Kessler is a television series produced by the BBC in 1981, starring Clifford Rose in the title role. The six-part serial is a sequel to the Second World War drama series Secret Army, set in contemporary times.
Plot
The story begins when a Belgian journalist, Hugo van Eyck (Jerome Willis), broadcasts a documentary about Nazi war criminals, and investigates the whereabouts of the former Chief of Gestapo and SS of Belgium, Standartenführer Kessler (who had been promoted from Sturmbannführer during the final series of preceding drama Secret Army, set during the war, over 30 years before). Van Eyck has a very high media profile in Belgium and soon develops an investigation into Kessler (Clifford Rose) with the help of West German intelligence officer Richard Bauer (Alan Dobie).
Kessler has changed his name to Manfred Dorf and is now a rich industrialist, with factories manufacturing plastics, explosives, and pharmaceutical products. His wartime Belgian mistress Madeleine Duclos (Hazel McBride) is deceased, but after the war the couple married and had a daughter, Ingrid (Alison Glennie). Kessler is part of an organisation called the Kameradenwerk, made up of Nazis on the run, trying to evade trial for their war crimes, led by Kessler's close friend Colonel Hans Ruckert (Ralph Michael), a character based on Luftwaffe ace Colonel Hans Rudel.
It is essential to the drama that the Kameradenwerk are not merely passive, intermittently stalked figures. They loosely resemble an aged Fourth Reich, compelled with the idea of an anticipated ascendancy of the German state and Volk, a foreseen future referred to as 'Der Tag' (literally 'The Day'). Mostly made up of aging, World War II Nazi veterans, the organisation is apparently large, endowed and very dangerous in the drama to those who cross them or who try to make their existence known publicly. The potential of The Kamaradenwerk can seem formidable and frightening.
The Kameradenwerk is active in Germany and Europe, keeping a huge sum of Nazi loot funds, furthered by the financial successes of Kessler. The secret, highly regimented organisation is based in countries throughout Latin America, headed by actual, named war criminals from the Second World War, who in the drama are of higher rank than Standartenführer Kessler. This important element of the plot echoes a reality of postwar Nazis who fled Europe through The Ratlines to the continent. Kessler, or Dorf, whilst he is lower down in the organisation, does however hold joint control with the Kamaradenwerk leader of the vast organisation funds.
Ingrid is sleeping with her father's manservant, Franz Hoss (Nicholas Young), and they are part of a group of young Neo-Nazis who dream of leading Germany back to Nazism.
In Brussels, van Eyck invites three of the prominent Lifeline (a Second World War Escape Line) partners, who were Secret Army series characters, to his television studios: Albert Foiret (Bernard Hepton), Monique Durnford (née Duchamps) (Angela Richards), and Natalie Chantrens (Juliet Hammond-Hill). Some of the serial's first scenes take place outside the Restaurant Candide in the Grand-Place in Brussels. The trio reminisce about their wartime activities running the resistance organisation Lifeline.
Monique and Natalie are certain that Dorf is Kessler, but Albert claims to be less sure, seemingly unconvinced of the purpose in awakening decades-old sleeping dogs.
Van Eyck and Bauer meet a young Israeli woman soldier called Mical Rak (Nitza Saul). Mical's mother's family was sent to Dachau to be killed, on Kessler's orders.
Mical breaks into the grounds of Kessler's home to see him, but is discovered and forced to flee. The Kameradenwerk discover where she is staying and very soon murder her companion Ruth Lieberman (Ishia Bennison). Abruptly, media celebrity Van Eyck becomes their next victim as Mical's visit has threatened Kessler and the Kameradenwerk. They fear she works for either the Israeli state or Nazi hunting groups. It is agreed Kessler should leave, going first to the countryside (where Mical follows equipped with a gun) and then to London for a business conference.
When Mical follows to London she is identified and kidnapped from outside Kessler's London hotel and beaten by Franz, before being thrown into the River Thames. However, she survives and is rescued by the authorities. Mical and Bauer, who is also now in London, team up to target Kessler.