Evil cannot always be stopped, but one can try. What makes the final season of the series "Babylon Berlin" interesting?
The final season of the series "Babylon Berlin" – one of the most successful and expensive European series of recent times – was released in September.
There are series that simply tell a story. And there are those after which you start looking at history itself differently – especially at turning points, when society doesn't yet know that it's on the brink of catastrophe. The German series "Babylon Berlin" (one of its creators is the famous German director Tom Tykwer), which has been on screens since 2017, is one of the most ambitious European series projects of the last decade. Over five seasons, it shows not only the criminal Berlin of the Weimar Republic starting from 1929, but also the gradual destruction of a world that recently seemed at least relatively stable, writes "Budzma".
On September 10, the fifth season of "Babylon Berlin" premiered on the German channel ARD. Eight episodes of the final season transport the viewer to early 1933 – to those few weeks after which Germany would never be the same.
Events in the series begin on January 30, when Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor, and conclude on February 27, when the Reichstag building catches fire and a state of emergency will soon be declared in the country. Only a month passes between these events, but during this short time, the political situation in the country irrevocably changes. After the Reichstag fire, National Socialists gain a real opportunity to move from a struggle for power to the actual dismantling of the democratic order.
And it is here that the final season of "Babylon Berlin" poses perhaps the most interesting question: how does this transition happen? How is it that totalitarianism, which would later seem almost inevitable, doesn't appear so at all in real-time?
The fifth season particularly clearly shows: totalitarianism doesn't emerge in one day. It's a lengthy process. Through the development of the main characters, we see that some people consciously push society in this direction, others try to stop them, while a third group simply continues to live their usual lives, not realizing that their familiar world will soon completely collapse and never be the same again.
That's why it's surprising that this series was almost unnoticed by Belarusian viewers. Although many things in it might seem very familiar to each of us who knows from personal experience what society can look like at a moment of political upheaval. Overall, one can't shake the feeling that the creators deliberately drew parallels with our time to make the viewer reflect on important matters.
The series was based on a series of historical novels by German writer Volker Kutscher. At the heart of his books are the final years of the Weimar Republic, when the country found itself caught between economic crisis, political instability, and escalating radicalization. Right and left-wing movements fight for the streets and influence, democratic institutions lose authority, and more and more people begin to seek simple answers to very complex questions. Simultaneously, it's a story not only of politics but also of everyday life.
The main character of the series, Gereon Rath, is a Berlin police inspector, a veteran of World War I, who has to investigate increasingly dangerous and tangled cases from season to season.
Alongside him is Charlotte Ritter, a girl from a poor family who dreamed of becoming an investigator and who, thanks to her own qualities and ambitions, managed to break into a profession where women still have to constantly prove their right to work on par with men.
Among the innovations of this season, perhaps only one stands out: they finally moved from platonic sympathy between colleagues to love and are living together. One day, Charlotte finds dynamite in their shared apartment and begins to guess what it might be needed for. And here arises another profound question: can you trust a person whom you supposedly know well and with whom you share a bed?
Over five seasons, through the stories of Gereon and Charlotte, the viewer discovered Berlin during the twilight of Weimar. It is a city where poverty and luxury, unemployment and expensive restaurants, political violence and sexual freedom coexist. Nightclubs operate here, luxurious and provocative parties take place, closed sexual communities exist, and alongside this, the criminal underworld flourishes. This colorful world perfectly conveys the essence of Berlin in the late 1920s - early 1930s. Outwardly, it might seem almost limitlessly free. But over this fragile freedom, the hammer of National Socialist dictatorship is already slowly beginning to loom.
In the fifth season, Gereon Rath finds himself entangled not only in the investigation of serious and complex crimes. He joins a group of conspirators planning an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler to stop the triumphant march of the Nazis to power. Among them are also his older brother Anno, as well as one of the representatives of the Berlin criminal underworld, known as The Armenian. Like Gereon, they participated in World War I, but unlike most Germans, they well understand what resentment, militarism, and a thirst for revenge can lead to.
This is yet another paradoxical moment of the series. Because in a world where there should be a clear line between "good" and "bad" characters, there is practically none.
The creators deliberately do not construct stories according to a simple scheme where democratic forces stand on one side, and criminals and political radicals on the other. Here, everything is much more complex. And in this, perhaps, lies the main feature of the "Babylon Berlin" series: it does not offer the viewer a convenient division into absolutely positive and absolutely negative characters.
And in the final season, this ambiguity becomes especially pronounced. The National Socialist political machine, which knows no morality and is no longer going to stop at nothing, is opposed by people with very different pasts and very different motives. Among them are representatives of the political opposition, former military personnel, police officers, people who have personal scores to settle with the Nazis, and even representatives of organized crime.
It seems paradoxical, but precisely in this lies the historical and dramatic logic of the series: when a country enters a period of radical changes, old boundaries between groups and former allies begin to crumble. People who were enemies until recently suddenly find themselves on the same side of the barricades and vice versa. Those who not long ago sat at the same table may now crave the blood of a former comrade.
Therefore, the conclusion of "Babylon Berlin" precisely at the moment of the National Socialists' ascent to power seems entirely natural. Continuing the story within the same dramatic framework as in previous seasons would have been much more difficult: after the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship, the space of possibilities for the characters sharply narrows. The world in which it was still possible to maneuver between different forces begins to disappear.
But at the same time, the series does not end with a classic happy ending. Otherwise, it would simply contradict its own logic. The fifth season leaves the viewer not so much with a sense of completeness, but with the understanding that a completely different story begins next.
There is no happy ending in "Babylon Berlin". But something else remains – hope. At least that individual characters will be able to survive the time when the familiar world collapsed, and preserve within themselves the possibility for a different future.
Because we all know very well what happened next…
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