What Does Odessa Mean as in the Read Odessa
Author | Frederick Forsyth |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre | Thriller novel |
Publisher | Hutchinson |
Publication date | 1972 |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 310 |
ISBN | 0-09-113020-4 |
Preceded past | The Day of the Jackal |
Followed by | The Dogs of War |
The Odessa File is a thriller by Frederick Forsyth, starting time published in 1972, about the adventures of a young German language reporter attempting to discover the location of a former SS concentration-camp commander.
The name ODESSA is an acronym for the German phrase "Arrangement der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen", which translates every bit "System of Onetime 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 subsequently the war.
Plot [edit]
In November 1963, presently after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Peter Miller, a High 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 expressionless man'due south diary by a friend in the Hamburger Polizei. Afterward reading Tauber's life story and learning that Tauber had been in the Riga Ghetto allowable 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 peculiarly fatigued to one diary passage in which Tauber describes having seen Roschmann shoot a German language Regular army captain who was wearing a distinctive 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 "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. At their request, Miller agrees to infiltrate ODESSA himself and is trained to pass for a sometime Waffen-SS sergeant by a repentant ex-member of the SS. Miller visits a lawyer working for ODESSA and afterwards 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 function by his insistence on using his own distinctive sports auto, 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 1 trap by sheer luck: the hitman subsequently installs a bomb in Miller's motorcar, but the machine's strong intermission prevents it from going off.
Eventually Miller confronts Roschmann at gunpoint and forces him to read from Tauber'due south diary. Roschmann attempts to justify his actions to his "fellow Aryan" simply 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 male parent Erwin. All of Roschmann's arrogance and blowing deserts him, and he is reduced to begging for his life. Instead of killing him, nevertheless, 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'due south car to phone for assistance, but is killed when he drives over a snowfall-covered pole, an impact hard enough to trigger the flop. Roschmann manages to escape, eventually flying to Argentine republic. 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) volition shut down his industrial facility that was producing missile guidance systems for the Egyptian Army. ODESSA'due south program 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'due south information reaches the public and badly embarrasses the Westward German regime enough for them to arrest and prosecute a large number of ODESSA members, though the book notes that ODESSA continues to be and commonly succeeds in keeping former SS members from facing justice.
Josef, in reality Major Uri Ben-Shaul, an Israeli Army officer - returns to State of israel to be debriefed, and performs one final duty. He has taken Tauber's diary with him and per the last asking in the diary, Uri visits Yad Vashem and says Kaddish for the soul of Salomon Tauber.
Film adaptation and SS Captain Eduard Roschmann [edit]
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 past Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is based rather loosely on the volume, but it brought about the exposure of the real-life "Butcher of Riga", Eduard Roschmann. Later on the film was released to the public, he was arrested by the Argentinian police, skipped bond, and fled to Asunción, Paraguay, where he died on 10 August 1977.
Real life SS members in the novel [edit]
In The Odessa File the head of ODESSA is given equally SS General Richard Glücks, who is determined to destroy the State of State of israel nearly two decades after the stop of Globe War Ii, while the head of ODESSA in Federal republic of germany is a former SS Officer called the "Werwolf", who is implied to be SS General Hans-Adolf Prützmann. (If the real Glücks had nevertheless been live, he would have been 74 years old and Prützmann would have been 62 in 1963. The part of Glücks in the 1974 moving picture was played by Hannes Messemer).
External links [edit]
- The Odessa File at the Internet Movie Database
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Odessa_File
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