Latest news with #TheOdessaFile
The Citizen
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Citizen
Forsyth leaves big void
His stories often imitated his own life Master thriller writer Frederick Forsyth died last week. Many readers of a certain age will remember him for stories like The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File. He wrote many other stories of course, all as successful, becoming one of those rare authors who was able to make two fortunes in one lifetime – after losing the first to his financial advisor. Forsyth, who had no pretensions about his writing – he wrote to make a living as all the best ones do – never strayed too far from his journalistic roots. He had incredible sources, went into the field to do his research and put in the hard yards in front of his typewriter. Forsyth's stories His stories often imitated his own life. In his 2015 memoir The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue, he admitted that he had done work for British intelligence. Much has been written since last week about assignations, à la James Bond with a sultry Czech agent, but not much about his role in this country, in particular, just before the transition to democracy in 1994. The British, like the Americans, were very curious about what would happen to the six nuclear bombs that the apartheid regime had built from the 1970s onwards. ALSO READ: Eddie Redmayne confirms second season of hit series 'The Day of The Jackal' [VIDEO] Forsyth's relationship with foreign minister Forsyth, who had developed a convivial relationship over the years with then foreign minister Pik Botha, was sent out in the South African winter of 1992, so tensibly on a hunting trip to the Kalahari with his two sons, when the British discovered that Botha would be spending part of the parliamentary recess shooting there. Booked into the same lodge, their paths would cross at meal times, until finally, on the last night around the braai, Forsyth broached the question as off-handedly as he could. 'Freddie,' laughed Botha, 'you can tell your government we are going to destroy the lot.' Botha had known precisely why Forsyth was there and made full use of the opportunity to send a very important message back to London. His work As a writer, Forsyth's work was often a case of life imitating art; Simon Mann's ill-fated Wonga coup to Equatorial Guinea felt like something straight out of The Dogs of War, which is, ironically, where Forsyth had set the novel, while the Jackal became the nom de guerre of the most infamous terrorist of his day, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez. They don't make writers like Forsyth anymore. We're all the poorer for that. NOW READ: Eddie Redmayne mesmerises in 'The Day of the Jackal'
Hindustan Times
6 days ago
- Hindustan Times
The man who made us root for An assassin: A farewell to Forsyth
Dear Reader, The news of Frederick Forsyth's passing sends me upstairs to my grandfather's study. There, through the wood-panelled little room with its writer's leather-topped desk and well worn divan, I head for the bookshelf. Nestled among Wilbur Smith's adventures, Len Deighton thrillers and Desmond Bagley novels, I find what I am looking for—three yellowed paperbacks with crumbling pages. The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Devil's Alternative. Their author, the journalist-turned-novelist who redefined the geopolitical thriller, has died at 86. Looking at these paperbacks, I am back thirty years, to my summer holidays in this house, riveted by Frederick Forsyth. This master thriller writer got me to commit my first literary crime—rooting for a killer ! I followed the Jackal, watching him set up his sniper's nest in a Paris apartment, and actually hoped this assassin would manage to kill Charles de Gaulle. Such is the power of a fiction writer to create empathy for any character, and Forsyth does this superbly for his lone wolf killer in The Day of the Jackal. Little wonder it's sold over 10 million copies, inspiring generations of assassin-protagonist stories from The Manchurian Candidate to Killing Eve. So why should you read Frederick Forsyth? 1. To learn geopolitics - In The Dogs of War, a British mercenary overthrows an African dictator for mineral rights in a fictional Guinea-like nation; it's a pattern that repeats in pursuit of everything from petroleum to silicon chips. In The Odessa File, Nazi networks resurface just as far-right fascist networks today mutate and reappear—they never disappear. 2. For geography and history - This former journalist spent years reporting on the troubled hotspots of the world, from the Biafran War to the Cold War's front lines, and he sets his novels in these conflict zones, everywhere from Europe to Africa to Iraq and Afghanistan. 3. Real insights into military technology - This former RAF pilot-turned-journalist-turned-author features cutting-edge technology—military intelligence, espionage and drone warfare (The Kill List) and details their real-world ramifications. He was prescient about disinformation too (The Fourth Protocol). 