Child of the Street
What an astonishing Zeppelin shot that is! Gorgeous. We listen in on two strangers in the Mile High Lounge as they kill time during the long float across the Atlantic. The older grey-haired guy (Abe Gold) is clearly prying - “You meet a stranger and tell them your secrets because you’ll never see them again.” OK, well when in Rome - the younger guy (Oscar Kulanin) outs himself as a Russian spy and I can imagine his supervisor back home smacking his forehead in dismay. Abe won’t quit and draws Kulanin into revealing his mission of helping a Berlin comrade escape from prison. I’ll have to remember that aspect of spy tradecraft in my next life. Ya know, just ask the guy! Tables turned, Abe admits his Berlin business being pure and simple revenge. Hmmm. Now we have two more plot threads to work into the show.
. . . and Credits!
This time the expanding circle opens on Lotte exiting a building and at this point I have to confess embarrassment last recap that I had so little faith in Lotte’s spunk and resilience. Clearly she’s not going to wallow in misery wailing unfair fate. She sees her sister suddenly appear across the street and when spotted Toni runs off to a side street. Lotte calls out to her in vain, but just as it occurs to me that I’ve seen this set-up before - where someone stops in the street facing the camera in a tight closeup when a truck plows into them from the side . . . WHEN THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS!!! Lotte screams herself out of her nightmare and we find her cozy in bed with our favorite Pathology intern, Rudi. So you can imagine my relief when I realize that Lotte has yet to miserably debase herself playing sex-role games in the basement of the Moka Ifti for cash after all. Rudi is such a dingbat, rushing to dress, he confesses total amnesia of being asked a week ago about joining Lotte in the dance contest and doesn’t think Dr Schultz will let him off early. Lotte is not pleased - “Rudi Malzig dependability personified . . .” but you can’t fool me, she’s head over heels for the big lug.
Exiting the building for real this time, Lotte spies her old pal Jacky the bartender roommate. He’s a bit jealous seeing Rudi exit her front entrance. “Why do you keep falling for him? He’s a nitwit!” Lotte shrugs zero argument. I get the sense that Jacky and Lotte are a special category of boy/girl friendship that moonstruck Jacky lacks a snowball’s chance in hell of ever getting in bed with her. Don’t ask me how I know. Turns out they’re still roommates doing that day/night sharing thing where when after Lotte leaves for the day he's going to have to clear out all of her undies drying on improv clotheslines and then scatter beer cans and cheetos to restore his manly bachelor pad vibe. Lotte breaks the news that Jacky is not only joining her in this evening's dance marathon but he gets to pay the 3 mark entry fee! Boy, been there done that!
We see Gereon enter the courtyard of SA Central where there is some noisy chatter for missing Stennes. Gereon learns that Stennes has been demoted due to his mysterious absence and informs everyone Wendt has him in jail. Just then some guy named Hellsdorff announces that Hitler appointed him to lead the local SA guys and Gereon looks worried.
Besides Lotte, another character I vastly underestimated was Fred Jacoby. Freshly fired, instead of moping around in his underwear in his ratty apartment knocking down vodka shots and listening to talk radio all day, he’s already hit the streets with tons of change for the local payphone. He has quite a list of former friends, associates and frenemies to hit on while pissing off the line of folks waiting on the pay-phone to do the same.
Now we view the offices of the NSDAP aka National Socialist German Workers' Party or Nazi-town for short. Hermann Blank, who we first saw arguing with Stennes in E1, answers the editor’s office phone. Googling a bit I’ve learned this is the official newspaper of the NSDAP named “Der Angriff.” On the other end of that conversation is desperate Fred Jacoby joking about being UAM - “unemployed at the moment.” Lucky or not for Fred, Hermann has a gig for Freddie so long as he can lower his posh editorial standards. Fred can’t afford the luxury of pride, but can’t start until Monday as he has this side-gig coming up.
Fred dashes across the street to the Moka Efti, barely in time. Chats briefly with fellow unemployed Lotte then checks in with our favorite hyphenate, chanteuse-dance marathon producer-actor-mom Esther “This is your spot for the next two, three days. You know the rules, yes?” Fred greets the band and launches the proceedings with a showman’s flair as if born to it. Really impressive! He takes about 90 seconds to race thru the rules and then we’re shown Vanna White’s likely great-grandmother all dolled up at the Contestant Badge Board festooned with about 100 numbered tags representing the lady contestants on the floor. “Dames & drones, swingers & swayers, flinchers & fidgeters, wobblers & wavers, shakers & stompers” riffs our Master of Alliteration and the dance contest is on! But not before I offer the costume designer a chef’s kiss for clothing all the dance referees in zebra striped shirts! Yowza!
