Photo: © Sky 1. Benda's widow gives Wendt a piece of evidence. 17 déc. Will it be the typist, the doctor, the maid, club owner, or politician? At the station she sees an angry mob demonstrating against Mayor Gustav Böß, who is on the train. After the war Horst Naumann became famous for his numerous stamp and poster designs, with his posters for German Zoos being most remembered. In the TV series Bruno and his monarchist co-conspirators infiltrate a gala celebration at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in the Mitte district of Berlin. The same episode reveals Bruno to be a chief planner of the Reichswehr Generals’ plot to overthrow the Weimar government and restore Kaiser Wilhelm to the throne. 1931. Head of the Political Police, August Benda (Matthias Brandt). Artists noticed jazz as well. Eventually a Stalinist assassin armed with an ice axe attacked Trotsky in his home in Mexico on June 7, 1940; he died from his wounds the next day. Rath and Lotte race to stop the train robbery in time, while Greta's conscience is torn when she falls into an assassination plot. What at first glance appears to be simply a matter of extortion soon reveals itself to be a scandal that will forever change the lives of both Gereon and his closest associates. (2009). Get a sneak peek of the new version of this page. Five friends go out to war and promise each other to be back for Christmas. Photo: © Sky 1. The mysterious train carries hidden cargo, tons of gold and a huge amount of deadly poison phosgene gas. May 1, 1929. I’ve met a few like him in my lifetime, they work outside the mainstream to expose the truth no one wants to hear. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the soundtrack was the participation of the English crooner and songwriter Bryan Ferry, who is remembered by many as the frontman for the 1970s glam art rock band Roxy Music. They run a subversive printshop where they hold meetings and print revolutionary propaganda. In 1929 he joined the KPD’s Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists. The Reich Chamber of Fine Arts (Reichskulturkammer or RKK) was founded by Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. Engelbert Rath, a senior official at the Cologne police force, transferred his son Gereon from the Cologne police to the Alexanderplatz police HQ in Berlin, also known as the Rote Burg (Red Castle) for its red walls. In 1931 she painted Paragraph 218, a blasphemous condemnation of the abortion prohibition that treated abortion as a punishable offense. His career begs an important question; how does an avant-garde artist come to work with brutal totalitarians? The answer in part is found in German history. Willy Brandt was a supporter of the Vietnam war and was as anti-Communist as the fictional character of August Benda. While a painter she was most well known for her photomontage works à la John Heartfield. ". Otto Dix created two paintings that showed jazz musicians, a 1922 self-portrait titled An die Schönheit (To Beauty), and a 1928 triptych titled Metropolis, which had as its central panel a depiction of elites being entertained by a jazz combo. Benda is also Jewish, and with Germany rushing headlong towards a dark future, he is a marked man. Berlin after the Wall came down. Virtually on the eve of May Day, April 29, 1929, Der Abend (The Evening), the late edition of the Social Democratic Party newspaper Vorwärts (Forward), featured a headline that read, “200 dead on May 1? Babylon Berlin (27–28) Ulrich und Weishaupt, zuständig für kriminalistische Untersuchungen, zeigen Gereon Rath und Czerwinski die gesicherten Beweise am Tatwerkzeug. In 1927 Naumann joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), and soon after started painting Weimar Carnival. Bruno Wolter (Peter Kurth). Babylon Berlin - Staffel 3. The Nazis forbade German papers from publishing news of the award. Click here for a subscription to this
The Black Reichswehr was allied to multiple paramilitary units like the Freikorps, Der Stahlhelm (Steel Helmet), and Die Organisation Consul (Organization Consul or OC). Purportedly about 14th-century Europe, the soundtrack uses music from the likes of Queen (We Will Rock You), and David Bowie (Golden Years). artists during an extraordinary period of American history. Another is the hijacked train so central to the story, a German DRB Class 52 steam locomotive, which would not be built until 1942. In 1933 the Nazis targeted jazz for its links to African-Americans. Ruttmann was also the cinematographer for German film classics like Fritz Lang’s 1924 Die Nibelungen: Siegfried, and Lang’s Metropolis (1927). Adenauer was also the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963. Hollywood directors no doubt wither away when exposed to such divine sounds. Yards away Fritz appears