History Literature / TheOdessaFile

* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler: Roschmann survives in the book and escapes to Argentina, where the real Roschmann was discovered in hiding several years later. In the movie, Miller kills him during their final confrontation.]]

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Creator/FrederickForsyth's second most famous novel, published in 1972 and adapted two years later into a film directed by Ronald Neame and starring Creator/JonVoight and Creator/MaximilianSchell. Said film also features Creator/MaryTamm, who would later appear in ''Series/DoctorWho''.

ODESSA, as stated by Forsyth in the foreword, has nothing to do with the Ukrainian port, but is the acronym for "'''O'''rganisation '''d'''er '''e'''hemaligen '''SS'''-'''A'''ngehörigen", in English "Organization of Former Members of the SS", an organisation that may or may not have existed to protect former SS members.

Set in 1963 (starting on the night of the Kennedy assassination), the novel follows Peter Miller, a German journalist investigating the suicide of a Jewish man in Hamburg. Miller acquires his diary and sets out to find Eduard Roschmann, the former commandant of the Riga concentration camp. As he does, he discovers a plot to destroy Israel using German electronics and Egyptian bio-weapons...

* PunchclockVillain: Klaus Winzer. He only joined the SS because his father forced him to, and it seems the worst thing he did during the war was forge banknotes for them. He only got into forging papers for fleeing Nazis because a guy paid him to and then blabbed about it to his comrades, resulting in more requests.

* WorthlessCurrency: A variation: Part of the backstory of a MasterForger side character was that when Germany was under 4-power occupation, he became an expert at forging various documents as well as Allied "Occupation Reichsmarks"; however, when the new West German Mark was introduced as a currency, every household was given a set amount of the new Mark without any conversion or exchange of existing currency reserves, rendering the fortune he forged worthless overnight.

* IgnoredExpert:

* CoolCar: Peter Miller drives a Jaguar [=XK150=] sportscar. This leads to Miller being exposed as TheMole, as the Nazis remember his distinctive car. [[spoiler: However, because it has a stronger suspension than ordinary cars, a bomb planted on it does not go off immediately.]]

* GrayandBlackMorality: The Israelis resort to extreme measures to stop the Egyptians and their Nazi allies from carrying out their genocidial plans, like sending explosive packages to the German scientists in Egypt.

** Miller's SS identity is said to have commanded the firing squad that executed Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr who was killed for his role in the 20 July plot to kill Hitler. Canaris was actually hanged at Flossenburg Concentration Camp in April 1945, shortly before the end of the war.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The head of ODESSA is named as General Richard Glücks, a RealLife [=SS=] leader who served as Himmler's Concentration Camps Inspector and directly oversaw the Final Solution's mass murder and experimentation on Jews and other inmates. The real Glücks committed suicide in May 1945, shortly after V-E Day, though in fairness to Forsyth there were rumors that he faked his death and escaped prosecution like many other high-ranking Nazis.

* ArgentinaIsNaziland: Literally, as the ODESSA is said to be based there (a member asks what he assumes is another one "you're from Buenos-Aires?") Egypt is also Naziland, as several alumni are retired there and the ODESSA is trying to curry favor with Nasser's regime [[spoiler:by giving it the means to destroy Israel]]. Most disturbing, however, is the notion that ''Germany'' is still Naziland and that a number of people who really should be dead or imprisoned for war crimes are still walking around. Wiesenthal illustrates this by showing Miller records that show that various police officers he knows from his work as a reporter were all former SS members, and explains, with regards to a current wanted war criminal: "they can't arrest him. He used to be their superior officer."

* AdaptationDistillation: The film is a rather loose adaption.

* AuthorFilibuster: Miller's speech to Roschmann denouncing Nazism, both for its obvious evils and for permanently destroying Germany's reputation. This echoes Forsyth's own comments in the book's foreword.

* TheWoobie: Salomon Tauber. He was a Jew who served time in the concentration camps under Roschmann, and when World War 2 was over he was so traumatized at the sufferings and atrocities he'd endured - some by his own doing - that he spent his last years a recluse and eventually took his own life.

* DirtyCoward: Roschmann. He ran away in battle and tried to commandeer a vehicle meant for Wehrmacht soldiers to make his own escape. [[spoiler:When an officer tried to stop him, he shot him in the back. [[{{Foreshadowing}} This will be important later]] ]].

* DrivingQuestion: Why does Miller insist on hunting down Roschmann?

* YouKilledMyFather: The real reason Peter Miller assists the UsefulNotes/{{Mossad}} in infiltrating [=ODESSA=].

* CoolCar: Peter Miller drives a Jaguar [=XK150-] sportscar. This leads to Miller being exposed as TheMole, as the Nazis remember his distinctive car. [[spoiler: However, because it has a stronger suspension than ordinary cars, a bomb planted on it does not go off immediately.]]

* CoolCar: Peter Miller drives a Jaguar XK150 sportscar. This leads to Miller being exposed as TheMole, as the Nazis remember his distinctive car. [[spoiler: However, because it has a stronger build than ordinary cars, a bomb planted on it does not go off immediately.]]

* IdiotHero: Miller does a huge number of things that should, by all rights, get him killed at various points throughout the story. His PlotArmor saves him each time.
* InterserviceRivalry: One passage of the novel lists the different countries whose intelligence services are at loggerheads with each other... then mentions that Israel subverts this trope, partly because of its being surrounded by enemies.

Creator/FrederickForsyth's second most famous novel, published in 1972 and adapted two years later into a film directed by Ronald Neame and starring Creator/JonVoight and Creator/MaximilianSchell. Said film also features Mary Tamm, who would later appear in ''Series/DoctorWho''.

* CoolCar: This leads to Miller being exposed as TheMole, as the Nazis remember his distinctive car.

* DyingRequest: Salomon Tauber asks that someone give Kaddish (a Jewish prayer) for his soul, since he has no one to do it for him and doesn't feel worthy enough to do it for himself. His request is fulfilled.

* InterserviceRivalry: Discussed between the Wehrmacht and the SS. It's noted that during the war, the two organizations largely despised each other, but that since 1945, the ODESSA has put a lot of effort into propaganda convincing Wehrmacht veterans that the SS too were just ordinary and patriotic soldiers.

* SpannerintheWorks: Miller's hunting of Roschmann comes at a moment when Roschmann is working on a critical Odessa project. The Odessa give him one warning, and then go lethal. Had it been when Roschmann was less important, they wouldn't have treated him so seriously.

* DriventoSuicide: Salomon Tauber. [[spoiler: And the Odessa forger, Klaus Wenzer, whose documents Miller steals.]]