I’ll overlook the fact that Esther led the event with the painfully obvious choice of “A Day Like Gold” cause honestly, when played up-tempo, the song’s kinda growing on me. But at the risk of being churlish here, either the dancers are all gonna flunk the drug test later or they’re simply not pacing themselves all too well. Bad strategy guys!
Gereon checks in at the office and Henning and Czerwinski are grousing about how hard it is to get those mob Ringvereins on the phone. It’s almost as if they don’t like cops! Henning reports Walter Weintraub is back in town having scoured the countryside for boxers for his fight club. We cut next to a huge elaborately set-designed 1930’s era boxing gym complete with medicine balls, boxing ring and buff guys pounding punching bags. Gereon saunters in and sits with Weintraub who’s watching his newest “foal” Rukeli Trollmann, “a gypsy elegant” do a few rounds. (2) Gereon gets down to business on the whole dead civil clerk thing and Weintraub explains that neither he nor the other “Ringvereins” are very happy about it. The wheels of graft were grinding smoothly with Oelschlager taking his bribes for betting licenses, so it’s a regrettable loss because “it threatens the peace of our hierarchy.”
Finally we check in with our favorite street urchin on the run. She’s standing outside her former tenement home dodging cops to sneak upstairs. Inside is who I take to be a younger cousin, Renate, who’s not happy to see her. Toni needs a place to crash and little cuz reluctantly lets her in. It’s a crowded and depressing homecoming and it gets worse when Renate leads Tina to Aunti’s bedroom to find that she’s been dead for almost two weeks. Toni takes she “died in her sleep” stoically. “One line of the Lord’s Prayer, that’s all we knew, and we opened the window to let her soul out” makes me indescribably sad. They coldly speculate that she won’t smell bad for a while yet which is relevant since Aunti gets a relief check in two weeks so the family can’t afford for her to be officially dead just yet. Fingers crossed.
I need cheering up so it’s back to the Moka Efti to watch madcap dancing and listen to a hot band. The energy level of the room hasn’t dropped at all save for poor Jacky who tended bar all last night.
The boys at the office put their heads together about what they’ve come up with the Ringvereins and conclude that “they’re all pissed about Oelschlager’s demise.” Graf found out that the club licenses for 1931 were due that very day and so without Oelschlager to do the paperwork the Ringvereins are screwed. Gereon ponders about the betting license’s and how all that crime stuff actually works then Graf suggests Gereon to check in on some of his reporter friends for that.
So what do we have here? Why it’s Katelbach and my favorite German Airbnb host Ms Behnke! They’re enjoying what we eventually learn is a sweet post-coital breakfast and the grin on my face won’t quit. So charming that there is still hope for old folks and romance isn’t it? Ms Behnke is skeptically checking the ad that Katelbach helped write wondering if she should have sprung for more than 10 words in her “rooms to let” notice. The text is nearly incomprehensible but being the old pro, Katelbach mansplains with reassurances it will work fine. After humming a few bars, (3) Katelbach then mentions being in a trial soon - a “triumphal development for Litten, Heymann and himself.” As he talks we flash back to yesterdays lunch, I realize that it’s Editor-in-Chief Heymann having recovered from his grief of firing half his staff. I'm embarrassingly clueless here - “Illegal publication of secret docs of the Reich” “I have summoned 28 witness on your behalf.” Katelbach tells Ms Behnke that “it was you who passed the documents on to me.” Ah, “illegal armament . . .” so maybe they’re referencing that secret military base Gereon took pictures of during that insane plane ride last season? It's clear I'm confused here, so apologies. (4)
Time for the street urchins, Toni and Willi, to get to work. A newspaper Toni scans has listings circled in red as they head to Behnke’s place on the second floor. So I guess Ms Behnke’s ad worked after all.
We’re cutting back and forth now. Ms Behnke mentions something about “the negatives” and I'm wondering if those are Gereon's photos. As Katelbach goes to retrieve them for her safekeeping the doorbell buzzes, but first we need to clear up Katelbach’s hurt feelings that Ms Behnke is still treating him like a tenant and not the love-god status he feels deserving of. Old habits die hard I’m guessing, but Ms Behnke sells the idea that it’s better to keep this degree of formality so that future lodgers don’t get a bad impression of her. Or maybe she just wants to keep her dating options open, I dunno.
