Nazism and its internal conflicts, in the new ‘Babylon Berlin’, the great milestone of European series

In fictions like Babylon Berlin the story is the best cliffhanger. The third season of this police series, set in the tensions experienced during the Weimar Republic and based on the best-selling novels by Volker Kutscher, it ended with a corrupt policeman working for the rise of the Third Reich and the outburst unleashed by the crack financial of 29. The plots were on top, waiting for a new batch of chapters that arrives this October 19 at Movistar Plus +, with the German series converted into the great television bet of the European industry.

In this fourth installment, the happy twenties give way to the dark thirties. The story jumps to December 31, 1930 and focuses on the long-awaited enemy at the gates: Nazism. As a viewer, one wonders if anyone can at this point address the story of Adolf Hitler from a novel perspective. It is the same question that the three creators of the series, Tom Tykwer, Achim von Borries and Henk Hadloegten, says the last of them. “That is one of the reasons why Nazism has not been a protagonist in the previous seasons. We wanted to find a somewhat more original approach to a subject that could not be ignored in any way, ”he confesses at the beginning of October from Berlin, via Zoom. “We realized that that blind spot was the internal power struggles between the Nazis before Hitler became Chancellor of Germany,” Hadloegten continues.

In these new chapters, a real character appears, Walther Stennes, leader of the Nazi paramilitary group SA (known as the Brownshirts) who in the early 1930s led a revolt against the leaders of his own party, Hitler and Goebbels. Meanwhile, the script recalls how a macroeconomic downturn ended up consolidating the rise of the extreme right, in a game of mirrors that can refer to the imminent recession of 2023 and the international rise of the extreme right. Parallels with today are inevitable — “they weren’t so when we started the series almost 10 years ago; Europe has changed a lot since then,” Tykwer points out, “including the successful sense of uncertainty that the series conveys. Despite the fact that its ending is known to all viewers, its characters dance and celebrate as if there were no tomorrow or, at least, as if they sensed how gloomy that tomorrow is going to be. They do it in the first episode of this season to the rhythm of the famous crooner local Max Raabe and the song Ein Tag wie Gold (A day is worth gold).

From Germany to the world

The overproduction of BaylonBerlin began shooting in 2016 as a joint collaboration between the German subsidiary of the Sky platform and the country’s public broadcaster, ARD. It had a 40 million budget and almost 200 days of filming for its first batch of episodes. These are unprecedented figures on the continent. Thus, it managed to reach the screens of more than 90 countries without being part of the catalog of a global platform, although in some of them it can be seen through Netflix.

Throughout these years, its creators have used real events to intertwine the lives of their imagined characters. The rise of Freud’s psychoanalysis after the ravages of the First World War, the coexistence of communism and capitalism in a place where only one can remain, the influence of German expressionism on an incipient art such as sound films and the effervescence of Berlin at night between the wars are an essential part of the story. Some of the images of him could well have been born in a painting of Otto Dix or Kirchner, or in a Fritz Lang film.

In the center of all this tumult, affected by global joys and tragedies, is the leading couple. Inspector Gereon Rath (played by Volker Bruch) is one of many former soldiers traumatized by the war and a passionate defender of democracy. Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries), who does not appear in the original novels and was created for the series’ script, is a determined young woman who makes her way in the police force. During the day, she heads a family that lives in misery and, at sunset, she shines as a seductress. flappers in the vibrant clubs of the city. The slow and progressive love story between the two, which has so far avoided soap opera comings and goings, will encounter serious obstacles this time.

Tykwer, an international cult filmmaker thanks to titles such as Run, Lola, run (1998) Y The cloud atlas (2012), highlights that one of the most complicated issues for the trio of creators since the first chapter has been profiling Gereon. Until now, they have shown a vulnerable hero almost always removed from toxic masculinity, although full of contradictions. “No matter how much the viewer sympathizes with him, he will always maintain a trace of mystery around his personality. No one knows where he is going to direct his steps. In these new chapters, we wanted to confront Charlotte and the audience with the least desired version of Gereon”, he advances, making sure not to spoil the plot. Achim von Borries insists on the difficulty of building the character: “One of our great struggles from the beginning has been that Gereon’s journey did not end in the first season. The people who put the money for the series complained that they did not know the protagonist. Well, that’s what it’s about, ”he defends in the same telematic conversation.

This ambitious historical drama is shot “as if it were a movie”, say its creators, in the centenary Babelsberg studios. Located on the outskirts of the German capital, they have hosted since early classics such as The cabinet of doctor Caligari (1920), the blue angel (1930) and metropolis (1927) to recent blockbusters such as Captain America: Civil War (2016) to The Matrix Resurrections (2021). Almost an entire city has been built in its facilities to recreate the Berlin that those responsible for this series need. And that they only use it “in the fourth part of the sequences”, they point out.

The dimensions of the project have always been so mammoth that it was decided from the beginning that three consolidated filmmakers would join forces to carry it out. All of them participate as writers, directors and producers. “As you can imagine, there is a lot of ego in the environment that does not dissipate. And that comes to light in the parts of the shoot in which the other two are not. Fortunately, we are uneven and when we have different opinions we always choose the option that wins 2 to 1. In the end, the union of the three is more powerful than our individual talents”, admits the trio.

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