on the darkened street and calls to Greta, immediately he is surrounded by men who identify themselves as police. The "assassination" of Fritz. I noticed something compelling about Edgar’s office in the Moka Efti nightclub, there are pictures of Armenian relatives or friends hanging on the walls. blog'snewsletter, or to send me an e-mail. For that purpose he is most likely using the cough syrup containing heroin then produced by Bayer, Germany’s chemical and pharmaceutical company. But how does jazz have political and social implications? She entered into self-imposed isolation, what Germans called “internal exile.” She withdrew to her studio and worked there in absolute secrecy, never to exhibit, publish, or speak of her art. Which one of you crystal ball readers today would like to predict where we’re headed now? Images of the conflict between the thirst for demolition and the hunger for completion. Nyssen is a stand-in for the historical figure Fritz Thyssen, who with fellow industrialists Friedrich Flick, Günther Quandt, Gustav and Alfried Krupp, and others, were the billionaires plotting against the Weimar Republic. Otto clutches Greta and they run off into the night to find safety. The real "Buddha of Alexanderplatz," Ernst Gennat, circa late 1920s. In 1935, to stop “racial pollution” they banned jazz being played on German radio. Growing poverty and unemployment stand in stark contrast to the excesses and indulgence of the city's night life and its overflowing creative energy. The Alexanderhaus would be constructed in 1930 and Jonass & CO erected in 1934. The men of this retro-jazz ensemble have given themselves to the 1920s jazz style, and in my not so humble opinion, their music fits Babylon Berlin hand in glove. The opening train scene made me think me of the short 1927 film by Walter Ruttmann, Berlin, Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Berlin: Symphony of a Great City). They look contemporary, but they are in fact excerpts from silent animated films Ruttmann created in the early 1920s. I’ll forgive these sins against cinematic realism because Babylon Berlin otherwise examines history with honesty and passion. It was primarily left-wing Germans that organized protests against the ban first added to the Criminal Code of the German Empire in 1871; the Weimar government could not, or would not, abolish paragraph 218. Greta is loyal, apolitical, and very naive. Filed in: German Expressionism | Mark Vallen | April 3, 2018. "Clear the Way for List 1 Social Democrats." In 1931 the Weimar government charged the publisher of Die Weltbühne, Carl von Ossietzky, with treason and espionage for revealing the Lipetsk airbase. 39 of 45 people found this review helpful. Babylon Berlin took artistic license with the Moka Efti nightclub, which was a historic cafe in Berlin named after its Greek-Italian owner Giovanni Eftimiades. Bruno Wolter gives his cohorts the detailed plans for the imminent “Prangertag” Putsch. Studio Babelsberg, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany. One is left wondering if Schmidt is a saint or a sinner. 1928. But things turn out differently. Babylon Berlin (12) ... Berlin, im Frühjahr 1929: Eine Metropole in Aufruhr. None of this was meant to be comedic, but sheesh! Watercolor & pencil, 1928. My 2013 “Echoes of Weimar” essay covers the works of two Weimar era artists, Barthel Gilles and Otto Dix. Bloody May. Chalk it up to artistic license. In 1926 Joseph Goebbels, then a regional commander for the growing Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party), or Nazi Party (which had only 49,000 members in all of Germany at the time), staged a march into Neukölln that culminated in a bloody skirmish with communist militants. I should also mention that Charlotte Ritter’s job, that of cataloging photographs of murder victims to create a national registry of violent deaths, was an idea developed by Gennat. But it’s the central figure that commands our attention; a soldier wearing a red jacket, monocle, and a swastika embellished steel helmet. Artist unknown. Carl von Ossietzky died in 1938 as a consequence of his torture. Naumann was a painter and graphic designer who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden until 1927; Otto Dix was one of his professors. History isn’t nearly as serpentine and convoluted as Babylon Berlin’s narrative, so stop fidgeting and pay attention, I’m setting the stage for the drama. A historic poster that perfectly illustrates Benda’s political position can be found in a 1930 propaganda street poster for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The Russian website “AirPages” offers an extensive and detailed examination of the Reichswehr secret airbase in Lipetsk, Soviet Russia. In 1967 when I was 13-years-old, I purchased the first album by the psychedelic rock band, The Doors. By contrast on Feb. 13, 2018, Netflix cut a $300 million deal with American director Ryan Murphy (creator of American Horror Story) to produce films exclusively for Netflix. Charitable and kind-hearted with people, he’s a relentless investigator, and suspects certain people are out to overthrow the republic. Are they authentic film art from the twenties? What makes a Nazi, and how do you recognize fascist culture and politics? Paragraph 218 is one of the few works by Lex-Nerlinger to have survived the period. Alles befindet sich in radikalem Wandel. Ambitious Jana is confronted with the unscrupulous machinations of the world of finance. A crisis bonds Helga and Nyssen. 