A door opens to reveal Toni and Willi begging a meal, which Ms Behnke can’t refuse, but when Willi asks for the loo, Katelbach acts on a hunch and shakes down the boy with about 15 items in his satchel. However none of them belong to Ms Behnke. Oops. Behnke charitably offers some coins to them as they leave. While Katelbach doubles down by hiding the negatives he had placed on the table giving Ms Behnke quite a fright. "Love-god" indeed! The director made a point of showing us a silver canister Behnke kept her loose coins in to hand out, so I will too. Toni noticed the canister also and I’ve no doubt she helped herself. We’ll see. . .
And now for something completely different. Alfred and Wendt are on horseback riding a picturesque horse trail. Alfred is sporting another outfit Elton John would covet. A rather natty red velour riding jacket and jodhpurs complete with jaunty full brimmed feathered hat! Sweet. Al’s talking to Wendt, who’s dressed more normally, about rocket science - literally. But Wendt, ever the schemer, has a hidden agenda of perhaps branching off some of that rocket science for military use which would be very patriotic of Alfred. “You mean missiles could make us great again?” and I swear to god I was going to do an Elon/Trump/Alfred analogy hitting on the wacky fallible egos of billionaire nut-jobs, but “Make Missiles Great Again” doesn’t have quite the same cachet. So while I was typing that last line, I noted that Alfred’s horse trail happened to be littered with frisky young men in embrace. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Wendt can’t help but notice either and perhaps file away for later. As the two ride off, who do we see along the path but our University Banner Hanger who was spurned by Moritz. Hmmm, am sure we haven’t seen the last of him!
Gereon checks back with Stennes still in the Hoosegow Bar & Grill. “You’ve been replaced by Hellsdorff” which Stennes is not happy with. He’s so p*sssed that he counters with some dirt on Wendt to Gereon to pressure Wendt to release him. Stennes knows of Wendt’s “perversion” described as “a friend of Dorothy’s”(5) and Stennes has receipts - “Castle Saaleck, June 1925” - “minors in his care.” Yikes. The documents are held at Party HQ in Munich so that’s another chore on Gereon's to-do list if he wants Stennes back in control of the Berlin SA, under his surveillance to keep The Police President happy.
Time now to check back in at the Moka Efti and see if the dancers are still doing full body flips. Hour number 9 and Jerry hasn’t broken a sweat yet, but most of the dancers have. Jacky is still staggering in place and about to collapse so they take a water break and I notice Lotte’s contestant number pinned to her back is “27” which is my lucky number so I feel good about her chances. While Jerry hydrates she takes an official timed cigarette/potty break. We’re treated now to a lovely visual club/dancing sequence here with some great slow jazz trumpet and nice slo-mo dance scenes while Esther sings a pep talk of sorts. I’m assuming all this flows better in German.
“Hope blossoms after midnight.
Watch out, stay alert in the face of the goal.
Which still far away relentlessly comes closer.
Dance as if it was the last time.
Dance as if your life depended on it.
One bat of an eyelid is all it takes
For it all to have been in vain.”
Now we see Graf and I’m wondering if he’s here to scan ID’s but after checking in with bf Jerry he finds Lotte literally propping Jacky upright on the razor’s edge of disqualification. Graf formally taps Jacky on the shoulder and Jacky then takes a moment to focus his eyes a bit to see who that was. Graf says “Relief” and that word resonates for me and Lotte quite a bit. Jacky staggers out and I hope he made it home ok as Lotte is still taking in the fact that a former co-worker is standing before her and she honestly doesn’t know what to think or feel. “I’m the substitute Rudi” says Graf and that’s one stage of relief for Lotte but a more important one is when Graf says “And you’re missed at the office.” which puts Lotte and me near tears. Lotte melts in his arms and states “I messed up big time, Reinhold” Graf agrees but then offers quite the tender pep talk that follows.
“You’re a fighter. There is no such thing as K.O. for the likes of us. We’re children of the street. Giving up is not an option.
If someone knocks you down, you have to get up again. And when they knock you down you have to get up again, even if it hurts.
You think you want to stay down. ‘Dear God, please let me stay down’ but as a child of the street, you mustn’t. Because they would kill you.
