Some of the background explained in the novel didn't make it into the screenplay. It helps to understand the scene, to review it.
1. The hit man, Mackensen, is also SS, and served as a sergeant in WWII. After the war, he was employed as a hired killer by the ODESSA. So he wasn't just some shlub.
2. Peter is referred to as being fit in the movie, though in the novel, of course, that is described more explicitly. He's in his late 20s and he completed his national service with the Bundeswehr, which, when not as rigorous, perhaps, as the training the Waffen-SS employed, or even the Wehrmacht, still produced relatively fit men.
3. By 1963, Winzer runs a modestly successful print shop. But he didn't start keeping the file then. During the war, he was physically unfit, but talented at drawing and engraving. To please his father, who was an SS officer and Party member, he was enlisted in the SS and was employed in counterfeiting documents and Allied currency. In the immediate aftermath of the fall of Germany, he was approached by an SS man who needed a fake passport to escape. The ODESSA then employed him. Winzer started the file and kept it, because he was no dummy and knew that if the ODESSA ever decided it didn't need him, he needed an insurance policy.
4. This whole scene is a change from the plot in the novel, although it makes sense for a film. In the novel, Mackensen plants a bomb in Peter's car, which is not a Mercedes but a Jaguar. Forsythe makes a point of describing the car and Peter's modifications to it, because they impact this part of the plot. The bomb's trigger is inserted in a front suspension spring, and it's designed to explode when the car hits a bump. It's nearly sprung when Peter is driving, but it doesn't ignite. Later, at Roschmann's villa, another SS henchman find's Peter's car, starts it and as he starts to drive, he hits a bump, the suspension compresses and the bomb explodes. Mackensen is killed by the Israeli agents, who had been shadowing Peter to find Roschmann.
In terms of the film, I think the scene works, it keeps the pace going. I do think Mackensen ought to have had a better weapon than a revolver, though. That choice seemed out of sync with his character.
The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.
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