[1][2] Yakov Liebermann is a Nazi hunter (loosely based on Simon Wiesenthal) who runs a center in Vienna that documents crimes against humanity, perpetrated during the Holocaust.

According to the young man, Mengele is activating the ODESSA for a strange assignment: sending out six Nazis (all former SS officers) to kill 94 men living in Western Europe and North America, who share a few common traits.

Mengele wishes to create a new Führer for a revitalized Nazi movement, and is thus trying to ensure that the lives of the clones follow a similar path to Hitler's.

However, the book ends with one such cloned boy, an amateur artist, drawing a scene of someone moving large numbers of people much as Hitler had.

What scares today is Levin's premise based on biological engineering: in the 1970s, although scientifically possible, Mengele's plan belonged firmly in the realm of fiction; now it's not nearly so far-fetched.

[4] In 1978, the book was adapted into a movie directed by Franklin J. Scaffner, written by Levin and Heywood Gould, with Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier and James Mason starring.