So you get up. Again and again you get up, until the other guy realizes he won’t keep you down. And then. . . you knock him down.”
If I knew how to needlepoint I’d transcribe all that on a sampler of sorts and hang it on the wall to give me a kick in the pants when I need one. And so now thanks to my new wall sampler the writers are no longer "dead to me" for writing Lotte out of her dream job. Peace-out, dudes.
The pace picks up at the Moka Efti as the camera dollys back from the stage. To be replaced by headlights driving towards us on a dark night road. Gereon pulls up to a building and we hear a voice-over. “Gereon, ready for another session?” I’m not, but Gereon ascends a staircase anyway. The voiceover continues to explain some of what are called “experimental substances” with various properties. We see Dr Anno Schmidt hand a weasel to Gereon to hold while it’s injected with tonight’s test serum called Pervitin, an amphetamine. It’s “immediate effects are absence of pain, numbness, willingness to take risks, and euphoria” and I’m thinking maybe of ways to sign up for that study.
The weasel is placed in a modest sized glass booth along with a rather large wolf. What follows is yet another brilliant Babylon Berlin WTF scene where the weasel and wolf face off with extreme prejudice. I would not like to see a doped up weasel seething at me with that much hate in it’s eyes without maybe a flamethrower at hand. An invisible checkered flag is dropped then excellent sound design let’s us imagine the mayhem we don’t witness. The camera pans down to reveal the weasel mucking long pinkish veins out of the dead blood-spattered wolf’s neck. Oi! That is one mean mother-f-ing weasel and I’m never going into the woods without a flamethrower ever again.
Dr Anno hints that the next phase is ready for human trials while we cut to credits.
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Yikes. I’m still stunned by that weasel scene, omg! I had read about Germans being coked up to the gills during WWII and I suppose this is the genesis of that. But at least none of my favorite characters were in that glass booth with that weasel so I’d say this was a pretty satisfactory episode. We’ve made slow progress on the O murder, stalled out totally on poor Benni, and made some moves toward getting Wendt in hot water. But at least Toni has a relatively safe roof over her head, Lotte’s not hooking yet, and I got to see Ms Behnke and Katelbach coo like lovebirds which was fun. Plus the dance contest is only in it’s 10th hour or so with many great Moka Efti scenes to come. As per usual this will get many proofreads and revisions as I get up to speed on Blogger typography, but I still make no apology for run-on sentences! Be sure to check out the cast headshot graphics to keep the names straight and if you made it this far, thanks!
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Footnotes!
1) Yikes, I had forgotten that Bohm speculated heavily in the stock market using margin loans prior to last season’s market crash so he is seriously cash-strapped. Near the end of S3E12 Bohm went berserk on the Stock Exchange floor due to his losses with Gereon talking him down from suicide.
2) S3E12 - Lotte travels to an address she finds on many postcards of her late mothers stash of memorabilia. Some time in mom’s past, she visited this hotel every year. Lotte finds out that later visits included a young boy, Rukeli Trollmann, a boxer. I’m thinking this was mom’s holiday affair with a first husband? and we’re led to believe Rukeli might be Lotte’s step-brother?
3) Many kudos to Reddit poster Leather-Food7781 for this great background on a song Katelbach hums briefly at breakfast!
“Also, as a very detail focused person I love the song Katelbach was quietly singing to himself in the scene with Elizabeth. It’s a song released by Austrian singer Austin Egen in 1930 actually the context fits so well I could imagine the show writers planned their characters a bit based on that song, but who knows! Here’s the lyrics, roughly translated
4) Clean-up on aisle 5! - There was a ton of plot in S3 about a dossier Ms Behnke found after a tenant disappeared involving an illegal military scheme in violation of the Versailles Accord that I have fubar-ed to the moon as gently pointed out by Baldricks-tecspacles via r/BabylonBerlin. I'll get this straight eventually, I promise.
Katelbach was charged with treason for revealing state secrets via his newspaper article. Heymann and Litton are working with Katelbach and are discussing strategy for his trial which happens soon.
5) Wikipedia tells me that “‘A friend of Dorothy’ is an insider term for a gay man. Stating that, or asking if someone was a friend of Dorothy was used for discussing sexual orientation while avoiding hostility. The term was likely based on the character Dorothy Gale of the Oz series of novels which have been interpreted as including much queer subtext.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_of_Dorothy
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