Remembrance in Jerusalem. His red beret satisfies the requirement of a yarmulka, and he fulfills the request of the old man whose soul died years earlier in a concentration camp near Riga. With Forsythe's ability to mix fact with fiction, 1964 was a year in which a number of Nazis were found and brought to justice. Stirring. This novel is lesenvergnuegen. Alles Gute! ECP

Peter Miller has a big scoop

We are told that the best stories come from people that write about what they know. Therefore, if this story seems insightful it may be because Frederic Forsyth worked for Reuters reporting from London and he wrote the story in hotels from Germany to Austria. He mixes the real, not so real and the plausible to make you think "what if." I do not want to say much as the fun is being surprised during the reading. However compared to the movie the book is much more in-depth with more characters and details. Manny times you think Forsyth is going off on some tangent and not focusing on the main story; then with out warning the information makes sense later on. One example to look for is the quick encounter with military maneuvers where he describes the tank sergeant. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is the night of the John F. Kennedy assassination. Peter Miller, freelance reporter in the process of chasing ambulances is disappointed by the apparent suicide of a person of no consequence. Turns out the dead man is holocaust survivor Salomon Tauber; he left behind a diary of his experiences. Miller reads this diary and seems particularly interested in some details. This inspires him to do a story on what happed to prominent people that where in the "National Socialist German Workers' Party". His quest puts him at odds with many people including an organization, O.D.E.S.S.A, (Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen), that was designed to help the SS escape justice. He also encounters independent agents out for their own agenda. Then there is the MOSSAD. Everyone accuses Miller of having his own secret agenda and not just out for a story. Can they be right? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Be sure to also watch the movie with famous actors that actually fit the characters from the book. Naturally a lot of information had to cut out and some sequence changes to fit the media. We still get the full speech from Eduard Roschmann (Maximilian Schell) The Odessa File Starring: Jon Voight, Maximilian Schell

Textbook Thriller

Master thriller writer Forsyth delivers big-time in this story of an intrepid freelance journalist tracking down an ex-Nazi in postwar Germany. Grounded heavily in research and reality, the story is based upon the disappearance of hundreds of wanted SS war criminals. As plenty of historians have since documented, there were organized efforts to help wanted Nazis disappear, especially to South America (see, for example, Uki Goni's book The Real Odessa). Here, Forsyth imagines the Odessa, a well-funded organization of former SS men who are taking the reins of German industry as it rebuilds, and helping Egypt with rocket technology with which to destroy Israel. One day freelance German photojournalist Peter Miller comes into possession of the diary of an old concentration camp survivor who has recently committed suicide. The diary details the man's physical and mental torture in Riga, and claims that the camp commandant is still alive and living in Germany. Miller is simultaneously appalled at the atrocities described and eager for a big scoop, and so sets out to track down SS Captain Roschman (the real life "Butcher of Riga"). He quickly discovers to his surprise that the newsmagazines aren't interested in the story, it's explained to him that no one wants to pay to read about horrors perpetrated on Jews in some other country. Miller decides to proceed on his own, and the book turns into a kind of procedural thriller as he doggedly pursues sources of information across Germany and it starts to dawn on him that no one is particularly interested in hunting down ex-Nazis. The combination of former Nazi influence in the police, along with the the realpolitik of the situation (live ex-Nazis vote, dead Jews do not), mean that the official channels are largely window dressing. Turning to other sources, like Simon Wiesenthal, Miller eventually finds himself in the company of a vigilante group of Jews dedicated to eliminating ex-Nazis. They, and their Mossad masters, want him to infiltrate Odessa by posing as an former SS man. What he doesn't know is that Odessa is on to him, and has assigned their "cleaner" to take care of him. The final part of the book is stuffed with high tension as Miller gets possession of a blockbuster piece of intelligence about the Odessa, and closer and closer to Roschman. Meanwhile, the SS killer gets closer and closer to Miller... It all culminates in a nail-biting finale with one of the best twists at the end I've ever come across. The core story is top-level thriller stuff, absolutely outstanding. I could have done without Miller's girlfriend character, who seemed to exist mainly as a bit of T & A and an attempt to give Miller a little dimension. I also could have done without the subplot involving the rockets for Egypt, as it distracted from the more interesting story of Miller's hunt. Still, these are minor quibbles about an outstanding book.

Kameraderie

THE ODESSA FILE is one of Frederick Forsyth's classics. Cleverly written, meticulously researched, and absolutely readable, THE ODESSA FILE recounts the story of Peter Miller, a young German crime reporter who decides to infiltrate the secret Nazi support network in the early 1960s in order to discover the whereabouts of Captain Eduard Roschmann, "The Butcher of Riga," who sent some 80,000 people to their deaths in the Riga Ghetto.While Miller's outrage at the twisting of Germany by the Nazis is real and intense, his motivations are unclear...until the O. Henry ending. This is fine historical fiction, melding historical figures (like Roschmann)and fictional characters (like Miller) together seamlessly.THE ODESSA FILE is an intense thriller, and rates as one of the finest and most memorable works of its genre anytime and anywhere.

Forsyth's best book by far!!!!!!

After reading "The Day of the Jackal", I thought that there couldn't be a better suspense thriller than this, but I still hadn't read "The Odessa File". Its set in the early 1960's, where a young freelance German journalist comes across the personal diary of an old German Jew who's committed suicide. Reading the diary through the night, the journalist, Peter Miller finds out that the Jew was a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camp at Riga, Latvia during World War II. As he reads on, he's shocked by the graphic description by the Jew of the atrocities committed on the camp inmates by the camp commandant, Eduard Roschmann. Millers vows to track down Roschmann and bring him to justice. But while doing so, he comes across a super-secret organization known as Odessa, which protects Nazi ex-SS members from being captured and brought to justice. When Miller starts getting too close to the Odessa, his life is in grave danger. But he decides that it will end with him bringing Roschmann to justice for his crimes, or with his death."The Odessa File", as with all other Forsyth books, has a super-shocking twist in the end, where we get to know the real motive behind Miller wanting to find Roschmann. In the process, Forsyth manages to include The Beatles' short stint in Hamburg, the background of the brief Arab-Israeli war and last but not the least, Kennedy's assasination. As usual, Forsyth's factual knowledge is accurate to the point, and his research is deep and minute. "The Odessa File" is undoubtedly Frederick Forsyth at his very best.