All four seasons of Babylon Berlin are purposefully disquieting as each scene is awash in darkly lit, dense hues symbolic of the Weimar Republic’s decline and fall. The emotional realities of the damaged characters – some of whom appear only to disappear, others who die only to come back from the dead to wreak havoc, exact vengeance or finish unfinished business  –  are giddily disorienting and deeply disturbing.

The potency of Babylon Berlin resonates within each frame as the widening economic disparities between the haves and have-nots grow exponentially. Each season of Babylon Berlin highlights a different yet profitable area of the economic sector with Season 4 turning its focus on organized crime. Organized crime in Germany not only had its hands in the lucrative entertainment industry, but also controlled the gambling and sports betting syndicates, including horse racing and boxing, as well as drug trafficking and prostitution – the most popular and people-friendly revenue streams of racketeering.

Season 4 ushers in a new year – 1931 – as the revelers dance to the musical beat of Le Pustra (real-life actor/singer, performance artist in drag wearing white face to resemble a porcelain doll) who portrays Edwina Morrell, the host and performer at ”Kabarett der Namenlosen” (Cabaret of the Nameless). This is a tribute to Erich Lowinsky aka Elow [1893-1978]; a journalist who developed the original Kabarett der Namenlosen starring Jewish stage luminaries and cabaret performers. The modern day internationally popular German Palast Orchester founder and band leader, Max Raabe (born 1962), who is known as a jazz style singer reminiscent of the Comedian Harmonists, performs “Ein Tag wie Gold” as a popular ‘schlager’ in the swing and cabaret style of 1920s and 1930s Berlin.

Across town at the Nyssen estate, Alfred (Lars Eidinger) and Helga (Hannah Herzsprung) host an elegant New Year’s Eve party that allows Alfred to show off his gift – the ‘blue Rothschild’ diamond – to his future wife as well as to show off German engineering in the form of a new Nyssen Industries’ rocket that will bomb London, Paris, even New York. Jakob Gruen (Moisej Bazijan), jeweler to the wealthy, recognizes the stone and calls his nephew, the owner, Abraham Goldstein aka Aby Gold (Mark Ivanir), who immediately flies to Berlin from New York on the Graf Zeppelin. See below for more about the Graf Zeppelin* 

Various gangland crime czars fight for more territory and greater control prompted by the murder of civil servant Friedrich Oelschlaenger. Gory and bloody headlines frighten the anxious populace. By accepting a unique proposition to make Berlin safe from gangland warfare, Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch) counters with his own Faustian bargain. Meanwhile, the storm troopers allied with Seegers (Ernst Stoetzner) and Wendt (Benno Fürmann) get a surprise visit from ultra-right wing extremist, Oberführer Stennes (Hanno Koffler) and his SA men carrying truncheons. (The former were supported by Hitler.)

Germany’s heavy political and land losses after World War I gave rise to disaffected military and paramilitary splinter groups. The 1923 Beer Hall Putsch in Munich was a failed coup d’etat and separatist movement by Hitler and Ludendorff on November 8-9 which exacerbated Germany’s hyperinflation and Allied occupation of the Ruhr with many assassinations. Pre-eminent among the many domestic terrorist and revolutionary political groups was the “Organisation Consul” (OC)** – the ultra-nationalist, anti-communist, anti-Semitic organization founded in 1920 which became famous for killing those who committed treason or for betraying the group’s secrets. See below for more about the OC.**

While extremist groups were on the rise, Germany’s legal system was also under attack. Judges become vigilantes rather than defenders of the law as exemplified in Babylon Berlin by lawyer Hans Litten’s (Trystan Puetter) frustrated and restricted attempts on behalf of his Jewish clients: journalist Samuel Katelbach (Karl Markovics) and editor/publisher, Gustav Heymann (Martin Wuttke) proving that the sanctity of a free press is muzzled. Judge Ferdinand Voss (Joachim Meyerhoff) is by far the most dangerous offender who proudly displays his treachery as leader of the White Hand. He and his vigilantes secretly execute criminals, who already served time, along with the poor in extrajudicial hearings. In his courtroom, juvenile offenders receive the harshest sentences, often dying. The Feme murders (Fememorde) were judged in closed courts comprising aristocrats and later, landed gentry and wealthy merchants, who sat in judgment of the accused. Feme murders were carried out in the Weimar Republic from 1919-23 as a distinct category of politically motivated assassinations.) In the series, Rudi Malzig (Johann Juergens), Charlotte’s friend in the coroner’s office, makes Charlotte aware of changes in the autopsy reports of minors. Charlotte decides to research the information provided by her sister, Toni – an eye-witness.

Moritz (Ivo Pietzcker) and Toni (Irene Boehm) continue their fatal attraction to trouble as he defends her from his Hitler Youth pals after she and her friends rob the Tietz jewelry department while he and his friends drape the “Judenboykott” banner from the store’s roof. See below for more about the Judenboykott banner and Tietz.*** 

Babylon Berlin dramatizes every aspect of German life during the Weimar Era, proving that history is cyclical as it alternates with spasmodic bursts of greatness and innovation followed by flare ups of mediocrity and insouciance. The ups and downs in public life magnify the highs and lows in private life – all of which are exposed on the stage of the Weimar Republic. Volker Kutscher’s work becomes a visual representation of the febrile emotional tenor of an era whose accomplishments and accolades are many, but whose catastrophic economic forces and political passions lay the foundation for a maelstrom of destruction with impunity.

