Last season “Babylon Berlin”: A wistful and painful homage to Berlin

When Adolf Hitler shouts Nazi slogans, two nurses quickly drag him out of the room to calm him down. “A political troublemaker,” commented the attending physician at the Pasewalk military hospital in 1918. The episode surrounding Hitler's medical history, which has not yet been clearly clarified, becomes the central plot element in the final fifth season of the German cult series “Babylon Berlin”.

It is set in 1933 during the Nazis' rise to power. The story about Hitler's missing medical files after the First World War - the military psychiatrist who treated him actually committed suicide in 1933 after political pressure - which does not appear in Volker Kutscher's novel "March Fallen" is the subject of the criminal investigation. Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch), Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries) and other more social democratic-minded officers from the “Burg”, as the police headquarters in the series is colloquially called, devote themselves to the case with known meticulousness.

They want to damage the biographical legend of the new Reich Chancellor as much as possible. And he has the SA murder all of the former informants from the hospital.

“Babylon Berlin”, fifth season, from September 10th. in the ARD media library and on September 19th and 25th. with 4 episodes each from 8.15 p.m. on the first.

As visually powerful and exciting as the series is in its final chord, the somewhat contrived storyline surrounding Hitler's medical files is not really convincing. But the audience is nevertheless taken by the hand again and taken through an exciting, historic Berlin that is beautifully staged. A lot was filmed at the RBB in the Broadcasting House, but also at the Volksbühne, whose foyer was converted into a hall for the press ball. It goes to wonderful queer clubs and dark bars with psychedelic pop chanson music. The torch-carrying SA Nazis marching en masse through Berlin and the NSDAP MPs shouting down opponents in uniform in parliament are scary.

The fifth season, set in 1933, cannot avoid staging much more contemporary political history than the previous ones. Previously it was more about the social reality of the workers' neighborhoods, exciting criminal cases and mafia-like structures in the growing capital.

In season five, however, we go to SA prisons, to the anteroom of the Reichstag, but also to the villa of Alfred Nyssen (Lars Eidinger), who, as crazy as ever, is organizing a banquet for the new Reich Chancellor. We don't want to give too much away here, because the series has an amazing final twist. The last eight episodes of “Babylon Berlin” pointedly address the fear of the coming fascism and the faint hope that perhaps we can prevent this development after all. This is disturbingly relevant given the global shift to the right.

In the Berlin of the series, where the Reichstag is set on fire by the SA, some are still trying to get the Social Democrats and Communists to join forces, which never happened. And Gereon Rath fights not to let himself be taken over by the Nazis. The end of the series differs radically from the original novel and results in a wistful and painful homage to the Berlin that no longer exists in 1933.