The global hit TV series Babylon Berlin pulled audiences into the chaotic hedonism of 1920s Germany, dramatizing the brilliance and fragility of a newly built democratic system with unprecedented ambition. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.

Over the 13 years the German makers worked on the show, modern democracies from the US to Hungary to South Korea have come under pressure in ways the creators say they could never have imagined. Now they are preparing to unveil the fifth and final season, culminating in Adolf Hitler's rise to power, the same week Germany faces a major test in a state election.

The timing, they insist, is pure coincidence, but fitting for an ambitious program set a century ago during the Weimar Republic that has always felt eerily prescient.

As the team gets ready to sign off, the inexorable end is upon the familiar characters of the noirish police procedural, with its lush period sets and frisson of impending doom.

"It's no longer a dance on the rim of the volcano," said lead actress Liv Lisa Fries, using a German idiom for the explosion of avant-garde culture and sexual liberation in the 1920s before the descent into fascism. "We're in the volcano itself."

Fries plays the intrepid working-class heroine Charlotte Ritter, who rises from secretarial duties and underworld sex work to become the first female detective on the Berlin police force. Her co-star Volker Bruch is Gereon Rath, a shell-shocked WWI veteran whose odyssey resembles Christopher Nolan's summer blockbuster The Odyssey.

But the more striking parallel is Germany in 2026. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland, founded around the time work on the series began, now leads national polls. On September 6, it could win its first absolute majority in a state election in Saxony-Anhalt, and two weeks later may beat opponents in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In Berlin, it polls close to the far-left Die Linke.

Bruch noted the political "parallels" but resisted simplistic comparisons, citing an old adage: "History doesn't repeat itself that way – it rhymes."

The blurred lines between life and art took on surreal dimensions. Series three was partly filmed at the neo-baroque Villa Adlon, which in November 2023 hosted a secret meeting of AfD officials and neo-Nazis to discuss a "remigration" plan for mass deportations.

Series five sees Hitler's appointment as Reich chancellor, just as a medical file goes missing that casts new light on his WWI service.

Although it was always clear how the series would end, watching Babylon Berlin meant hoping to the last that history would take another turn. That poignancy transformed a sophisticated crime show into something more affecting and enduring.

Across 50-odd hours, the show, based partly on Volker Kutscher's novels, helped expand the scale and ambition of European TV drama.

"It was almost impossible even then when they started," said Scott Roxborough, European bureau chief of The Hollywood Reporter. It was a product of a "pioneer time" when Germany was willing to throw massive resources at catching up with US and UK shows like Breaking Bad and The Crown.

"I think it would be almost impossible to do it nowadays unless an Apple TV or a Netflix decided to finance everything," he said, which is increasingly unlikely as streaming giants take a cautious, profits-first approach.

Babylon Berlin has reached audiences in 140 countries with its cautionary tale of a vibrant civilization's fragility.

"The secret to the series's success in capturing the zeitgeist is definitely not that it mirrors the present," said co-creator Tom Tykwer. Rather, audiences are drawn to the "transformative force" of 1920s Berlin, when a weak government and churning society left room for women, gay people, and immigrants to rewrite rules.

"That brings forth an incredible number of wonderful, positive, beautiful blossoms, but because it's so experimental, they're also destroyed again almost immediately," he said. "We've tried to explore the universal themes that stem from the fact that political systems are people-centred so are always under threat. It will always be that way."

Tykwer also co-composed much of the music, including the haunting theme "To Ashes, to Dust." The fifth season features a plot excursion to Paris and a rendition by French neo-chanson star Zaho de Sagazan.