Weimar’s Last Slice: How Babylon Berlin Mirrors Germany's Modern Political Obsessions

On a sweltering summer day along the Spree, the German television elite gathered in the climate-controlled sanctuary of X-Filme’s private cinema to witness the beginning of the end. Directors Tom Tykwer, Achim von Borries, and Henk Handloegten joined producers from ARD Degeto and sales representatives to preview the fifth and final season of Babylon Berlin. Lead actors Volker Bruch and Liv Lisa Fries arrived later, completing the assembly for what remains a rare anomaly in the landscape of German public broadcasting: an expensive drama that people actually watch.

The finale brings the saga to its inevitable historical terminus—the collapse of the Weimar Republic. Abandoning the remaining volumes of Volker Kutscher’s novel series, the writers have chosen to stop precisely where totalitarian rule begins. The opening episodes waste no time setting the grim stage, introducing a young Adolf Hitler as a psychiatric hospital patient suspected of malingering. Around this central figure swarms a narrative of secret police missions, unsolved murders of homeless war veterans, and an opportunistic political movement exploiting its legitimate electoral mandate to dismantle democratic structures.

Naturally, the series cannot resist winking at contemporary German politics. In one illustrative scene over pastry, an editor-in-chief, a journalist, and a lawyer attempt to slice a Sachertorte along polling lines, proposing a tactical alliance between Social Democrats and Communists to build a political firewall against the rising right. The mathematical logic holds on paper, yet crumbles against the ideological hatred dividing the two leftist parties. It is a cynical piece of commentary that, landing alongside heavy-handed dialogue about antidemocratic forces and party bans, will feel uncomfortably familiar to anyone following recent elections in Saxony-Anhalt and across the republic.

Behind the historical melodrama lies a cautionary tale of media economics. After pay-TV partner Sky abruptly abandoned the project, the survival of this flagship production hung by a thread. That a fifth season exists at all stems from global syndication, with rights sold to over a hundred countries—allegedly including North Korea. Amid the endless torrent of questionable public television expenditures, Babylon Berlin stands out as a lavish, well-acted exception, complete with musical interludes, a cameo by Konrad Adenauer, and a brief excursion to 1930s Paris.

Whether viewers tune in for the historical drama or the transparent political parallels, the final chapter of Weimar’s story echoes modern anxieties. As established political factions maneuver and state institutions attempt to insulate themselves, the series offers a polished, cynical look at how quickly constitutional frameworks deteriorate when ideological paralysis takes hold.

Written by Martina Kirchner martina.kirchner@alpineweekly.com