4. An insider's view into unholy alliances - Forsyth's books reveal alliances between democratic governments, military contractors, dictators, intelligence agencies and opium smugglers (The Afghan). While this is fiction, much of it is based on real-world politics, making it both insightful and instructive. 5. The books make for great reading - Forsyth is a master storyteller. His books are perfectly paced with memorable characters (the assassin, the journalist, the spy) and non-stop action that keeps you turning pages . Forsyth's autobiography offers riveting insights from a reporter who knew too much. Forsyth was a correspondent in conflict zones, rumoured to be a spy for MI6, the British intelligence service. As he writes: 'The Stasi arrested me, the Israelis regaled me, the IRA prompted a quick move from Ireland to England, and a certain attractive Czech secret police agent—well, her actions were a bit more intimate. And that's just for starters.' A fascinating life, told with thriller-like prose, only everything here is true. Goodbye Frederick Forsyth, and thank you for the sleepless nights spent racing through your pages. Thank you for giving us geopolitics wrapped in pacy prose. Thank you for showing us the world in all its complexity—for investigating morality in the world's darkest corners. Above all, thank you for telling us uncomfortable truths in such an entertaining way that we couldn't look away. From Forsyth's Shadows to The Safekeep: 2024's Women's Prize Winner From the geopolitical shadows of Forsyth's fiction to the emotional shadows of post-war Europe, this year's Women's Prize winner, Dutch trans writer Yale van der Wouden exposes hidden histories through a Rebecca-like gothic tale of love and grief, set in post-war Netherlands, in the shadow of the Holocaust. Creepy and compelling, even if it reads a tad too 'arty'. And finally, as Father's Day approaches, these lines by Dylan Thomas, from Fatherhood: poems about Fathers, remind us of the fierceness of fatherly love and loss. Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light… And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. What are your favourite father and child poems ? (Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya's Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or reading dilemmas, write to her at sonyasbookbox@ The views expressed are personal.)
Telegraph
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Historians mocked Frederick Forsyth's The Odessa File – but it may have helped catch a Nazi
The death of the novelist, bon viveur and (by his own admission) long-standing MI6 informant, Frederick Forsyth has brought sorrow to the millions of readers who knew that his books were page-turners par excellence. He never pretended to be a great literary stylist, and readily admitted that his primary motivation for writing was financial rather than artistic, but his journalistic attention to detail, ability to come up with complex yet entirely comprehensible storylines and brisk, exciting plotting meant that a Frederick Forsyth book would grip from the first page to the last. The novel which he is best known for is his debut, 1971's excellent The Day of the Jackal, and few would minimise the impact that it had upon his career. Yet it is his follow-up, 1972's The Odessa File, which led to its own, more consequential tale. It revolves around the young German freelance journalist Peter Miller who, nearly two decades after the end of WWII, investigates the workings of a mysterious organisation known by the acronym 'ODESSA', which stands for 'Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen' – otherwise 'Organisation of Former Members of the SS'. (Forsyth's writing cannot be described as subtle, but it's undeniably effective.) Over the course of its three hundred-odd pages, Miller finds himself being pursued by hitmen hired by the former SS officers, as he goes in search of its members, and attempts to discover what their nefarious plans are. Just as The Day of the Jackal blended fact – derived from Forsyth's time as a BBC journalist – and fiction to convincing effect, so the success of The Odessa File lies in Forsyth's ability to take an apparently outlandish conceit and make it seem believable. The initial idea for the book came from a Sunday Times article written in July 1967 by the journalist Antony Terry. The piece published a series of unreliable, at times simply false, rumours and stories about escaped Nazis, largely put about by the Holocaust survivor-turned-Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. It was common knowledge that several high-ranking Nazis, most notably Adolf Eichmann, had fled to Argentina after the conclusion of WWII, and that some Germans of dubious loyalty had also remained in their home country; others headed over to the United States in order to work on the