Babylon Berlin: Weimar Berlin, 1929–1933

Gereon Rath's first mornings in Berlin are spent at the police headquarters behind Alexanderplatz, the red-brick 'Rote Burg' where he meets the clerk Charlotte Ritter and starts investigating with Bruno Wolter. The real headquarters behind it was destroyed in the war, so the series recreated it with CGI and used the Rotes Rathaus for exterior close-ups; the lobby and paternoster scenes were shot in the Rathaus Schöneberg. The Rotes Rathaus itself, built between 1861 and 1869 and rebuilt between 1951 and 1956, still stands on Rathausstraße near Alexanderplatz.

Para el visitante: Berlin's city hall on Rathausstraße, a short walk from Alexanderplatz.

By day Charlotte Ritter works as a police clerk; at night she takes clients at the Moka Efti, the cabaret owned by the Armenian, where Nikoros performs 'Zu Asche, zu Staub'. The series makes it a glass-fronted nightclub and brothel, far from the real Moka Efti — a coffee house opened in March 1926 and moved into the Equitable-Palast in April 1929, serving 25,000 cups a day. Its interior was filmed in the Delphi cinema in Weissensee; the glass facade was built on the Babelsberg backlot. The Equitable-Palast was demolished after the war.

Precisión del lugar: The nightclub exists only in the series; the pin marks the Equitable-Palast, where the real Moka Efti opened in April 1929.

Para el visitante: The Equitable-Palast was demolished after the war; its corner at Leipziger Straße and Friedrichstraße is public street.

The first season's plot arrives by rail: a train of tank cars bound for Berlin is held at the Anhalter goods yard after its freight papers go missing, then shunted into a locomotive shed. One wagon carries the Sorokins' gold, bound for Istanbul. The passenger terminus beside it opened in 1880 and became Berlin's gateway to the south; the goods station survives only as an eastern administration block, now the Spectrum science centre. The rail-yard scenes were shot at the Rheinisches Industriebahn-Museum in Cologne.

Precisión del lugar: The scene is set in the Anhalter goods yard south of the canal; the pin marks the passenger terminus beside it.

Para el visitante: The façade fragment stands on Askanischer Platz; the former goods station's administration block houses the Spectrum science centre.

The first season depicts the real Blutmai of May 1929, when police broke up banned open-air gatherings and the fighting around Hermannplatz in Neukölln lasted into the evening; between 32 and 38 civilians were killed. In the series the violence and the official cover-up form a running strand, including a faked police shooting. The production filmed the riots at Hermannplatz itself, dressing the working U-Bahn station — opened in 1926, with the first escalators in the Berlin subway — for the period.

Para el visitante: Hermannplatz is in Neukölln; its U-Bahn station is still in service.

Bruno Wolter's apartment sits beside a vast factory, the setting for several sequences around his home. In reality it is the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, the Thyssen ironworks that produced pig iron from 1901 until 1985. Peter Latz's 1991 design turned the blast furnaces, bunkers and gas tanks into a public park, with walkways through the old works and climbers on the concrete walls. The show used the disused plant as Wolter's industrial neighbour, far from Berlin.

Para el visitante: The park is open to visitors; walkways cross the former blast furnaces.

Season two builds a long suspense sequence around a performance of The Threepenny Opera, with two characters humming 'Mack the Knife' and giving Rath clues. The production filmed it at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, the theatre where the play had its first performance on 31 August 1928 — the same stage, a few years after the real premiere. The neo-baroque house opened in 1892 and has been home to the Berliner Ensemble, founded by Helene Weigel and Bertolt Brecht, since 1954.

Para el visitante: The theatre on Schiffbauerdamm is home to the Berliner Ensemble.

Alfred Nyssen's castle is the setting for the fourth season's New Year's Eve party, where he announces his marriage to Helga, who wears the Blue Rothschild diamond; the gem had been stolen from the family's castle. The production used Schloss Drachenburg, a villa completed in 1882–84 on the Drachenfels above Königswinter. It was built for Baron Stephan von Sarter, who planned to live there but never did. The real castle is served by the Drachenfels Railway.

Para el visitante: Schloss Drachenburg is above Königswinter, served by the Drachenfels Railway.

In the final season Dr Forster tries to hand documents about Hitler's and Anno Rath's shared stay in a 1918 military hospital to the editor of Tempo at the Presseball, but is spotted and flees. The production staged the ball at the Volksbühne on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, using both its interior and exterior. The theatre opened on 30 December 1914, designed by Oskar Kaufmann as a people's theatre with the slogan 'Die Kunst dem Volke' — art to the people. Badly damaged in the war, it was rebuilt between 1950 and 1954.

Para el visitante: The Volksbühne still stages theatre on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz.