Secret organization of former German SS officers that became a major target of Western intelligence agencies. The main function of Odessa, founded after World War II, was the arranging of escapes of SS officers wanted for war crimes. The name Odessa is a German acronym from Organization der Entlassene SS Angehürige (Organization for the Release of Former SS Members). The Odessa had agents throughout Germany who, through an underground known as Die Spinne (the spider) arranged for ex-SS officers to escape or elude Allied hunters.
U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials believe that Odessa engineered the escape to South America of Adolf Eichmann, the SS "expert" on Jews; Josef Mengele, the SS physician who performed heinous experiments on inmates of Auschwitz; and other, lesser-known SS officers. Existence of the organization became known to Allied occupation officers immediately after the war. One of the founders was believed to be Otto Skorzeny, the daring German special operations commander.
SS officers reportedly smuggled huge sums out of Germany to finance the escapes. Fleeing SS men were provided with false identities and passage out of Germany at the end of the war. One major terminal of the Odessa escape route, according to Israeli intelligence, was Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The organization gained popular notoriety after publication of Frederick Forsyth's suspense novel The Odessa File (1972), subsequently made into a 1974 movie starring Jon Voight, Maria Schell, and Maximilian Schell.
