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:''For the 1974 film adaptation, see The Odessa File (film)'' ''The Odessa File'' is a thriller by Frederick Forsyth, first published in 1972, about the adventures of a young German reporter attempting to discover the location of a former SS concentration-camp commander. The name ODESSA is an acronym for the German phrase "Organisation der Ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen", which translates as "Organization of Former Members of the SS". The novel alleges that ODESSA is an international Nazi organisation established before the defeat of Nazi Germany for the purpose of protecting former members of the SS after the war instead of a war veterans' group. ==Plot== In November 1963, shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Peter Miller, a German freelance crime reporter, follows an ambulance to the apartment of Salomon Tauber, a Jewish Holocaust-survivor who has committed suicide. The next day, Miller is given the dead man's diary by a friend in the police. After reading Tauber's life story and learning that Tauber had been in Riga Ghetto commanded by Eduard Roschmann, "The Butcher of Riga", Miller resolves to search for Roschmann. Miller's attention is especially drawn to one diary passage in which Tauber describes having seen Roschmann shoot a German Army Captain who was wearing an unusual 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 the famed war-criminal investigator Simon Wiesenthal, who tells him about the society "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. Miller is asked to infiltrate ODESSA and agrees. A former SS member who is working with the vigilantes trains him to pass for a former SS sergeant. Miller visits a lawyer working for ODESSA and after passing a severe scrutiny is sent to meet a passport forger who supplies those members who wish to escape. Slowly Miller unravels the entire system. But Miller's identity has been compromised, in part by his ill-advised decision to use his own car; the impoverished SS man he is impersonating would not have been able to afford a sports car, and ODESSA sets its top hit man on Miller's trail. Miller escapes one trap by sheer luck; the hit man then installs a bomb in Miller's car, but because the sports car has a very stiff suspension the bomb is not triggered while Miller is driving it. Eventually Miller confronts Roschmann at gunpoint and forces him to read from Tauber's diary. Roschmann attempts to justify his actions to his "fellow Aryan" but is taken aback when Miller bluntly 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, revealed to have been Miller's father. All of Roschmann's arrogance and bravado deserts him, and he is reduced to begging for his life. Instead of killing him, however, 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's car to telephone for help, but is killed when he drives over a snow-covered pole, an impact hard enough to trigger the bomb. Roschmann manages to escape, eventually flying to Argentina. The hit man 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) will shut down his industrial facility that was producing rocket guidance systems for the Egyptian army. ODESSA's plan to obliterate the State of Israel by combining German technological know-how with Egyptian biological weapons has been thwarted. In addition, Miller's information reaches the public and badly embarrasses the West German authorities enough for them to arrest and prosecute a large number of ODESSA members (though the book notes that ODESSA continues to exist and usually succeeds in keeping former SS members from facing justice). Josef, in reality Uri ben Shaul, an Israeli army officer, returns to Israel to be debriefed, and performs one final duty. He has taken Tauber's diary with him and per the last request in the diary, Uri visits Yad Vashem and says Kaddish for the soul of Salomon Tauber. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Odessa File」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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