ODESSA

ODESSA is described as an underground organization of former SS members, and its significance in the investigation lies in the case of Hans-Dieter Kassel, a former SS Major identified as one of its contract-killers. The account presents ODESSA not through its leadership or internal structure, but through the record of a suspected assassin whose history makes him a possible lead in an international search.

Identity and Connection to Kassel

The novel characterizes ODESSA as an ex-SS underground organization. Kassel had lived in West Germany under an assumed name after the war and was described as a contract-killer for the group. The account does not specify who directed him, how the organization operated, or whether it ordered particular killings; its connection to the crimes attributed to Kassel is therefore presented through his employment by ODESSA, not through a detailed account of the organization’s role in them.

Kassel’s Record

Kassel was wanted by two countries for war crimes. He was suspected of involvement in the killings of two left-wing Socialists who had urged a government-sponsored intensification of investigations into war crimes. After he was unmasked, a tip-off enabled him to escape to Spain, and a senior police official lost his job over the leak. By the time the police considered him as a possible assassin, he was believed to be living in retirement in Madrid.

Place in the Manhunt

During the inquiry into a possible political assassin, the German police offered Kassel as one candidate from their files. His history as an ODESSA contract-killer made him relevant to the search, but his reported age—fifty-seven—led Claude Lebel to judge him too old for the job. The episode gives ODESSA a precise, limited function in the investigation: it connects a postwar underground network to a documented history of political violence, while leaving Kassel’s candidacy unresolved and offering no evidence that he was the assassin being sought.