Secret Army

- Season 3

(1979)

An instant mutual antipathy develops between Kessler and Brandt's replacement, Major Hans Dietrich Reinhardt. Albert and Monique are fearful when Reinhardt visits the Candide with a captured airman. Meanwhile Natalie is finding it increasingly difficult to travel through France with the airmen, because of the disruption to rail travel following the D-Day landings. Paul Vercors, the leader and sole surviving member of Max's cell, discovers Albert's involvement in Max's death and swears revenge.

Lifeline realises it cannot get airmen away to Spain and decides it must keep them in hiding until the Allies liberate Brussels. Reinhardt and Kessler continue to clash. The Luftwaffe man's unorthodox methods show some success and he starts to identify the Lifeline safehouses. Two captives take their own lives rather than face torture, and a third remains silent under interrogation. The elderly Chantal sisters occupy another Lifeline safe house in France, and are rescued by Monique just before the Germans arrive.

Albert gets word that the communists have set him up and he is about to be arrested on trumped-up charges. Kessler starts his investigation into Major Reinhardt's involvement in the 1944 Bomb Plot.

With Albert on a murder charge trumped up by the Communist resistance, Monique has to cope with a British air ace who has been down the line and has now been captured by a fake escape-line set up by Reinhardt.

With Albert still imprisoned, Monique and Pascal have to cope with airmen carrying the bubonic plague from North Africa.

While Kessler is on leave in Berlin, Alain is detained by the Gestapo. Newly returned Major Bradley brokers a deal for his escape with Germans made desperate by the Allied advance.

Bradley recruits an escaping airman to help a resistance ambush. Meanwhile, Reinhardt pursues Brandt's interest in the Café Candide.

A permanent V2 site is discovered on the Belgian-Dutch border, and Bradley plans a raid with the resistance and the army of concealed airmen. Bradley introduces himself to Kessler (posing as a German colleague) and dines with him at the Candide to gain valuable information. Meanwhile, Reinhardt is making progress towards cracking Lifeline, and Natalie is suspected. Albert's lawyer Maitre Guissard contacts Reinhardt for information about the circumstances of the death of Albert's wife Andree. The Germans are preparing to evacuate and the atmosphere is becoming openly ...

The Allied advance reaches Belgium, and the Germans are planning to leave Brussels. Bradley establishes contact with other members of the local resistance. Brussels residents are becoming openly hostile to both the Germans and those Belgians assumed to have collaborated. Madeleine has been attacked, but she only has Kessler to turn to. Reinhardt is now almost certain that Lifeline is based at the Candide and he tries to trap Natalie, now becoming romantically involved with Bradley, using a plant in the resistance. Natalie realises the danger at the last minute, and ...

Albert finally gets released from prison and returns to find 'Collaborator' graffiti on the restaurant. Locals are making open threats to the Candide staff, assuming they have collaborated and profited during the occupation. Alain has offered his farm as a refuge, but Albert will not leave his valuable business, leading to tension with Monique who is having second thoughts about their marriage plans. Natalie and Alain travel through the front line to contact British intelligence, and try to return with them to Brussels as protection for their colleagues. However, on ...

Vercors holds his three prisoners at an unknown location, and intends to execute Albert to avenge Max. Natalie manages to get help from the newly arrived Allies, and saves him just in time. But he is seriously affected by his ordeal. No one knows where Monique has been taken. Kessler is with Madeleine, who has hurt her ankle, trying to escape from Belgium through the countryside. Kessler swaps his identity with a dead German military officer, to disguise his position in the Gestapo, and obliterates the face of the dead German. He is subsequently captured by the ...

Monique is about to face punishment for unfounded claims of collaboration, when Captain Stephen Durnford arrives on the scene. She goes to stay with Natalie at her flat, where Durnford pays her a further visit. Van Broecken is in the vicinity of Arnhem when he finds two German deserters aboard his barge. Natalie chides Albert for not visiting Monique. He believes that Monique will come back to him and the Candide in time. In the POW camp, Kessler has been identified by his fellow German captives but they agree to conceal his true identity from the Allies.

Reinhardt is moved to a Canadian POW camp, and finds Kessler pretending to be a captured army officer. Reinhardt admits that he had given himself up to Albert in Brussels. Kessler betrays Reinhardt and presses for a court-martial. Although the senior German officer Oberst von Schalk knows Kessler's true identity and has contempt for Gestapo officers, he is concerned to preserve the reputation of the Wehrmacht. Although Hitler is now dead, Kessler insists on the court-martial being concluded. Reinhardt is shot by guns borrowed from the Canadians. Meanwhile, the final ...

In 1969, Albert, Monique, Natalie and Alain contribute to a British television documentary "In Our Time" to mark the 25th anniversary of Brussels' liberation from the Nazis. Manfred Dorf, a German industrialist, is challenged by investigative journalists who (correctly) believe that he is Kessler. The ex-Lifeline members meet at the Candide, still owned by Albert, and reminisce about their common past.