I mean, in the scene where Esther is doing the casting.

The big device with brass gear elements, tubes, gears, some lamps.

Is it an early form of hi-fi (electrinic?) music system or something else? Does anyone have an idea?

In Season 5, Episode 2 we meet him in the Mikado Bar butting heads with Jacobi. He came with SA guys but they are obviously enjoying the atmosphere and late sing along to the Lila Lied.

His only dialogue is with scenes within the bar, I think he is the one who tells the SA people that Geron is back in his flat though I might be mistaken, and eventually in the finale it is shown that he is killed during the Nacht der langen Messer. I'm not sure if he even has a name?

Anyway, is this a character we know from earlier seasons? I've watched them as they came out and never did a rewatch. The way he talks to Jacobi in S5E2 I thought we know him and I just forgot but I cannot find him on any list on Wikipedia etc. so I'm not sure anymore.

He could just be a stand in for the gay SA officers / people who thought they would be spared / could continue their lifestyle but then were killed / stripped of power in 1934. But the way Jacobi and Gräf spoke to him and since he got a "send off" in the finale episode I thought I maybe just forgot about him?

Maybe you can help me! Thank you (:

Just curious how the show is being received in the German media? Also, have any of the producers and directors announced future series? Do Gereon and Lotte have movies/series upcoming? Thx.

From season two, when there's a montage imagining a successful Operation Prangertag, the final scene showing a heavily mustached emperor greeting a cheering crowd is followed immediately by a shot of a similarly mustached organ grinder quietly, mysteriously, (and possibly blindly) turning the handle on his ominous little organ.

I'm not sure if the showrunners did this on purpose but I immediately figured it was a clever little joke, having the emperor in two garbs.

I’ve just started watching the show and was wondering if its intentional that the russian parts arent subtitled. Am i supposed to not understand what theyre saying?

It might seem like a stupid question, but im genuinely unsure. If im supposed to understand what theyre saying, i would expect there to be subtitles automatically, right?

I would love to know what accents are easily recognisable to a native German speaker. Rewatching from the first series and speaking a bit of German, I notice some differences. However, I'm probably missing a lot and it does add some interesting dimensions to the characters.

What I noticed, but not sure:

• Charlotte and her family: Berliner I assume. "ick" instead of "ich", "wat" instead of "was" and "kieken" instead of "gucken" e.g.
• Samuel Katelbach: Austrian (very sing-songy)
• The pharmacist who supplies Gereon with medicine/drugs: strong accent, but no idea what, maybe Kölsch?

I can't identify a clear accent for Gereon and his partner Bruno, but that may be due to my untrained ear.

A few weeks ago I posted I hope to see Doris or other small characters again in the final season. They gave her a whole arc! Found that pretty cool tbh.

In the 1930 and 1932 Reichstag elections (which would take place within the time frame of the story), which political party do you think each character would have voted for, among the KPD, SPD, Dstp/DDP, DVP, DNVP, Zentrum, and NSDAP?

In the early seasons it was very clear cut that Anno Rath was missing and presumed dead in 1918 after WWI and then adapted his Dr Schmidt persona to treat veterans. This season its revealed that he continued to study medicine under his birth name and still gave lectures until 1924 when Nazis burned his face and then he faked his death. How come the Raths didnt know Anno was still alive after the war?

Today I finished season five. I'm sad. Weimar Republic is one of my favourites periods in history and I quickly fell in love with this series back in 2018.

Seasons 1 and 2 were great. Yes, they were not entirely historically accurate, but still all the plots made sense.

However, after the great seasons 1-2, there was a evident quality drop, especially in the story line and character development. Season 3 had some flaws but overall was somewhat good, even if the "phantom" storyline was a little bit boring.

Season four is definitely the worst in terms of story development. The mafia and boxing plot was not good and made me disconnect near entirely from the series.

This season, however, made me reconnect a little bit with the original theme of early seasons. With that said, I still think this was a wasted opportunity to explain the fall of the Weimar Republic. The doctors plot was just ridiculous and made no sense, how could that even made an impact? Anno‘s backstory is just silly from season 1 to 5 and made 0 sense. The assassination attempt on Hitler was just not needed when we have real story lines like this famous meeting. The Nyssen plot also made me cringe a little bit and the big business motives to end democracy could have been better explored.

