General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Kleo

Kleo is a German action-thriller streaming series created by the writing team HaRiBo (Hanno Hackfort, Richard Kropf, and Bob Konrad) for Netflix, in which Jella Haase plays Kleo Straub, a former East German Stasi assassin who, freed from prison as the Berlin Wall falls in 1989, hunts down the conspiracy that betrayed her.¹ The first season premiered on August 19, 2022, and a second season followed on July 25, 2024.²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Format	Season 1: 8 episodes of about 48 minutes, released August 19, 2022; Season 2: 6 episodes of 45 minutes, released July 25, 2024²^•³
Creators	HaRiBo: Hanno Hackfort, Richard Kropf, and Bob Konrad; production by Zeitsprung Pictures for Netflix¹
Setting	1987 to the period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification, in East and West Berlin¹^•⁵
Lead cast	Jella Haase as Kleo Straub; Dimitrij Schaad as West Berlin police officer Sven Petzold; Julius Feldmeier as Thilo¹^•⁵
Awards	German Grimme Award; German Television Award for Best Drama Series and for Jella Haase as Best Actress⁴
Reception	Rotten Tomatoes: 96% average Tomatometer across 19 reviews; Season 1 at 92%, Season 2 at 100%⁶
Funding	Supported by the German Motion Picture Fund (Berlin)²

Spoilers

Premise

The story begins in 1987, when Kleo Straub, a top East German spy, kills a businessman in West Berlin during a mission with a secret Stasi commando unit. Shortly afterward she is arrested by the Stasi on bogus claims, denounced and vilified by everyone she knows, including her own grandfather. When the Berlin Wall falls in 1989, after two years in prison she is suddenly free. Betrayed by those she trusted, she sets out with an arsenal of alternate identities to find the origins of the conspiracy against her, and an ominous red suitcase becomes the missing puzzle piece.¹

The series mixes action, thriller, and comedy, and is set in the vibrant Berlin of the early 1990s.¹ A New York Times review, syndicated in The Denver Post, describes it as an offbeat, darkly comic Cold War spy thriller in which Kleo, a lethal assassin with guileless pride in her abilities, is paired with Sven Petzold, a West German cop obsessed with her; their on-and-off cat-and-mouse relationship is the show's emotional center.⁵

Production

Season 1 was shot from August 18 to November 5, 2021, in Berlin, Potsdam, Eisenhüttenstadt, and Mallorca, with Zeitsprung Pictures of Cologne producing for Netflix Deutschland and funding from the German Motion Picture Fund.² Viviane Andereggen directed episodes 1–3 and 8, and Jano Ben Chaabane directed episodes 4–7, with Michael Souvignier and Till Derenbach as executive producers.¹

After the first season's success, Netflix confirmed a second season on September 28, 2022.⁷ Season 2 entered production with Isabel Braak and Nina Vukovic directing, filmed in Berlin and Brandenburg from July and then on location in Belgrade in the fall.⁴ Its story continues the hunt for the red suitcase, whose contents play a key role in the reorganization of Germany and Europe after the Cold War, drawing the attention of the CIA and the KGB as well; the season takes Kleo to Belgrade and Moscow.³^•⁸^•⁴

Reception and recognition

Awards. The series received the German Grimme Award and the German Television Award for Best Drama Series, with a further German Television Award for Jella Haase as Best Actress.⁴ The Grimme jury praised Haase for carrying the shift between childlike innocence and furious killer so effortlessly that viewers repeatedly doubt whether they should root for her at all, and noted that the authors describe their own work as "the film adaptation of a comic that never existed." The jury also recorded that the series placed among the most-watched non-English-language Netflix series worldwide.⁹

Critical response. On Rotten Tomatoes the series holds a 96% average Tomatometer from 19 reviews and a 69% average Popcornmeter from more than 250 ratings; Season 1 stands at 92% and Season 2 at 100%.⁶ The Season 1 critics consensus calls it a propulsive German spy revenge thriller fueled by Jella Haase's performance.¹⁰ Reviewers frequently compared it to Killing Eve, which ended in April 2022 four months before Kleo premiered; the comparison was invited by the parallel structure of a lethal female assassin and an obsessed operative from the other side.⁵ Netflix's own announcement quoted press reactions including "Must-see series" (Glamour), "Sharp, fast, quirky and dirty" (Welt am Sonntag), and "One of the best German series in recent years" (NDR N-Joy), and noted that the novelist Stephen King wrote on Twitter, "What a breath of fresh air!"⁷

Historical setting and tone

The series is set in the interval between the collapse of the Soviet bloc and German reunification, and draws comedy and drama from the ambiguities of that period.¹¹ It is a work of fiction rather than a historical record: an academic article on the character notes that the series itself questions the credibility of the "true story" that, as the prologue states, did not really happen.¹² A scholarly survey of German television places Kleo among productions with historical references to the former GDR that treat the surveillance state, reunification, and the Wende (Germany's 1989–90 transition from East German socialism to reunification) period in fictional form.¹² The Grimme jury likewise emphasized that the series offers a colorful adventure full of exaggeration rather than weighty history lessons.⁹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Crime and thriller series › Spy and political thrillers

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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