Charité (TV series)

Charité is a German drama television series. The first season was directed by Sönke Wortmann, 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's Charité hospital. The series premiered on 21 March 2017 on the German channel Das Erste, and was distributed in the USA and UK on Netflix 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.

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.
• Maximilian Meyer-Bretschneider as Georg Tischendorf, a medical student who wishes to be a photographer
• Justus von Dohnányi as Robert Koch, a revolutionary bacteriologist, who has recently returned from India
• Matthias Koeberlin as Emil Behring, an ambitious doctor with an opium addiction
• Christoph Bach as Paul Ehrlich, a Jewish doctor with tuberculosis
• Ernst Stötzner as Rudolf Virchow, a professor and head of pathology
• Matthias Brenner as Ernst von Bergmann, a surgeon
• Thomas Loibl as Bernhard Spinola
• 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
• Runa Greiner as Else Spinola
• Rosa Enskat as Emmi Koch
• Yusuke Yamasaki as Kitasato Shibasaburō, a Japanese bacteriologist working with Robert Koch
• Michael Pitthan as Arthur Conan Doyle
• Thomas Zielinski as Carl Hagenbeck

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; a staunch proponent of eugenics and heading up Aktion T4
• Hans Löw 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, 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's wife
• Maximilian Klas as Peter Sauerbruch, Ferdinand and Margot's son
• Pierre Kiwitt as Claus von Stauffenberg, a soldier who served alongside Peter
• Max von Pufendorf as Hans von Dohnányi, a severely-ill patient of Ferdinand's
• Anja Schneider as Christine von Dohnanyi, Hans's wife
• Thomas Neumann as Karl Bonhoeffer, De Crinis's predecessor
• Ludwig Simon 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. 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

• Charité at IMDb
• Charité on Global Screen