My current television addiction is a German miniseries called Babylon Berlin, thanks in part to a tip from much-beloved former student and fellow history enthusiast Alycia Jones.

The New Yorker summary of the series is far better, but here’s my cruder version.

* * *

Weimar Berlin, 1929: A principled but very troubled police inspector and a very brave (and lovely) young woman meet. He’s a war veteran addicted to morphine; she lives in a nightmare tenement and moonlights as a prostitute. Thanks to her ingenuity and persistence, they begin to work together to crack a case that becomes increasingly complex and dangerous.

*Deep breath*

It’s got Stalinists, Trotskyites, Transvestites, Organized Crime, Corrupt Cops, including cynical vice squaddage, the Black Reichswehr, the Red Fortress, frenetic and brilliant Charleston dancing, decaying apartment buildings, workers’ riots, a stunning computer-generated Alexanderplatz, drug-addicted veterans, maimed veterans, a sinister doctor with a hypodermic needle the size of a Krupps field howitzer, a priest-assassin (the protagonist, detective Rath, from Cologne, is Catholic), a furious gunfight perilously close to an immense restaurant fish tank, a St. Valentine’s Day-style massacre, a mysterious vision of a Western Front horse, alone on a bleak battlefield, wearing a gas mask, stolen Russian gold, a character who is frequently killed, tank cars filled with lethal war-surplus gas and an elusive female character, a nightclub singer whose stage persona and assassin’s disguise includes a mustache—and who seems to change the side she’s on every other episode.

Also much sturming und dranging.

The New Yorker review includes a link to an extended nightclub scene from Episode 2—the song “Zu Asche, Zu Staube” (“To Ash, To Dust”) knocked me out, although, since I’m from Arroyo Grande, I’ve rarely seen ladies wearing only banana skirts.

The best part, to me, is that it was all put together by a group of young Germans in their twenties to forties. Brilliant work.

Here’s the link to the review:

https://www.newyorker.com/recommends/watch/babylon-berlin

And here is the dance sequence from the opening episode.