then-nascent space programme. Wiesenthal was fed inaccurate information – which he then passed over to Terry – by Wilhelm Höttl, a Nazi turned American counter-intelligence agent. Höttl claimed that 'Odessa' – in reality an informal codeword used by small, semi-independent groups of former SS men to identify themselves to one another – was in fact a carefully organised conspiracy with worldwide reach, which was responsible for the expatriation of leading Nazis to South America. Höttl was a highly unreliable witness whose primary interests were saving his own skin and appropriating wealth in the process – he had ensured that he had access to many of the Swiss bank accounts that the desperate Germans were placing their money in towards the end of WWII. But it suited Wiesenthal's agenda as a self-styled Nazi hunter to further a narrative of all-powerful SS men at large, including Eichmann and Hitler's private secretary Martin Bormann. Eichmann was eventually captured in Argentina, taken to Israel and executed in 1962. Bormann – who, in reality, had committed suicide in Germany in 1945, a fact only discovered in 1973 – was supposed to be at large somewhere in the world, carrying on the Führer's nefarious plans and dreaming of creating a Fourth Reich. Terry's Sunday Times article suggested, with no credible evidence whatsoever, that Odessa had managed not only to extract Bormann from Germany, but that it was an all-powerful organisation with anti-Israeli intentions, intent on destroying the newly formed state. Terry's article may have been largely fantastical, parlaying small nuggets of truth into a largely imagined story. But it drew Forsyth's attention and led to his using it as the basis for his second novel, which came swiftly after the enormous success of The Day of the Jackal. It is testament to how quickly publishing moved (and Forsyth wrote) in the early Seventies that the book first appeared in October 1972; a mere 16 months after Jackal's initial appearance in Britain. He had written Jackal in 35 days, and although Odessa was not produced in quite such a rush, demand for a new book meant that it was fast-tracked by the eager publishers. Forsyth's journalistic instincts and ability to tell a ripping yarn are on full display throughout the novel, from the incorporation of real-life characters (including Wiesenthal, who acted as an informal adviser and is therefore portrayed as a flattering mixture of Sherlock Holmes and Oskar Schindler) to the carefully worked-out German setting. It begins in 1963, shortly after JFK's assassination, which gives it the slightest air of distance from the events depicted but nonetheless keeps it supposedly realistic. And there are brilliantly observed suspenseful moments that have the same air of verisimilitude as many of the events in Jackal. Miller escapes assassination by car bomb, for instance, because the hitman's explosives are defeated by his Jaguar XK150's particularly tight suspension. Nazis have always made for effective villains, and the antagonists in The Odessa File are no exception. The principal baddie Eduard Roschmann, the 'Butcher of Riga' – so called because he was the commandant of the notorious Riga Ghetto during 1943 – is shown in an appropriately nefarious light. At the time that the book was written, Roschmann was in hiding in Argentina, having become a naturalised citizen under the pseudonym 'Frederico Wagner' – the surname perhaps a nod to Hitler's favourite composer – and Forsyth's portrayal of him was heavily laden with dramatic licence. Although his current hiding place was not then known, Eichmann's high-profile apprehension the decade before had suggested that Nazis were drawn to the anonymity of South America: accurately, in this case. Many of the fictitious Roschmann's traits and actions are, of course, pure invention – for instance, he is said to answer to SS general Richard Glücks, who died in 1945, and his passport is supposedly procured by Odessa, who were not capable of such intricate acts of forgery. But it was still an act of relative daring to use a real-life, and presumably very much alive, mass murderer as the antagonist, although a man who was on the run for crimes against humanity was hardly likely to pop up and sue for libel. Although the novel has been described as inaccurate, others have lauded it for sticking relatively close to known facts. 'We cannot blame Forsyth for being inaccurate,' the historian Matteo San Filippo said. 