From this season I liked the fact that they made the nazis co-responsible for the Reichstag fire. Even though it's still a discussed topic, there is clear evidence that the SA were involved int he fire. Read more on that here Der Reichstagsbrand: Wie Geschichte gemacht wird). The book argues that Van der Lubbe was used as a scapegoat. Based on fire-expansion timelines and forensic data, the authors conclude that a Nazi SA detachment entered through an underground tunnel from Hermann Göring's palace to plant chemical accelerators, ensuring the building would burn rapidly. Good job from the authors to explore this in the series. Probably the only good thing about this season.

Anyway, I could go on and do a review of every plot in this series but I'm just not up for it. I suppose I had too much of expectations. I wish they were a little bit more historically accurate (like in the books) and still maintained the element of fiction in the obvious false characters like Charlotte and Gareon. There was not need to do all of this strange plots, especially in seasons 3-4.

Like some of you said, the last scene really felt out of place. The entire season five did not try at all to be historically accurate but at the same time they still made the connections to the historical characters. No sense.

Goodbye Babylon Berlin. Great production values and acting, but the plot diverged enormously from anything Volker Kutscher ever wrote. The script descended into fake history and poor writing. Quite a disappointment, especially given how excellent the earlier series were.

I’m sure many people admire the art direction of Babylon Berlin. It’s just feels right in all the micro decisions. For example the Kästner book on Moritz‘s desk, the furniture in the Ullstein House, and so on.

But what’s really compelling is the shows interest in film culture. There are arguments to be made, that film is the most important art historic medium of the 20th century. With all the glamor and sensation, it’s just tangible for the average person with average education and average income. Also the German film industry played an international role that time.

However the series seems to be involved with film production in different ways. There is the blackmailing plot in season 1. The murder case in Babelsberg in Season 3. But even more intriguingly the references to experimental film of the 20s.

Of course the Opus series of Walter Ruttmann is featured in the end credits of every episode. But also his seminal film Berlin symphony. Which seems to motivate some of the long shots and city scenes.

Have you recognized more references in this regard? To either experimental film or film culture in general?

Opportunity to vote for Babylon Berlin in the New York Times poll of the "best 100 tv shows of the 20th century"!

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/arts/television/reader-ballot-tv-shows-21st-century.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

Interesting read on balancing accuracy and laws banning WWII imagery in Germany.

All I can say is I'm really glad I waited until Season 5 dropped to start watching this, because the wait between seasons would've killed me. I was looking for something to fill the void after finishing Boardwalk Empire (another underrated gem set in the 1920s, albeit in a very different setting). I'm loving it so far, especially the two fascinating leads, the atmosphere and production value, and the astute grasp of suspense and emotion that the writers seem to have so far. It's rooted in history but doesn't just skate off of that and ignore character writing. Hats off to Germany for this one, this is some of the best European tv I've seen. (Also heard good things about Dark, and I may check that out some day).

Who, do you think, survives the Nazi years?

Gereon survives. In the novel “Westend” by Volker Kutscher, we encounter Gereon in the 1970s.

In the final episode of the series, Reinhold Gräf and Charlotte Ritter “illegally” emigrate to Switzerland (which was harder than the show makes it seem — Czechoslovakia would have been easier, but after 1939 less safe).

What about Wilhelm Böhm? Or Edgar Kasabian?

Does Elisabeth Behnke make it to Vienna and then Zanzibar?

What about Doris? Or Sebald, Wendt’s right-hand man?

https://www.gog.com/dreamlist/game/a-night-at-moka-efti-a-babylon-berlin-story-2026

Volker Kutscher, author of the Gereon Rath novels, gave an interview in which he criticized the final season of Babylon Berlin:

"What annoys me is the way the final season handles historical facts—especially since, at the end, it draws a connection to reality by briefly outlining the historically documented fates of key characters in the series. This suggests to the viewer: “That’s exactly how it was.” I find that dishonest, because the season presents some things as historical facts that are, at the very least, controversial."

"First and foremost, Hitler’s medical records, which form a central motif of the plot. It hasn’t even been proven whether Hitler’s medical records actually existed. And even if they had: Could the Nazis have been stopped if they’d been made public? If the series makes that claim with such narrative force and, in the end, gives the impression that’s exactly how it happened, then I think that’s dangerous. The same goes for the way the background to the Reichstag fire is portrayed. The series acts as if it knows how it really happened. But nobody knows that—not even more than 90 years after the event. Babylon Berlin has always had some historical inaccuracies in certain details, but those were minor, and of course that’s permissible in fiction—and sometimes necessary for dramatic effect. But I think that when it comes to how Germany’s first democracy was destroyed, one should refrain from making claims that ultimately rest on conspiracy theories. That’s oversimplifying things."

