1972; 329 pages. New Author? : Yes. Genres: Suspense-Thriller; Intrigue; Holocaust; Historical Fiction. Overall Rating: 9*/10.
I learned it in high school History class, so
it has to be true. With the exception of
a few Nazi officials who knew they would be executed as war criminals, almost
all of the German civilians welcomed the liberating Allied armies. Well, maybe not the Russian army so much,
since they had some atrocities to avenge, but at least the American, British,
and French soldiers.
The problem is, if that’s so,
how do we explain why so many Nazi war criminals managed to avoid being found,
arrested, and tried? Yeah, a few were
caught and put on trial, including Hermann Goring and Adolf Eichmann.
Some others fled to foreign countries, mainly to
South America. But most simply blended
into the German populace with forged identities, and lived out their lives to a
quiet and peaceful end. How could that
happen?
Frederick Forsyth's The Odessa File presents a plausible explanation
for such a travesty of justice.
What’s To Like...
The Odessa File is
a best-selling 1972 thriller/historical fiction novel where we follow Peter Miller, a
German freelance reporter as he investigates the whereabouts of SS Captain
Eduard Roschmann, aka “The Butcher of Riga”, the maniacal and savage commandant
of a concentration camp located there.
The story takes place in 1963-64, primarily in places all over
Germany, especially the Hamburg area, with occasional quick detours to
places like Egypt and Israel.
The book does a fantastic job
of chronicling the post-World War 2 sentiments of the German people. Not every German rejoiced that the Nazi
personnel, particularly those that had been in the infamous SS Division, were
now hiding out and posing as German civilians.
The titular “ODESSA” is an acronym for “Organisation
der ehemaligan SS-Angehorigen”, which translates to “Organization of
Former Members of the SS”, a (fictional) clandestine group that gives huge amounts of money, muscle, and resources to any former SS person who needs to become “invidible”.
I liked that lots of real-world figures
have parts in the story, including Simon Weisenthal (Nazi
hunter), Anwar Sadat, General Meir Amit (Mossad),
Reinhard Heydrich (Nazi), Bishop
Alois Hudal (Nazi sympathizer), Bruno
Streckenbach (SS general), and Peter
Miller’s target, Eduard Roschmann. You’ll also pick up a few basic German phrases along the way; chuckle at ancient (1970s) things like Telex, pensions, photostats and public telephones; and ;earn how to make a car bomb out
of common household materials.
The overall plot of the book
is fairly straightforward. Our
protagonist sets out on his search for Roschmann, gets stonewalled by all sorts
of German bureaucratic agencies, doggedly keeps at it, and gradually becomes a
threat to Eduard Roschmann’s well-being, which calls for the Butcher of Riga to take appropriate countermeasures.
It all builds to an
exciting, twisty, and suspenseful climax.
Peter Miller survives and fulfills his mission, but not in the way you’d
expect. Not all the baddies die, but
those that don’t, have to flee for their lives.
Things close with a “where are they now” epilogue that includes both
fictional and real-world characters.
Ratings…
Goodreads:
4.13/5
based on 58,363 ratings and 910 reviews.
Amazon: 4.6/5 based on 508 ratings and 147 reviews
Excerpts...
“The trouble with you, pal,” he told his
reflection in one of Sigi’s brilliantly polished saucepans as he rinsed out the
cup with his forefinger, “is that you are lazy.”
He had been asked by a civilian-careers
officer, at the end of his military service ten years earlier, what he wanted
to be in life. He had replied, “An idle
rich man,” and at twenty-nine although he had not achieved it and probably
never would, he still thought it a perfectly reasonable ambition. (loc. 395)
“He was killed, you know, shortly after
that. He returned to his native Austria
and was killed fighting against the Americans in early nineteen forty-five. His body was identified by several people who
had known him in life.”
“He must have been a remarkable man,” said
Miller.
Dr. Schmidt nodded in agreement. “Well, yes, some thought so. Yes, indeed, some of us thought so.”
“I mean,” continued Miller as if the
interruption had not occurred, “he must have been remarkable to be the first
man since Jesus Christ to have risen from the dead. He was captured alive by the British on
December twentieth, nineteen forty-seven, at Graz in Austria.” (loc. 2085)
Kindle Details…
Presently, The Odessa File sells for $6.99 at Amazon. Frederick Forsyth has more than a dozen other
novels in e-book format, including the highly-acclaimed thriller, The Day of the Jackal.
The prices for those range from $6.99 to $13.99.
“It’s a question of
election mathematics. Six million dead
Jews don’t vote. Five million former
Nazis can and do, at every election.” (loc.
2445)
There’s little to quibble
about in The Odessa File. Cusswords are sparse, only six instances in
the first 25% of the book. There are a
couple rolls-in-the-hay and two allusions to male excitement.
I caught a couple of typos: Kaposs/Kapos, hose/those, rights/right, By-By/Bye-Bye,
but those might have occurred when the book version was converted into e-book
format. And although the book is mostly
written in "American" English, a couple of “British” spellings show up, including: disk jockey, whisky, and “waked up”.
It should be noted that
this is more of a Suspense/Intrigue tale, not an Action-Adventure. Thrills-&-spills do show up, but not
until the second half of the book, when Peter Miller has morphed from a
nuisance into a threat to Roschmann.
For those who are cinephiles,
a movie version came out in 1974 starring Jon Voight and Maximilian Schell, although Wikipedia implies that its adherence to the book’s plotline is rather “loose”.
That’s about it. I found The Odessa File to be a great read,
both as a work of historical fiction focusing
on post-WW2 Germany and a page-turner. This was my first
book by Frederick Forsyth, who rarely discounts the e-book versions of his novels,
but I will now be on the lookout for other works by him, including his equally famous
thriller, The Day of the Jackal.
9 Stars. For those who wonder whether books and movies really have any significant impact in the real world, Wikipedia has this note about the 1974 film adaptation of The Odessa File: “After the film was released to the public, he [Eduard Roschmann] was arrested by the Argentinian police, skipped bail, and fled to Asuncion, Paraguay, where he died on 10 August 1977.” All because of the movie. Awesome!
No comments:
Post a Comment