Notes:

The Graf Zeppelin* 

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin developed and patented the rigid airship (aka dirigible/blimp) in Germany in 1895; an airship was patented in the US in 1899. Lifting the Locarno Treaties allowed the Graf Zeppelin and the larger Hindenburg to be built for transatlantic flights from Germany to the US and to Brazil. Passenger rooms were insulated by forced warm air circulated from the water that cooled the forward engines. Passenger berths had viewing windows to see outside during low-flying altitudes. Passengers kept warm in blankets and furs. The duralumin framework of the gondola used rubberized cotton gasbags at first, then cattle gut. The cruciform tail fins streamlined its shape. Technological progress improved the wartime aircraft until the Golden Age when the Nazis used the Hindenburg for propaganda. Under Goebbels and Goering, Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei became a Lufthansa subsidiary. On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg attempted to land in Lakehurst, NJ after a transatlantic flight while the ship’s tail caught fire and burst completely into flames. Out of 97 people on board, 13 passengers (including Ernst Lehmann, founder of Lufthansa) and 22 crewmembers were killed when static electricity ignited flammable oxygen leaking from the gasbags. Prior to the beginning of WWII, the Luftwaffe used Graf Zeppelin II for reconnaissance of British aircraft and radio locations; photography; interceptions of magnetic and radio frequencies. On May 6, 1940, Goering demolished the Frankfurt hangars.

Organisation Consul” (OC)**

The Viking League (1923-28) was a political/paramilitary group founded by banned members of “OC.”  Some of the victims included Kurt Eisner (1919; German Jewish revolutionary, politician, journalist, theater critic and President of the People’s State of Bavaria); Matthias Erzberger (1921; Reich Minister of Finance); Karl Gareis (1921; Bavarian official); Philipp Scheidemann (1922; philosopher; failed assassination); Walther Rathenau (1922; German Foreign Minister). More than 400 were killed, but few perpetrators were identified and prosecuted despite many investigations. Intensive military training prepared them for the Republic’s overthrow. Nazi Reich Health Minister, Leonardo Conti planned/executed “Action T4” – the murders of mentally and physically disabled adults and children. (Among his victims was Elfriede Lohse-Waechtler [1899-1940], the well-known avant-garde painter of harbor scenes, the lives of workers and prostitutes along with her heartbreaking self-portraits. She lived in grinding poverty becoming mentally ill when her work was banned as “degenerate art.” She was murdered in the Sonnenstein psychiatric institution under “Action T4.”). Viking League member, Horst Wessel was murdered by two communists thus becoming a martyr for the Nazi party. Goebbels turned the League into armed resistance. Edgar Jung killed Heinz Orbis during The Night of the Long Knives (June 30-July 2, 1934) as Hitler, Goering, Himmler and Heydrich ordered a Nazi purge of political, extrajudicial executions to consolidate their power with the support of nationalist and monarchist factions. SA leader, Ernst Roehm, was killed to gain control of the Reichswehr and to refocus the German economy on rearmament, and to prepare the people for war and expansion (“Lebensraum”). The SS assassinated former Chancellor Kurt von Schleich, Gregor Strasser and suppressed his group. Himmler controlled the Schutztaffel paramilitary and security services (SD), and the Gestapo (Secret Police). The personal police battalions of Heydrich and Goering also took part in the killings.

The Black Reichswehr (1921-23), a paramilitary group under Hans von Seeckt, whose battalions guarded the country, circumvented the Versailles Treaty. Sturmabteilung Rossbach (1919-28) along with the Freikorps Oberland was led by Gerhard Rossbach who designed the ‘brownshirts.’

Luxemburg’s former student, Chancellor and SPD leader Ebert ordered the Freikorps (affiliated with the Reichswehr) to torture and execute Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) and Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919). Polish-born, German citizen, Rosa Luxemburg was an influential revolutionary socialist and Marxist, and anti-War activist during WW I. As a member of the German Communist Party and the Spartacus League (the latter became the KPD), Luxemburg was a key figure in German politics with Karl Liebknecht. Liebknecht was a Reichstag deputy (1912-16), German socialist, lawyer and anti-militarist as well as the founder of the Spartacus League to foment revolution with armed workers, strikes and the occupation of several Berlin newspaper buildings. In the waning days of WW I — during the November Revolution — he proclaimed Germany a Free Socialist Republic – a small step towards becoming a Soviet Republic.

The Bavarian Citizens’ Defense (1918-21) was a far-right paramilitary group founded by Georg Escherich to defend Germany against foreign attacks and communists in violation of the Versailles Treaty. It was dissolved after the failed Kapp Putsch – led by Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Luttwitz — against the Berlin government on March 13, 1920. They wanted an autocratic government in place of the Weimar Republic.

The Judenboykott banner and Tietz***

The “Judenboykott” banner paved the way for ”Kristallnacht” when the Nazis began boycotting Jewish businesses on April 1, 1933; however, earlier boycotts became pervasive immediately after WW I. The German Student Union (Deutscher Hochschulring) barred Jewish and converted Jewish members in 1921. Nazi newspapers called for anti-Jewish boycotts as regional political parties became closed to Jews. Shortly afterwards, Jews were banned from hotels, restaurants, German banks and businesses. From 1931-32, SA stormtroopers prevented customers from entering Jewish shops, smashed windows and threatened owners.

The Tietz department store, founded by Oskar Tietz in Thuringia in 1882, was the first emporium in Germany. In 1900, Oskar’s uncle, Hermann Tietz opened his store on Leipziger Strasse (near Wertheim) — Europe’s largest store at that time. The luxury retailer opened another store on Alexanderplatz in 1904. The ten stores – the largest Berlin chain – had 13,000 employees in 1927. The 22 subsidiary companies and factories were Aryanized in 1933-34, transferring ownership to non-Jews. Leonhard Tietz, Oskar’s brother, sold high quality merchandise at fixed prices for cash introducing the “money-back guarantee.” Dresdner Bank used the liquidity crisis in 1932 to expel Tietz and to nationalize the store by undervaluing its sale price by 21.5 Million Reichsmark.