''Charité'' is a German drama television series. The first season was directed by
Sönke Wortmann
Sönke Wortmann (; 25 August 1959 in Marl, North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German film director and producer.
Biography
Wortmann's father was a miner. After Wortmann's A-Levels he wanted to become a professional football player and started playi ...
, and was written by
Grimme-Preis winner Dorothee Schön and Sabine Thor-Wiedemann. The season is set during 1888 and the years following at
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
's
Charité
The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine; ) is Europe's List of hospitals by capacity, largest university hospital, affiliated with Humboldt University of Berlin, Humboldt University and the Free ...
hospital. The series premiered on 21 March 2017 on the German channel
Das Erste
Das Erste (; "The First") is the flagship national television channel of the ARD (broadcaster), ARD association of public broadcasting corporations in Germany. ''Das Erste'' is jointly operated by the ARD (broadcaster)#Institutions and member org ...
, and was distributed in the USA and UK on
Netflix
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
between April 2018 and June 2022.
A second series went into production in November 2017, and first aired in Germany in February 2019. This season is directed by
Anno Saul and was also written by Schön and Thor-Wiedemann. It is set in the years from 1943 to 1945. The cast was replaced with an entirely new set of actors because the many years elapsed in the storyline meant that all characters were different. This second series began streaming on Netflix in North America in mid-2019 as ''Charité at War''.
Season 3 launched on ARD and Netflix Germany on 12 January 2021.
The season is set in 1961, the same year that construction began on the
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...
.
Cast
Season 1
*
Alicia von Rittberg as Ida Lenze, a fictitious patient and recipient of a life-saving operation who becomes an indentured medical assistant for the hospital.
* as Georg Tischendorf, a medical student who wishes to be a photographer
*
Justus von Dohnányi
Justus von Dohnányi (born 2 December 1960) is a German actor, best known for portraying Wilhelm Burgdorf in 2004 film '' Downfall''.
Life and career
Born in Lübeck, von Dohnányi is the son of conductor Christoph von Dohnányi and actress Re ...
as
Robert Koch
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch ( ; ; 11 December 1843 – 27 May 1910) was a German physician and microbiologist. As the discoverer of the specific causative agents of deadly infectious diseases including tuberculosis, cholera and anthrax, he i ...
, a revolutionary bacteriologist, who has recently returned from India
*
Matthias Koeberlin
Matthias Koeberlin (born 28 March 1974, Mainz) is a German actor and reciter. His work includes the British-German co-production ''The Sinking of the Laconia'' (2010, UK premiere, 2011) and 2017 in German television series ''Charité (TV series), ...
as
Emil Behring, an ambitious doctor with an opium addiction
*
Christoph Bach as
Paul Ehrlich
Paul Ehrlich (; 14 March 1854 – 20 August 1915) was a Nobel Prize-winning German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology and antimicrobial chemotherapy. Among his foremost achievements were finding a cure fo ...
, a Jewish doctor with tuberculosis
*
Ernst Stötzner as
Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow ( ; ; 13 October 18215 September 1902) was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician. He is known as "the father of modern pathology" and as the founder o ...
, a professor and head of pathology
*
Matthias Brenner as
Ernst von Bergmann
Ernst Gustav Benjamin von Bergmann (16 December 1836 – 25 March 1907) was a Baltic German surgeon. He was the first physician to introduce heat sterilisation of surgical instruments and is known as a pioneer of aseptic surgery.
Early life ...
, a surgeon
* as
*
Emilia Schüle as Hedwig Freiberg, an actress with an almost obsessive interest in bacteriology and particularly Robert Koch
* Ramona Kunze-Libnow as Matron Martha, the devout matron of the nurses at Charité
* Klara Deutschmann as Sister Therese, a recently promoted nurse and friend of Ida
* Tanja Schleiff as Nurse Edith, a nurse with unionization aspirations
* Monika Oschek as Nurse Stine, a nurse who contracts diphtheria
* Daniel Sträßer as Heinrich von Minckwitz, a reporter for the ''Berlin Daily''
* Greta Bohacek as Mariechen
* Stella Hilb as Hedda Ehrlich
*
Lucas Prisor as
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia from 1888 until his abdication in 1918, which marked the end of the German Empire as well as the Hohenzollern dynasty ...
* Runa Greiner as Else Spinola
* Rosa Enskat as Emmi Koch
* Yusuke Yamasaki as
Kitasato Shibasaburō
Baron was a Japanese physician and bacteriologist. He is remembered as the co-discoverer of the infectious agent of bubonic plague in Hong Kong during an outbreak in 1894, almost simultaneously with Alexandre Yersin.
Kitasato was nomin ...
, a Japanese bacteriologist working with Robert Koch
* Michael Pitthan as
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...
* Thomas Zielinski as
Carl Hagenbeck
Carl Hagenbeck (10 June 1844 – 14 April 1913) was a Germans, German merchant of wild animals who supplied many European zoos, as well as P. T. Barnum. He created the modern zoo with animal enclosures without bars that were closer to their natur ...
