"The rise of the Nazis, and the devastation of WWII and the Holocaust, have been widely depicted in film and TV. Rarely seen is the period just before, when democracy – in the form of the idealistic, if flawed, Weimar Republic – was still fresh in Germany and the country was in the midst of a cultural, political and social revolution."
– Tom Twyker, a director of Babylon Berlin.
Babylon Berlin (on Netflix) is an exhilarating, gritty sixteen-part series that is a mash-up of genres. On the most basic level, it is a propulsive police procedural and political thriller that has been adapted from the crime novel of the same name by Volker Kutscher (Picador, translated in 2016), the first in a series planned by the author culminating with the 1938 Kristallnacht. More importantly, the drama – reportedly the most expensive German television production involving three directors in every episode – is a vivid evocation of 1929 Berlin accented with film noir a few months before the crash of the American stock market. Ten years after the end of the Great War veterans still carry its scars; the war's consequences accelerate extremist politics from the left and the right threatening the rule of law and destabilizing the fragility of the Weimar Republic; pockets of poverty in the city remain with its attendant political and social ramifications, particularly for vulnerable women; and the attempt to blot out a humiliating defeat and for most Germans a shameful peace treaty explain in part its frenetic cultural, social and sexual life. Very little of the political, social and cultural tapestry of Berlin portrayed in the series is based on the novel. The series other strength is its focus on character development that enables the actors to grow into their roles and deliver strong performances.
