Nicholas Young

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 the 1970s and following the progress of former SS Sturmbannführer Ludwig Kessler, now living under the alias of industrialist Manfred Dorf, and trying to avoid being discovered as a war criminal. Ranged against him are West German intelligence operative Richard Bauer and young Israeli vigilante Mical Rak. Bauer and Rak’s quest for justice moves from Europe to Paraguay, where other notorious real-life war criminals, Martin Bormann and Josef Mengele are featured.

Another prominently placed character is Kessler’s daughter Ingrid, an advocate of Nazism who schemes for the young Nazis to take over from the old guard and tries to persuade her father to give financial backing to their organisation.

The premise for Kessler has its origins in the unscreened final episode of Secret Army – “What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?” – in which the main characters are reunited in 1969 to participate in a documentary entitled “In Our Time” about their lives during the war. This element was revived in Kessler with former Secret Army cast members Bernard Hepton, Angela Richards and Juliet Hammond-Hill reprising their roles for the first episode, in which as minor characters in this drama they meet again and 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.