Season 2
*
Mala Emde as Anni Waldhausen, a medical student, studying eugenics under De Crinis and writing a dissertation on self-mutilation; an expectant mother
*
Ulrich Noethen as
Ferdinand Sauerbruch, a pioneering surgeon and the head of surgery at Charité
*
Jannik Schümann as Otto Marquardt, a medical student, to be sent to the
Eastern Front, closely-aligned with Ferdinand
* Luise Wolfram as Margot Sauerbruch, Ferdinand's wife
* Artjom Gilz as Artur Waldhausen, Anni's husband, working for De Crinis, euthanising "unwanted children"
*
Jacob Matschenz as Martin Schelling, a male nurse with a prosthetic leg, works for Ferdinand and is especially close to Otto.
* Frida-Lovisa Hamann as Nurse Christel, a nurse who still believes in Germany's "ultimate victory"
* Susanne Böwe as Nurse Käthe, a matron nurse
* Lukas Miko as
Max de Crinis, a surgeon general high-ranking in the
NSDAP
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers ...
; a staunch proponent of eugenics and heading up
Aktion T4
(German, ) was a campaign of Homicide#By state actors, mass murder by involuntary euthanasia which targeted Disability, people with disabilities and the mentally ill in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-WWII, war trials against d ...
* as Adolphe Jung (
de), an immigrant doctor who hides his dislike of the NSDAP
* Sarah Bauerett as Maria Fritsch (
de), an American spy along Fritz Kolbe
*
Marek Harloff as
Fritz Kolbe
Fritz Kolbe (25 September 1900 – 16 February 1971) was a German diplomat who became a spy against the Nazis in World War II.
Early life
Kolbe was born on 25 September 1900 in Berlin to middle-class parents. His father was a saddle maker. Throu ...
, an American spy with Maria Fritsch
*
Peter Kremer as Georg Bessau (
de), a professor who softly champions the involuntary euthanasia program
* Katharina Heyer as
Magda Goebbels,
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...
's wife
* Maximilian Klas as
Peter Sauerbruch, Ferdinand and Margot's son
* Pierre Kiwitt as
Claus von Stauffenberg, a soldier who served alongside Peter
* as
Hans von Dohnányi
Hans von Dohnanyi (; originally ''Johann von Dohnányi'' ; 1 January 1902 – 8 or 9 April 1945) was a German jurist. He used his position in the Abwehr to help Jews escape Germany, worked with German resistance against the Nazi régime, ...
, a severely-ill patient of Ferdinand's
* as
Christine von Dohnanyi, Hans's wife
*
Thomas Neumann as
Karl Bonhoeffer, De Crinis's predecessor
*
Ludwig Simon
Ludwig Simon was born in 1819. He became a lawyer in the town of Trier
Trier ( , ; ), formerly and traditionally known in English as Trèves ( , ) and Triers (see also Names of Trier in different languages, names in other languages), is a ci ...
as Paul Lohmann, a patient at Charité suspected of having self-inflicted his gunshot wound
Season 3
* Nina Gummich as Ella Wendt
*
Nina Kunzendorf as
Ingeborg Rapoport
*
Philipp Hochmair as
Otto Prokop
*
Uwe Ochsenknecht as Helmut Kraatz
* Max Wagner as Alexander Nowack
*
Franz Hartwig as Curt Bruncken
* Patricia Meeden as nurse Ariana
* Amber Bongard as nurse Petra
* Hildegard Schroedter as head nurse Gerda
* Uwe Preuss as janitor Fritz Krug
*
Timo Meitner as assistant Wittenberg
*
Anatole Taubmann as
Mitja Rapoport
* Nicholas Reinke as party secretary Lehmann
* Peter Miklusz as Hajo Brennscheidt
* Christian Beermann as captain Hertweck
Episodes
Series 1 (2017)
In 1888, between breakthroughs in medical research and enormous social upheavals, the Charité is well on its way to becoming the most famous hospital in the world. It is a city within the city, following its own laws and rules. At the beginning of the Wilhelmine Period, up to 4,000 patients are treated annually. Along with the expected injuries caused by the booming industrialization, patients suffer from infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid and cholera, as well as from sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, there are many medical students, taught at the Berlin University, who are being trained in this famous hospital by the future Nobel Prize winners and most prestigious doctors of the time: Rudolf Virchow, the founder of the modern health care systems, Robert Koch, the discoverer of the tuberculosis bacillus, Emil von Behring, whose work contributed greatly to the healing of diphtheria, and Paul Ehrlich, who developed the first drug against syphilis.
Series 2 (2019)
In 1943, more and more patients are admitted into the Berlin Charité due to
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. The hospital is still considered a focal point for medicine, but the staff is divided since some members do not support the regime while others are staunch followers of the government. One of the best known doctors at the Charité is
Ferdinand Sauerbruch, a surgeon practicing there since 1928. He became world-famous in the 1930s by developing innovative surgical techniques which greatly decreased the risks of operations at the time. He was also responsible for inventing new types of prostheses which improved the mobility of a patient's remaining muscle. He seems to become more and more critical of the Nazi regime as World War II progresses, which makes him clash with several of his colleagues. One of them is Max de Crinis, a psychiatrist. He is a high-ranking member of the
SS who greatly supports the government. Unlike Sauerbruch, De Crinis is also an avid proponent of the country's
euthanasia programmes, some of which are carried out at the Charité.
Series 3 (2021)
References
External links
* {{IMDb title, 5337806 , Charité
Charité on Global Screen
2017 German television series debuts
German drama television series
German documentary television series
German English-language television shows
Charité
German medical television series
Television series set in the 1880s
Television series set in the 1890s
Television shows set in Berlin
2010s LGBTQ-related drama television series