Odessa Nazi Organization

70s Rewind: Ronald Neame's THE ODESSA FILE

It doesn't have the immediacy of Page One: Inside The New York Times , Andrew Rossi's compelling documentary that opened in limited U.S. release recently, nor the political relevance of All the President's Men , Alan J. Pakula's drama that served as a journalistic call to arms for thousands of young people in 1976. But The Odessa File has something that those other films do not:

Nazis.

Directed by Ronald Neame and released in October 1974, The Odessa File is adapted from a best-selling 1972 novel by Frederick Forsyth that is based, according to the author, on O.D.E.S.S.A., the name of a real-life organization that began smuggling members of the SS out of Germany during the final days of World War II. The story is set in the early 60s. Freelance journalist Peter Miller (Jon Voight), who describes himself as "just a reporter with a nose for a story," follows wailing sirens to a building and sees a dead body carried out by the authorities. Spotting a good friend who's a detective, Miller presses for information and is told that an old man committed suicide: "It's only worth two lines in the newspaper."

The next day, the friend hands Miller a memoir that reveals the old man to be a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. The memoir details atrocities committed in the Riga (Latvia) ghetto, converted into a concentration camp, under the iron fist of Captain Eduard Roschmann (Maximiliann Schell) and claims that Roschmann is still alive, a beneficiary of the clandestine O.D.E.S.S.A. organization.

Miller thinks the story is good, and will be even better if he can find Roschmann and uncover his new identity. But, as a magazine editor tells him when he reject's Miller's pitch, the German people no longer wish to hear about Nazi atrocities. The press has been filled with such stories ever since the war ended. It's late November 1963; JFK has just been assassinated, and that is what is on everyone's minds. Miller is not deterred. Over the protests of his detective friend, his girlfriend Sigi (Mary Tamm), and his mother (Maria Schell), he pursues an investigation on his own dime.

Miller is aware that he and Sigi represent the hopes of a new, post-war, post-Nazi generation for Germany, a generation that doesn't want to be shackled unfairly to the past. While he doesn't feel any residual guilt for the actions of his countrymen, he begins to realize that he was not fully aware of the extent of those actions. In trying to dissuade him, his mother cautiously revealed a precious few hints of life under Nazi rule, but was reluctant to go into any details. His reporter's curiosity appears to drive him forward.

ODESSA: Facts and Myths about Nazi Escape Group | Suite101.com

Historians and researchers are divided on whether ODESSA, the Organization Der Ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen (Organization of Former SS Members), even existed. Some are sure it did, some are doubtful.

Famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal deducted that it must have been real. The way Wiesenthal saw it only a clandestine, coordinated outfit with extensive funds could relocate the fugitives. Wiesenthal also claims that while interviewing a former German intelligence officer at the Nuremberg trials, the man told him about such an organization. He explores the existence of ODESSA even further in his 1989 book Justice, Not Vengeance .

Czechoslovakian intelligence identified an organization by the name of ODESSA at the end of World War II and informed the Allies about it. There are other references to the group in various other intelligence reports.

On its website, the Jewish Virtual Library presents a case for the reality of ODESSA. The article claims that as far back as 1944 German industrialists began to plan their escape and the securing of their wealth by transferring it to foreign nations. In addition, high ranking Reich officials, afraid of Allied retribution, began to plan their escape.

ODESSA was the organization that smuggled them out and into countries such as Spain, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Brazil, many Arab nations and even the United States. More than 10,000 Nazis escaped, at least temporarily.

Faithful partners of ODESSA were Roman Catholic orders, specially the Franciscans, who would help the fugitives get to Italy. It is considered that many friars acted out of charity believing to be helping refugees from communism. On the other hand, there are charges that Vatican officials knew exactly who they were helping and acted out of sympathy for their cause.

Skeptics are quick to point out that Wiesenthal never offered concrete proof of the existence of ODESSA. Furthermore, the doubters say, if the organization ever existed, it was transitory and incompetent.

Furthermore, ODESSA became a much used term. At times it was used to describe groups that would continue the fight for the defeated Reich; at others to identified a band that was trying to infiltrate the Soviet government or one that was planning an upcoming Nazi worldwide revolution and, yes, even an escape coordination organization.

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Inside Secret Societies, What They Don't Want You to Know