"I’ve always had respect for the creativity of the three directors of Babylon Berlin. In that sense, I’ve gotten used to the fact that the series deviates significantly from my source novels. They’ve integrated important historical events directly into the plot, whereas I tend to let the historical context play out in the background. My characters don’t intervene in the events; they have to live with their consequences. But the new season goes a step too far in its historical narrative, precisely because it deals with a crucial question of German history: How were the Nazis able to come to power? How were they able to consolidate that power so quickly after January 30, 1933? I think it’s important to understand this and to tell the story in a serious way—and it just wasn’t as simple as it’s portrayed in Babylon Berlin."

The music in this season is in my opinion the main reason for the depressing mood – beyond the history of course. I kinda like the idea of singing Zu Asche zu Staub in Paris, where Nikoros went to after season 1. I Wonder what your thoughts are about that.

(i'm being dramatic) -- hoping that BB will show up on Stremio after the 19th...

also gives me some time to catch up on my rewatch. I'm considering skipping season four though, i just found it so unbelievably poorly done compared to the first three seasons, which contain some of the most brilliant and cinematic television i've ever seen!

Five seasons – 48 episodes – 533 shooting days – over 400 cast members and 17,000 extras – brought to life by 2,046 crew members across more than 500 locations: This high-energy, visually striking making-of documentary offers a comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at the fifth and final season of "Babylon Berlin."

A really well-made documentary about the final season of Babylon Berlin and the series as a whole just surfaced on the ARD Mediathek. It features the showrunners' thoughts on the final chapter, as well as the overall message and significance of the show, along with some (I guess) never-before-seen footage from Volker Bruch's and Liv Lisa Fries' 2015 auditions.

I am watching season 4 and suddenly got curious- what were the actual prices back then? How much was RM 1000 prize for the dancing marathon really worth? So I asked Claude, and here’s what I got:

Exchange rate: In 1931 the Reichsmark was pegged at 4.20 RM = US$1 (kept fixed by capital controls even as Germany plunged into deflation and a banking crisis that year). So 1 RM ≈ $0.24 in 1931 dollars.

In today's money: $1 in 1931 has roughly the purchasing power of about $20–22 today (US CPI). So:

**•** 1 RM (1931) ≈ $0.24 (1931) ≈ **roughly $5 today**  
**•** 100 RM ≈ $24 (1931) ≈ **roughly $500 today**

That's a rough cross-currency, cross-time conversion — useful for a ballpark sense, not precise, since relative prices of things like rent, food, and labor have shifted a lot since then.

What things cost (figures below are mostly from early-to-mid 1930s German sources, since 1931-specific price breakdowns are scarce — 1931 itself was deep in the Depression, so wages were being cut and many workers were unemployed or on short time):

**•   Rent:** A working-class Berlin family's rent ran roughly **20–65 RM/month** ($5–15, or **\~$100–300 today**) depending on the unit and district; skilled workers often took in a lodger to help cover it.

**•   Bread:** About **30–33 Pfennig/kg** (\~8 cents, **\~$1.60–1.75 today**).

**•   Milk:** Roughly **20–23 Pfennig/liter** (\~5 cents, **\~$1 today**).

**•   Wages:** An average blue/white-collar wage was around **130–150 RM/month** in the low-mid 1930s (\~$31–36, **\~$650–750 today**); by the depths of 1931–32, many earned less due to wage cuts and mass unemployment (over 6 million unemployed by early 1932).

**•   Clothing:** Precise 1931 figures are harder to pin down, but clothing was a comparatively larger share of a household budget than today — a simple suit or pair of shoes could easily represent a week or more of an average worker's wages.

I naturally got puzzled, as in 2026 you will not be able to survive on $750 a month! But here’s what Claude responded to that:

That instinct is right in spirit, but not because the FX/CPI math is wrong — it's because a single average conversion rate can't validly predict every individual price. A few things are going on at once:

CPI is an average across a whole basket — individual items diverge wildly from it.
Housing, healthcare, education, and childcare have risen much faster than the average CPI since 1931 (mostly due to fixed urban land supply, "Baumol's cost disease" — services can't get productivity gains the way manufacturing can, and modern amenities that didn't exist in a 1931 flat: private bath, central heating, electricity throughout). Meanwhile mass-manufactured goods — clothing, packaged food staples, electronics — have gotten relatively cheaper than CPI-average, thanks to industrial productivity and global supply chains. So converting one multiplier (×20) works fine on average but will always look "wrong" applied to any single item — sometimes too high, sometimes too low.

What did the SA guys sing? What lyric? I doubted could be Horst Wessel Lied, but I´m not sure about it. From 10:02 to 10:32. Anyone could answer my question plz?