During the Cold War years, the only thing keeping us safe from nuclear war was the fear of nuclear war.

Our enemies were not irrational religious fanatics, they were sombre men in suits, with wives, children, cars and careers and we could be reasonably sure that they didn’t want to die in a fiery holocaust and lose it all – just as we didn’t. Men in suits faced other men in suits across the Iron Curtain and their rational response to the thought of a nuclear war - insofar as they were able to think about the unthinkable – prevented nuclear war. Mutually Assured Destruction, as ugly, sick and risky as it was, helped keep us alive and unscathed.

So if the entire history of The Cold War – indeed, of the latter half of the twentieth century – was shaped by men reacting rationally to the threat of nuclear war how can we explain the actions of Herr Schwepenstette from Deutschland 83 (C4)?

The series reached its finale tonight in a feature-length episode and Schweppenstette irked me throughout as I could not begin to understand his motivations. This little Stasi man actively wanted nuclear war, but why? Had he gone insane? The intricate systems for launching nuclear weapons are designed so that a lone madman cannot trigger their use, so the concept of someone losing their mind in a nuclear situation is feasible and accepted, but madness was not communicated in any way. Apart from him breaking out into a little, stilted dance at one point on hearing Western rock music, he gave no sign of cracking up, remaining the plain, sinister Stasi agent throughout. So we can discount madness, and yet he tampered with documents, tried to silence dissenters, and did everything possible to make the Russians believe a nuclear strike from NATO was imminent. Why? Did he think Moscow would give him a gold star and a hearty handshake after the radiation had dwindled and the gloom of the nuclear winter had faded? After European civilisation was no more did he think he might be upgraded from a Trabant to a Volvo?

In tonight’s conclusion young Martin finally realised that Able Archer was merely a military exercise rather than a plan for a nuclear attack, and when he tried to alert his handlers in the East they were dismissive, although Lenora gradually came to believe him, but not Schweppenstette who tried to silence him, seemingly desperate to prompt Armageddon.

This crazy intransigence forced Martin to blow his cover and warn General Edel that the East were preparing for war, but the response from Edel was scarcely more credible than Schweppenstette's: “You’re the mole?” was all he could say, instead of “Bloody hell, we’re on the brink of nuclear war, you say? The world could end tomorrow? Well, we’d best sort this out!” No, he just murmured about moles, allowing Martin to escape. Yes, it’s apparently easy to escape from a NATO headquarters when you’ve just admitted to being a Commie spy. You can just stroll right on outta there and then smuggle yourself across the border at a time of high alert with the wacky technique, which surely no-one has ever employed, of hiding in a car boot….

So, although the series has been excellent, the finale was rather limp and a lot of tension was sapped by portraying Martin as a definite “good guy” in the final episode. Until now, we’d been torn about rooting for him as he was, after all, from the big bad East Germany, and was involved in the killing of poor Linda, but in the finale all ambivalence fell away and he became a lily-white hero.

The story itself also puttered to a rather subdued ending, with Martin and his mutti hugging in the garden, though we can hardly blame the show for that: we all know the horror of nuclear war was avoided but the hug in the garden left so many niggling unanswered questions: who shot themselves in Edel’s house? Will Martin be captured by the Stasi even though he did what was asked of him? Does his father feel nothing for him? What of Annett and the Stasi agent who kidnapped Yvonne and were left tied up in the house? That seemed like a carefully staged story which came to nothing. And so Lenora just ran off to Mozambique with a new boyfriend? Everything just ended abruptly and with so many loose ends – if this was a British drama I’d think they were angling for a second series.