Babylon Berlin bows out with Hitler's rise, timed alongside German state election
The German hit series Babylon Berlin is preparing to release its fifth and final season, ending with Hitler's rise to power the same week as a major German state election. Creators call the timing coincidental but acknowledge striking parallels with today's politics.
After 13 years in production, German television hit Babylon Berlin is approaching its conclusion. The fifth and final season culminates in Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor, airing the same week Germany faces a major test of its postwar political order in a closely watched state election.
The show's creators insist the timing is coincidental, though they acknowledge the series — set a century ago during the Weimar Republic — has often felt eerily prescient. Lead actor Liv Lisa Fries, who plays detective Charlotte Ritter, says the story is no longer "a dance on the rim of the volcano" but is now "in the volcano itself."
Co-star Volker Bruch, who plays shellshocked war veteran Gereon Rath, pointed to political parallels with modern Germany, where the far-right Alternative für Deutschland — founded around the same time work on the series began — now leads national polls. In early September, the party could win its first absolute majority in a state election in Saxony-Anhalt.
Blurred lines between fiction and reality
Series three was partly filmed at Villa Adlon, which in November 2023 served as the real-life venue for a secret meeting where AfD officials and neo-Nazis discussed a "remigration" plan for mass deportations.
Based on novels by Volker Kutscher, the series spans more than 50 hours and has reached audiences in 140 countries. Creator Tom Tykwer says the show's success isn't about mirroring the present, but about capturing 1920s Berlin as a transformative force, when a weak government left room for women, gay people and immigrants to rewrite social rules. The final season also revives the 1920 queer anthem "Das Lila Lied."