'He was writing a thriller, not an historical essay. The incidents were based on fact and the overall impression was not inaccurate.' Certainly, it was marketed as fiction, albeit of the sophisticated variety. The first edition blurb read, 'Many characters in The Odessa File are real people. Others may puzzle the reader as to whether they are true or fictional, and the publishers do not wish to elucidate further because it is in this ability to perplex the reader that much of the grip of the story lies.' It soon proved a big hit when it was published in October, and, like its predecessor, sold in its millions. It has remained consistently in print ever since it was published, and, after Jackal and perhaps the Fourth Protocol, remains Forsyth's best-known novel. However, it received mixed reviews, with some finding it a let-down after Jackal and others praising it as a fresh masterpiece by the thrilling new talent. The Guardian announced that 'in Forsyth's hands the 'documentary thriller' had assumed its most sophisticated form'. But the New York Times, in a scathing review entitled 'Live bombs and dud people', took issue with the publisher's hints that the novel was based on never-before-revealed sources. Its critic Richard P Brickner stated that the 'book's absorbing facts, made livelier for a while by their moral urgency, will probably sour in your mouth as the moral urgency becomes discoloured'; it went on to criticise the protagonist Miller as colourless, the novel as more concerned with sensation than accuracy and, most damningly, wrote that Forsyth had created a 'vulgar stew of hideous documented fact and flimsy melodrama'. Brickner concluded, 'The Odessa File leaves one feeling that Forsyth has borrowed painful, live history in order to spring a few quick thrills.' This may have been unfair, but the book's huge commercial success led to the film rights being purchased swiftly and an adaptation going into production almost immediately after it was published. It was directed by veteran British filmmaker Ronald Neame, who had had a significant success with 1972's The Poseidon Adventure, and starred Jon Voight, recently Oscar-nominated for his breakthrough role in Midnight Cowboy. It did not enjoy either the same critical or commercial success as the 1973 adaptation of The Day of the Jackal, though – the New York Times continued its vendetta by remarking that it was largely devoid of suspense, and that 'these Nazis don't have as much fun as those in The Night Porter'. But it did have one unexpected and welcome legacy. Roschmann was played in the film by the Oscar-winning Swiss actor Maximilian Schell, one of the country's biggest post-war stars. Flattering casting, perhaps; certainly enough to make a vain man want to see it. Forsyth told the Daily Telegraph in 2011 that the picture indirectly led to the real-life Roschmann's exposure. 'They made [the novel] into a film, which was screened in a little fleapit cinema south of Buenos Aires, where a man stood up and said, 'I know that man, he lives down the street from me,' and denounced him. [The suspect] decided to make a run for it to Paraguay and died of a heart attack on the river crossing. They buried him in an unmarked gravel pit. I hope they tossed a copy of the book on top of him.' As often with Forsyth, there is a slight element of letting a good story overwhelm the facts – Roschmann died in Paraguay on August 8 1977, several years after the picture opened, rather than in the midst of a dramatic flight. But nonetheless, the renewed attention directed towards him made him a marked man and ensured that he died a hunted fugitive rather than a complacent Argentine citizen. The Odessa File remains one of Forsyth's most-loved novels, and continues to captivate readers long after its publication. It was announced late last year that he had written a belated sequel, co-written with the novelist Tony Kent, entitled Revenge of Odessa. While no claims are being made for its torn-from-the-headlines qualities this time round, the publisher's blurb makes the book sound like a suitably gripping yarn. Set in both Germany and the United States, the novel revolves around Miller's grandson Georg (a 'journalist and podcaster', we learn) investigating a series of apparently unconnected atrocities that make him the target for hitmen. This is, naturally, because he discovers that 'his would-be assassins are from an organisation known as the Odessa, a menacing and powerful Nazi group intent on regaining power.' As the cover screams, 'The Nazis were never defeated. They were just biding their time.' The book is published this October (assuming Forsyth managed to finish it) and, with luck, will prove both a fitting sequel and an appropriate swansong for its legendary author. Yet even if it is a disappointment, it should still retain its own fascination. Forsyth commented when the book was announced that 'While The Odessa File was a product of my imagination over 50 years ago, the political realities it describes are still very much with us.' The Nazis themselves may have largely vanished, but with Putin all-powerful in Russia, North Korea's nuclear capabilities and the still-uncertain agenda of China, the concept of a totalitarian state is still more than timely. After all, the Nazi antagonists of the Odessa movement may never have existed as such, but Forsyth knew villainy where he saw it. Come October, the great storyteller's final book should demonstrate his legendary talents, one last time.