1921. Actor Volker Bruch called the set “a chameleon.”. The realistic digital recreation of Berlin’s Alexanderplatz is one such example. Greta and Otto watch in horror as the police toss the wounded Fritz into a car and speed off. The mystery train of Babylon Berlin. Returning to the TV series, Greta is shocked to see Otto in the crowd dressed in the Brownshirt uniform of the SA; she stares at the mob and is horrified to see Fritz, and he’s also wearing the SA uniform. Toy in Thyssen's hand!". It is almost comic relief that putschist Bruno Wolter would be whistling a tune from Bertolt Brecht’s Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), but it does point out the sway left culture had in Berlin at the time. The ambient incidental music for Babylon Berlin was written by longtime collaborators Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer, one of the show’s directors. From economy to culture, politics to the underworld - everything is in the grip of radical change. Photo: © Sky 1. As a result the left-wing of the SPD abandoned the party en masse. A man in his early thirties, Gereon is a well-mannered member of the Cologne police force. Miraculously, the Nazis never came after Mammen. here to purchase the exhibit catalog, Weimar government passed strict gun control laws. Bruno Wolter lies in wait with a scoped sniper rifle, hidden in the theater’s enormous crystal chandelier, but the mission goes awry and the coup is aborted. Historic accounts of the real Mayor Böß show that he was embroiled in the “Sklarek scandal,” where he was accused of taking huge bribes from three wealthy Jewish clothing suppliers, the Sklarek brothers, who were charged with defrauding the Berlin City Bank. Tragic and dignified. Around this time Lauterbach began to paint exclusively in black and white, because in his words the Nazis took away the colors of joy. Carl Lauterbach. Never before have I written a review of a television show, and wouldn’t you know it, my first attempt is almost as long as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. In 1931 he worked at a commercial printing company designing billboards, postcards, brochures, and posters. A gruff, 44-year-old bear of a man and fellow veteran of the Great War, Bruno is a loyal friend and colleague—provided you’re on his side. A modest political understanding of the Weimar Republic years will help you figure out the historic setting of Babylon Berlin, which is why I wrote this essay. May 1, 1929 proved fatal to the Weimar government. With Volker Bruch, Liv Lisa Fries, Leonie Benesch, Lars Eidinger. "Demonstration." In the evenings Charlotte works as an off-the-books prostitute in the infamous Berlin dance club, the fashionable Moka Efti. If you want just one example of the incandescent music of the medieval period, then listen to the works of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179). Covers were usually woodcuts created by expressionist artists. Sendehinweis: Serie | 30. German language. Oil painting, 1932. As he continued to suffer in the camp he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935. Greta realizes that her lover Fritz and his friend Otto were Nazis masquerading as communists, and they were using her to get at August Benda. Based on the 2008 crime novel Der Nasse Fisch (The Wet Fish) by German author Volker Kutscher, the TV series was written and directed by Tom Tykwer, Achim von Borries, and Henrik Handloegten. Oil on canvas, 1926-27. [2]. Putting aside his disheveled looks, as an independent reporter he knew the score. The narrative of this detective noir period piece is engaging enough that you don’t need to know the actual history behind the drama’s backdrop—but it certainly helps. The title refers to an underground railway station in the central locality of Mitte, Berlin. In 1937 the Nazis declared him a “degenerate” artist and in 1939 they forbade him from painting. Based in Neukölln, Berlin Toni manages the daily business of dealing with the Arabic gangs and ends up wanting to leave his old life behind for his family, but as expected, it's never that