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The Odessa File, published in 1972 is one of Frederick Forsyth’s thriller novel detailing the adventures of a young German reporter attempting to discover the location of a former SS concentration-camp commander.
ODESSA is an acronym for the German phrase “Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen”, or the “Organization of Former Members of the SS”, allegedly an international Nazi organization formed to protect former members of the SS after the war.
The protagonist of the novel, Peter Miller, a German freelance crime reporter gets a lead from the diary of Salomon Tauber, a Jewish Holocaust-survivor who commits suicide. He sets to find out the wearabouts of Eduard Roschmann, “The Butcher of Riga” and soon finds out that no one is prepared to search for or prosecute former Nazis. Miller finally infiltrates ODESSA and slowly he unravels the entire system. However his folly in using his own car compromises him and ODESSA sends their hit man on Miller. Eventually Miller confronts Roschmann at gunpoint and finally Miller tells Roschmann that he isn’t there to avenge Roschmann’s Jewish victims, but rather o kill Roschmann for killing his father. Roschmann however manages to escape to Argentina, but a secret ODESSA plot to obliterate Israel falls through..