The Star
13-06-2025
- The Star
Late bestselling spy novelist Frederick Forsyth was a master of the thriller
A pilot who turned to writing to clear his debts, British author Frederick Forsyth, who died on Monday (June 9) aged 86, penned some 20 spy novels, often drawing on real-life experiences and selling 70 million copies worldwide. In such bestsellers as The Day Of The Jackal and The Odessa File, Forsyth honed a distinctive style of deeply researched and precise espionage thrillers involving power games between mercenaries, spies and scoundrels. For inspiration he drew on his own globe-trotting life, including an early stint as a foreign correspondent and assisting Britain's spy service on missions in Nigeria, South Africa, and the former East Germany and Rhodesia. "The research was the big parallel: as a foreign correspondent you are probing, asking questions, trying to find out what's going on, and probably being lied to," he told The Bookseller magazine in 2015. "Working on a novel is much the same... essentially it's a very extended report about something that never happened – but might have." Forsyth served as a Royal Air Force pilot before becoming a foreign correspondent and a novelist. – AFP Dangerous research He wrote his first novel when he was 31, on a break from reporting and in dire need of money to fund his wanderlust. Having returned "from an African war, and stony broke as usual, with no job and no chance of one, I hit on the idea of writing a novel to clear my debts," he said in his autobiography The Outsider: My Life In Intrigue published in 2015. "There are several ways of making quick money, but in the general list, writing a novel rates well below robbing a bank." But Forsyth's foray came good. Taking just 35 days to pen The Day Of The Jackal, his story of a fictional assassination attempt on French president Charles de Gaulle by right-wing extremists, met immediate success when it appeared in 1971. The novel was later turned into a film and provided self-styled revolutionary Carlos the Jackal with his nickname. Forsyth went on to write a string of bestsellers including The Odessa File (1972) and The Dogs Of War (1974). His eighteenth novel, The Fox, was published in 2018. Forsyth's now classic post-Cold War thrillers drew on drone warfare, rendition and terrorism – and eventually prompted his wife to call for an end to his dangerous research trips. "You're far too old, these places are bloody dangerous and you don't run as avidly, as nimbly as you used to," Sandy Molloy said after his last trip to Somalia in 2013 researching The Kill List, as Forsyth recounted to AFP in 2016. Real-life spy There were also revelations in his autobiography about his links with British intelligence. Forsyth recounted that he was approached in 1968 by "Ronnie" from MI6 who wanted "an asset deep inside the Biafran enclave" in Nigeria, where there was a civil war between 1967 and 1970. While he was there, Forsyth reported on the situation and at the same time kept "Ronnie informed of things that could not, for various reasons, emerge in the media". Then in 1973 Forsyth was asked to conduct a mission for MI6 in communist East Germany. He drove his Triumph convertible to Dresden to receive a package from a Russian colonel in the toilets of the Albertinum museum. The writer claimed he was never paid by MI6 but in return received help with book research, submitting draft pages to ensure he was not divulging sensitive information. Flying dreams In later years Forsyth turned his attention to British politics, penning a regular column in the anti-EU Daily Express newspaper. He also wrote articles on counter-terrorism issues, military affairs and foreign policy. Despite his successful writing career, he admitted in his memoirs it was not his first choice. "As a boy, I was obsessed by aeroplanes and just wanted to be a pilot," he wrote of growing up an only child in Ashford, southern England, where he was born on Aug 25, 1938. He trained as a Royal Air Force pilot, before joining Reuters news agency in 1961 and later working for the BBC. But after he wrote Jackal, another career path opened up. "My publisher told me, to my complete surprise, that it seemed I could tell a good story. And that is what I have done for the past forty-five years," he recalled in his autobiography. – AFP
Scroll.in
11-06-2025
- Scroll.in
Reading Frederick Forsyth, whose thrillers that we grew up with predicted the future uncannily