simple. She’s in androgynous black leather drag and accompanied on stage by a wild troupe of exotic dancers dressed in banana skirts. Babylon Berlin draait om de Duitse politie-inspecteur Gereon Rath uit Keulen die een afpersingsschandaal probeert bloot te leggen, en Charlotte Ritter, een jonge stenograaf die graag … A few listened in Germany, but not enough. Long ... See full summary ». Opening in 1929, the hall had a stage, an orchestra pit, and a seating capacity of 900. Ruttmann was apparently the first to create animation in this manner. Samuel Katelbach (played by Karl Markovics). Gereon is partnered with vice squad leader, Bruno Wolter (played by Peter Kurth). At the end of the song, in keeping with its grief-stricken lyrics, she pretends to cut her throat using a prop theatrical knife. The American dancer Josephine Baker in her Banana Skirt at the Folies Bergère in Paris, 1927. Yeah, because nothing says Middle Ages like rock n’ roll music. Speculation and inflation are already tearing away at the foundations of the still young Weimar Republic. The fictional hijacking in Babylon Berlin aside, history shows us that Trotsky (the founder of the Soviet Red Army) was expelled from the Russian Communist Party by Stalin and sent into exile. Seven deadly sins in the Metropolis, Charlotte Ritter and Gereon Rath. Hopefully, Babylon Berlin will inspire that same sense of discovery for others. My review of the 2010 Long Beach Opera production of “The Good Soldier Schweik” holds plenty of information about Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Major General Kurt Seegers (played by Ernst Stötzner) and his fellow conspirators are in prison following their arrests for the Lipetsk airbase plot, but the guards are sympathizers and give Bruno easy access to the prisoners. Best of all, in episode 10 of the TV show, Ferry makes a guest appearance as a jazz singer performing Reason or Rhyme at the Moka Efti. In one scene they are printing flyers that read: “Workers! Gereon has noticed his footprint in every serious crime he’s investigated, yet, the Armenian is oddly protective of Gereon, a man he could have done away with on numerous occasions—and yes, Edgar is after the “Sorokin gold.”. Watch the documentary The Making of ‘The Jazz Age’ to understand my enthusiasm for this music. Babylon Berlin Greta develops romantic feelings for Fritz that will have disastrous consequences. The artist (in blue) depicted himself marching in a communist demonstration with fellow artist Wilhelm Dodel. This historic photo is an interior shot of the real Moka Efti, showing the nightclub's Egyptian Music Salon in 1930. Convicted, he served 18 months in prison before being released in a 1932 amnesty. It has been verified that the series has received funding for a third season, so the show will eventually have to deal with Hitler and the Nazis taking power in 1933. Someone older and wiser than I told me it was written by Brecht, so naturally I went to the library to find out who the guy was. Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? 1956) am 28.11.2020 11:43 Ich wollte in der Mediathek einfach mal kurz reinschauen was man denn aus der Geschichte vom "Nassen Fisch", das mir seinerzeit hervoragend gefallen hat, filmisch so gemacht hat. Ruttmann created his works by applying oil paint with a brush directly on a glass pane set up beneath an animation camera. Karl Markovics. On the eve of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, he was transferred to a hospital under the watchful eyes of the Gestapo—soon after he was awarded the Nobel. 3. The show provides a solid argument that first-rate drama can be had from exploring real life history. When the Nazis invaded Paris she joined the French underground. Every April 24th Armenians commemorate the victims with a huge march on the streets of L.A., marking the genocide that began in April of 1915. Who is that jazz singer at the Moka Efti? Over Hindenburg’s shoulder there’s a graveyard, under him, the gaping maw of a bank vault, to his right there’s a Zeppelin airship, the type used to drop bombs during the Great War. In 1926 he was temporarily the publisher of the left-leaning journal Die Weltbühne (The World Stage), a journal dedicated to art, literature, and politics. Und hier geht’s zur Abstimmung. She sings a mournful song in Russian as an old paramour enters the club. [3] Article about the artist Carl Lauterbach - Painter in Twilight: RP Online. Viewers of Babylon Berlin may think the animated closing credits are current digital studio productions. Even better, the library had a phonograph record that included Lotte Lenya singing the Alabama Song. Mammen once said, “I have always wanted to be just a pair of eyes, walking through the world unseen, only to be able to see others. It enticed Berliners