The internationally acclaimed series immerses viewers in the tumultuous hedonism of 1920s Germany, portraying the promise and fragility of a nascent democracy with remarkable ambition.
Over the thirteen years the German production team has spent on Babylon Berlin, democracies worldwide—from the United States to Hungary and South Korea—have faced pressures the creators never anticipated when they began.
They are now set to debut the fifth and final season, which culminates in Adolf Hitler’s ascent to chancellorship, coinciding with a pivotal state election that poses one of the greatest challenges to Germany’s postwar order.
While the team maintains the timing is merely coincidental, it feels apt for a series set a century ago in the Weimar Republic that has continually seemed eerily foresighted.
As production wraps up, the inexorable conclusion approaches for the familiar faces of this noirish police drama, set against lavish period scenery and a palpable sense of looming doom.
Lead actor Liv Lisa Fries remarked, “It’s no longer a dance on the rim of the volcano,” referencing the German idiom for the burst of avant‑garde culture and sexual freedom in the 1920s before the fascist takeover. “We’re inside the volcano now.”
Fries portrays Charlotte Ritter, the series’ determined working‑class heroine who rises from secretarial work and underground sex work to become Berlin’s first female detective.
Her co‑star Volker Bruch plays Gereon Rath, a shell‑shocked World War I veteran whose tumultuous journey through the era’s trauma evokes Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster, The Odyssey.
Yet the more striking parallel lies with Germany in 2026.
The far‑right Alternative für Deutschland, an extremist, anti‑constitutional party founded around the time the series entered production, now tops national opinion polls.
On September 6, the party could secure its first outright majority in a Saxony‑Anhalt state election, and two weeks later might surpass its rivals in Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern. In Berlin, its support stands neck‑and‑neck with the far‑left Die Linke.
Amid this stress test for German democracy, Bruch noted that the political parallels are striking, yet he warned against reductive comparisons, invoking the old saying, “History doesn’t repeat itself—it rhymes.”
Throughout production, the boundaries between life and art blurred, at times taking on surreal qualities.
Parts of series three were shot at the neo‑baroque Villa Adlon, which in November 2023 hosted a clandestine gathering of AfD officials and neo‑Nazis to discuss a “remigration” scheme for mass deportations should the party attain power.
Series five depicts Hitler’s appointment as Reich Chancellor, coinciding with the disappearance of a medical file that sheds new light on his World War I service.
Although the series’ conclusion was known from the outset, following Babylon Berlin has invited viewers to hope, until the very end, that history might have taken a different path.
This poignancy elevates the show from a sophisticated crime drama to a more affecting, and potentially enduring, work.
Spanning roughly fifty hours and drawing partly on Volker Kutscher’s novels, the series has helped broaden the scope and ambition of European television drama.
Scott Roxborough, the Hollywood Reporter’s European bureau chief, observed, “It was nearly impossible to undertake when they began.”
He described it as a product of a “pioneer era,” when Germany was prepared to invest heavily to compete with glossy US and British productions such as Breaking Bad and The Crown.
He added that replicating such an effort today would be nearly impossible without the backing of a platform like Apple TV or Netflix—a prospect that seems increasingly unlikely as global streamers adopt a more cautious, profit‑driven stance.
Babylon Berlin has reached viewers in roughly 140 countries, delivering a cautionary tale about the intrinsic fragility of a vibrant civilization.
Tom Tykwer, one of the series’ three creators, countered, “The secret to the show’s ability to capture the zeitgeist is certainly not that it mirrors the present—I don’t believe that.”
Instead, audiences are attracted to the “transformative force” of 1920s Berlin, where a fragile government and a tumultuous society enabled women, gay individuals, and newcomers to renegotiate the rules.
He continued, “This environment yields a wealth of wonderful, positive, beautiful developments, but because it is so experimental, they are also swept away almost as quickly.”
“We have sought to explore the universal themes arising from the people‑centric nature of political systems, which are perpetually vulnerable—and will remain so.”
Tykwer also co‑composed much of the original score, including the haunting theme “To Ashes, to Dust.” The fifth season includes a storyline set in Paris and an on‑screen performance of the tune by French néo‑chanson artist Zaho de Sagazan.
In the fifth season, Tykwer and his team have revived the 1920 queer anthem “Das Lila Lied,” featuring its stirring chorus “Wir sind nun einmal anders als die andern” (We’re just different from the others).
The song is performed rousingly in a nightclub visited by cross‑dressing patrons and uniformed gay SA officers—a striking mixture the producers note was not unusual before the brutal Nazi crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community.
Although Tykwer pushes back against the idea that the series should convey a specific “message” to German voters this month, his fellow creator Henk Handloegten said he is proud to have “struck a nerve” with global audiences who find themselves at a political crossroads.
He added, “I believe we have taken a clear political stance, even in this final season, and I consider it essential.”
For Handloegten, the pressure on democracy in the many countries where the series is viewed “has truly motivated me.”
It has given him the justification to engage with this era so extensively and deeply, as he sensed its relevance to today’s world; in his view, that constitutes political work—a pursuit he and his team have followed for thirteen years.
