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It is customary for authors to thank those who have helped them to compile a book, particularly on a difficult subject, and in doing so to name them All those who helped et the information I needed to write The Odessa File are entitled to my heartfelt thanks, and if I do not name them it is for three reasons

So former members of the SS, were not aware at the ti to or that what they said would end up in a book Others have specifically asked that their names never be mentioned as sources of information about the SS In the case of others still, the decision not to mention their names is mine alone, and taken I hope for their sakes rather than for mine

FF

FOREWORD

THE ODESSA OF the title is neither the city in southern Russia nor the small town in America It is a word coanisation Der Eheanisation of Former Members of the SS’

The SS, as most readers will knoas the army within an army, the state within a state, devised by Adolf Hitler, coed with special tasks under the Nazis who ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945 These tasks were supposedly concerned with the security of the Third Reich; in effect they included the carrying out of Hitler’s ambition to rid Germany and Europe of all elements he considered to be ‘unworthy of life’, to enslave in perpetuity the ‘subhuman races of the Slavic lands’, and to exterminate every Jew, man, woman and child, on the face of the continent

In carrying out these tasks the SS organised and executed the hly six million Jews, five ypsies and half a h it is seldom mentioned, close to two hundred thousand non-Jewish Germans and Austrians These were either mentally or physically handicapped unfortunates or so-called enemies of the Reich, like Communists, Social Democrats, Liberals, editors, reporters and priests who spoke out too inconveniently, e, and later army officers suspected of lack of loyalty to Hitler

Before it had been destroyed the SS hadsymbol of its standard, synonyanisation before or since has been able to do

Before the end of the war its most senior members, quite aware the as lost and under no illusions as to how civilisedca the entire German people to carry and share the blaold were sled out and deposited in numbered bank accounts, false identity papers were prepared, escape channels opened up When the Allies finally conquered Gerone

The organisation which they formed to effect their escape was the Odessa When the first task of ensuring the escape to more hospitable climes of the killers had been achieved the ambitions of theseto remain under cover with false names and papers while the Allies ruled; others came back, suitably protected by a new identity The few very top anisation from the safety of a comfortable exile

The aim of the Odessa was and remains five-fold: to rehabilitate former SS men into the professions of the new Federal Republic created in 1949 by the Allies, to infiltrate at least the lower echelons of political party activity, to pay for the very best legal defence for any SS killer hauled before a court and in every way possible to stultify the course of justice in West Gerainst a former Kamerad, to ensure former SS men establish thee of the economic miracle that has rebuilt the country since 1945, and finally to propagandise the German people to the view-point that the SS killers were in fact none other than ordinary patriotic soldiers doing their duty to the Fatherland, and in no way deserving of the persecution to which justice and conscience have ineffectually subjected them

In all these tasks, backed by their considerable funds, they have beenofficial retribution through the West Ger its naht to deny its own existence as an organisation, with the result that many Germans are inclined to say the Odessa does not exist The short answer is: it exists, and the Kania are still linked within it

Despite its successes in almost all its objectives, the Odessa does occasionally take a defeat The worst it ever suffered occurred in the early spring of 1964 when a package of documents arrived unannounced and anonymously at the Ministry of Justice in Bonn To the very few officials who ever saw the list of nae became known as ‘The Odessa File’

Chapter One

EVERYONE SEEMS TO re on November 22nd, 1963, at the precise moment they heard President Kennedy was dead He was hit at 1222 in the afternoon, Dallas time, and the announcement that he was dead came at half past one in the sa in London and 830 on a chilly, sleet-swept night in Ha

Peter Miller was driving back into the town centre after visiting his mother at her home in Osdorf, one of the outer suburbs of the city He always visited her on Friday evenings, partly to see if she had everything she needed for the weekend and partly because he felt he had to visit her once a week He w

ould have telephoned her if she had a telephone, but as she had none, he drove out to see her That hy she refused to have a telephone

As usual he had the radio on, and was listening to abroadcast by North West Gerht he was in the Osdorf Way, ten minutes from his mother’s flat, when the music stopped in the h, taut with tension

‘Achtung, Achtung Here is an announcement President Kennedy is dead I repeat, President Kennedy is dead’

Miller took his eyes off the road and stared at the die of the radio, as if his eyes would be able to deny what his ears had heard, assure hi radio station, the one that broadcast nonsense

‘Jesus,’ he breathed quietly, eased down on the brake pedal and swung into the right-hand side of the road He glanced up Right down the long, broad, straight highway through Altona towards the centre of Ha other drivers had heard the sa in to the side of the road as if driving and listening to the radio had suddenly become mutually exclusive, which in a way they had