with strong coffee and an “Egyptian Music Salon” where jazz played and refreshments were taken. A combat veteran of WWI, he quietly suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and secretly self-medicates when high stress situations cause him to tremble uncontrollably. Berlin, im Frühjahr 1929: eine Metropole in Aufruhr. Photographer unknown. The SPD remained the largest party in the Reichstag with 143 seats, but the Communists won 77 seats and the Nazis won 107. My 2011 essay “Paul Fuhrmann’s ‘War Profiteer” focuses on the German Expressionist painter Paul Fuhrmann, as well as the Nazi Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition of 1937. Filming took place on Neue Berliner Straße (New Berlin Street) part of the studio’s Metropolitan Backlot. History gives us a slightly different picture. International Encyclopedia of the First World War. There is some bending of the truth in Babylon Berlin, the digital Alexanderplatz is a good example. The TV series focuses attention on the little known Schwarze Reichswehr (Black Reichswehr), a shadow military the pro-monarchist generals set up to circumvent the Versailles Treaty and illegally rearm Germany. While producing one such film on the frontline with Russia in 1944, he was seriously wounded and died in a Berlin hospital from his injuries. A few characters in the TV series already have an aura of malevolence about them; the words “banality of evil” describe them well. There is some gratuitous sex and violence in Babylon Berlin, which at first had me thinking the show would be just another titillating TV sensation. Two pilots fly the men over the base in a Junkers Ju 52 transport plane (anachronism alert: the plane wasn’t produced until 1931). We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. Lauterbach was a member of the Assoziation revolutionärer bildender Künstler Deutschlands (Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists of Germany), the group of artists who belonged to the KPD. Charlotte is hired at Red Castle police HQ to catalog photographs of murder victims for the Criminal Investigation Department, headed by a man named Gennat. The horrific consequences are well known—18 million deaths and 23 million wounded. 2020 - Etopop - Ici vous pouvez trouver des milliers de films, du contenu très bien organisé, venez connaître Etopop.com. Photo: © Sky 1. When the deed is done Greta flees for the train station, hoping to disappear into another city. Rath faces a stand-off for train carriage TY 23-05, and the truth behind the Sorokins' gold is revealed. Josephine Baker would die in Paris on April 12, 1975 at the age of 68. Benda is an ardent supporter of the Weimar government. When the Nazis came to power Baker was banned from performing on stage in Germany—she moved back to Paris. Eventually the Nazis had enough, and starting in 1941 they began mass arrests of Swing Youth, sending them to concentration camps. Mammen was known for drawings in pencil, pen, ink, and watercolor washes that focused on women; in retrospect her drawings of bohemian women in Berlin’s cafes, including lesbian nightclubs, seem most remembered. Babylon Berlin - Staffel 3. Oil on canvas. Front cover propaganda headline of Der Abend, April 29, 1929. Since then the hall was renovated and today the Delphi is a performing arts house. In 1938 they organized the Entartete Musik (Degenerate Music) exhibition to denigrate jazz as well as Jewish classical music composers like Gustave Mahler and Felix Mendelssohn. Babylon Berlin – Community. There isn’t a better artwork to illustrate my article on the Babylon Berlin TV series than Weimarer Fasching (Weimar Carnival), a painting created by Horst Naumann (1908-1990). The crowd sings along and follows the pantomime, swaying and gyrating in drunken revelry. In the end Krestinsky returned to Moscow where he was arrested, given a sham trial during the Stalinist Great Purge, and executed in 1938. Still from the 1927 film "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City" by Walter Ruttmann. That viewpoint is ahistorical and ill-advised. Confused yet? It received a brief mention in Babylon Berlin when the dissident Austrian journalist Samuel Katelbach mentioned it in passing to Gereon Rath. Historically speaking, Ernst Gennat was the director of the Berlin Criminal Investigation Department. He’s probably in the Freikorps, who, to identify their units, would paint an identifying symbol on their helmets before entering a street fight. The Weimar coalition government was founded on Feb. 6, 1919, and on June 23, 1919, it signed the Versailles Treaty, formally ending WWI. The character of Schmidt is woven through the whole of Babylon Berlin, and he plays a major role in the calamitous end of series two.
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