It was 1977, it was still Calcutta when one evening my father came from a trip to Delhi with a book in his briefcase. A book which had a man wearing a strange hat (which I later came to know to be a kepi) with the crosshairs drawn around his head. The Day of the Jackal kept me up till 1 in the morning, the final three chapters read in the bathroom so that the lights would not disturb my sisters, and I spent the next few days in a daze, still marvelling at the details. That copy of The Day of the Jackal circulated through at least five households in the multistoreyed complex in which I stayed, and my father soon gave in to my entreaties and picked up The Odessa File as well. And so Frederick Forsyth became the completely convincing conduit to a thrilling world of spies and assassins, of Pentagon conferences and SR 71 spy planes, each detail authentic, each action believable. The Forsyth saga It's not easy to understand his appeal in a world where the internet can now tell you exactly what happened with the OAS in France in exhaustive detail, or what the insides of a Blackbird spy plane look like, but in those days Frederick Forsyth was the man who took us to those meetings, flew us in those planes and showed us exactly how that fabled sniper's rifle would be assembled. And if anyone knew those details, it would have to be him. A former RAF fighter pilot who later joined Reuters and then the BBC, Forsyth reported extensively on French affairs and assassination attempts on De Gaulle before moving to Africa, where he covered the war in Biafra. And after the BBC seemingly lost interest in Biafra, Forsyth returned as an independent reporter to continue covering the conflict, and even wrote a non-fiction work, The Biafra Story, which was reasonably well received, even if it did not really change his financial fortunes. Finally, in 1971, the self-admittedly broke former journalist went around publishing houses peddling a manuscript that involved an assassination attempt on Charles De Gaulle, who still happened to be alive at the time. Given that this was one book where everybody knew things would finally turn out, four of them rejected him immediately, before a fifth, Hutchinson, decided that the appeal was in the details, and went ahead and published. The Day of the Jackal was a huge success, sold millions of copies, inspired two film versions and then an OTT version that released in November 2024. The Day of the Jackal was followed by The Odessa File, with intrepid journalist Peter Miller, clearly based on Forsyth himself, chasing a shadowy Nazi organisation in his black E type Jaguar, and trying to cornerEduard Roschmann, a former camp commandant known as the Butcher of Riga. Given that this was less than 30 years after the Second World War, many of the ex-Nazis were active, especially in South America. And Simon Weisenthal, the legendary real life Nazi hunter and a prominent character in the book became a hero for so many of us. The accidental textbook The story behind his third novel was perhaps the strangest. The Dogs of War, released in 1974, was about a coup attempt by mercenaries in the fictional African country of Zangaro, acting on behalf of a western industrialist, the idea being to install a puppet dictator who would farm them the lucrative mining rights. Zangaro was modelled on Equatorial Guinea, and Forsyth actually commissioned research into how such a coup could be mounted, and was told it could be done and would cost around $240,000 at the time. Absolutely believable, and accurate to the minutest details, The Dogs of War was regarded as a textbook for mercenaries in Africa. Bizarrely enough, a coup modelled exactly on the lines described in the book was mounted in 2004, involving former PM Margaret Thatcher's son Mark Thatcher and the mercenary Simon Mann. Forsyth's next full-length novel, The Devil's Alternative, published in 1979 remained eerily prescient, given that the plot involved Ukrainian nationalists, a rogue Russian general, and a grain shortage, all of which came to pass over the next few decades. Forsyth continued to turn out extremely readable thrillers, but after the advent of the likes of Tom Clancy, and then, later, the internet, his meticulous detailing no longer made his books stand apart as they used to in the '70s and '80s. Still, his two collections of short stories were piquant and extremely readable. Growing up, growing old As the new millennium approached, Forsyth's core audience, especially in India, grew up and went to work, or graduated to more sophisticated plots and authors. At their '70s' best, his stories had hair on their chests, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, with few or no female characters and very little character-building. The appeal was in the practical details and the breakneck pace – and in those early days, it was enough to sweep us of our feet. Many of us later made pilgrimages to the locales that the likes of Forsyth, Alistair MacLean and Jack Higgins described in their works, places we'd never thought we would see for ourselves reading their works in India, decades ago. Despite blockbusters like The Day of the Jackal, and The Odessa File, my favourite Forsyth work is a short story that he wrote in 1975, drawing from his days as an RAF pilot flying Vampire fighters. The Shepherd has stayed with me, and is mandatory reading every Christmas. Funny, because for all his avowed realism, The Shepherd demanded a huge leap of faith. Unlike most of the memorable characters he created, Forsyth passed away at home at the age of 86 after a brief illness. Trust him as always not to play by the book.
