BABYLON BERLIN

Seems well done, but I’m just one episode into it.

The lead guy is not conventionally handsome but pretty sexy all the same.

Homosexuals?

Corrupt, brutal, sociopathic, the series perfectly illustrates why Germans avidly exterminated millions of humans.

Isn’t this series dubbed from another language? I found it unwatchable

[quote]Isn’t this series dubbed from another language? I found it unwatchable

If so, you should be able go into Netflix Settings and select "English subtitles." Dubbing is the worst. I switched it in another German series.

I love the scheming White Russian countess who plays the theramin!

I'm finding this intriguing. Finished only two episodes so far but love the inter-war zeitgeist feel and look of it.

I just started watching it, 2 1/2 episodes in right now. I love the history of inter-war Germany so this show is like the holy grail to me. The reproductions of 1929 Berlin are astounding. So sad it would all be gone in about 15 years with millions of innocent people dead. I'll continue watching. Thanks for starting this thread, OP.

I loved it. Dense, complicated storytelling, terrific acting, gorgeous design. Love the little Russian constructivist cartoons during the end credits.

What fascinates me about this period (summer of 1929) is how well the Nazis are hidden in the woodwork at this point.

The Communist turmoil in Berlin is also surprising. I knew Berlin was red, but not THAT red.

The end of the 2nd episode is amazing with that weird performance by the Countess (in male drag!) in the cabaret with everyone jazz dancing maniacally.

r10, the prevalence of Communists in Berlin during the early years of the Depression were partly how Hitler came to power. The Germans were terrified of them running amok in Germany, and Hitler exploited that fear when he set fire to the Reichstag and had a Communist persecuted for it. That's basically how he swept to power.

I love it, just eight episodes in.

I’m also a few in now - really enjoying it!

Which I’m surprised about - as I didn’t like the book it was based on much. Only read a few chapters - found it dull.

If you’re interested in the Germany-between-the-wars period - i really love Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther books. My favourite series! Kerr’s wife - Jane Thynne - also has a series set in late thirties Germany with a female protagonist that are great! The jackets look more romantic than spy/thriller - but don’t be put off. The David Downing series starting with Zoo Station is also very good.

Any others I should know about?

Love it so far. It's intense and dense though. Took a breather halfway through and will finish the rest this week.

I binged it.

If you are interested in Germany/Berlin of the period, I suggest reading "Goodbye to Berlin" and "Cristopher and His Kind" by Cristopher Isherwood. The first is a collection of short stories from 1939 when gays in Britain were prosecuted while Berlin offered freedom to gay men like Isherwood. Still, the storyteller is just a camera recording other people's lives, mostly gay characters. Therefore the latter autobiographical book from 1976 fills the gaps to give a full picture of his life in Berlin at the time.

Just to clarify: "Goodbye to Berlin" was only published in 1939, it is about Isherwood's Berlin years: 1929 - 1933.

I am liking it. I find the 20s, with the fashions, music, and wild nightlife in NYC, Paris & Berlin, so glamorous. Until I realize how much everyone must have smelled.

The costumes and acting are wonderful. And they do a great job of showing how fucking dirty everything was back then.

But some of the CGI is a little ten-years-ago and the set designs sometimes too 30s. And the song the Russian sang at the club (which I liked) did not sound like anything from the late 20s.

[quote] And the song the Russian sang at the club (which I liked) did not sound like anything from the late 20s.

It sounded exactly like Weimar-era German-flavored jazz to me.

I've just noticed that they've woven in Roxy Music's, "Dance Away the Heartache" in the score. And they've managed to do 20's makeup and clothing without looking costumey (although I would die for the Countess' male drag leather greatcoat. Even the drag queens were more elegant then.

I love it. The lead actor is so sexy. He needs to show peen.

[quote] R17: I am liking it. I find the 20s, with the fashions, music, and wild nightlife in NYC, Paris & Berlin, so glamorous. Until I realize how much everyone must have smelled.

They still smell in Paris today. It’s not just a joke.

Male nudity quotient?

I love this show. Great costumes and set designs to boot. The actors look natural for a change. No bleached teeth and excessive Botox.

Male nudity quotient is not high, except for one nice brief shot of handsome Gereon bare-assed fucking his sister-in-law.

The show is absolutely insane.

MINOR SPOILERS

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I just finished the first season and there were more wild things in it than The Perils of Pauline. Major characters get shot by another major character (seemingly out of the blue) midway through; another one is assassinated with a bomb (with his poor daughter); another major character appears to die a long drawn out death in one episode and then is revealed to have survived in another;another sizeable character seems to be killed in one episode and then it is revealed to have been a cruel hoax the next episode. And the final revelation about the Sorokin gold is one of the most bizarrely unexpected things I've ever seen in a plot.

[quote] I knew Berlin was red, but not THAT red

Marxist assumption was industrial societies were more likely to host a "workers revolution" then the less educated agricultural states like Russia. If the Nazis had lost the political struggle Germany would have fallen. Then you get into a what-if world asking how many European dominoes would have followed.

R24, don’t forget the skinnydipping.

We've been binging also and are on Episode 11. I find it almost mesmerizing and agree totally with the rave reviews others have given it.

Isn't the plan to do seven seasons, each season covering one year up to the start of WWII?

It's superb. The anachronistic music is actually pretty efective at capturing the zeitgeist, paradoxically.

Bryan Ferry has a cameo in one of the club scenes.

A lot of casual female nudity, but two of the actors do full-frontal (non-sexual).

I love the two leads, Liv Lisa Fries and Volker Bruch.

amazing show still on 5th ep season 1

Here is the song:

Loved nit. I needed to use subtitles because the dubbing was bad.

[quote]Loved nit. I needed to use subtitles because the dubbing was bad.

I found it on the web a few months ago in German with subtitles, and I thought that was easier to follow than the dubbed version.

That nightclub scene is brilliant, as is the entire series.

My only problem with it was wondering when that poor girl ever slept? Whore by night, police secretary by day, and in between dealing with that circus sideshow of a family--and that's the early episodes. By the end she's tracking people, having secret meetings, staking out railcars, and God knows what else for days at a time.

[quote]Isn't the plan to do seven seasons, each season covering one year up to the start of WWII?

The author says the books will go up to Kristallnacht in '38.

So far we've only gotten through the summer of 1929. Wheeee.

Can't imagine what these characters are going to go through over the next 9 years.

So my question about Berlin being such a Communist stronghold - when Hitler took power, the Communists were the first ones to get tossed into the camps, yes? Because it seems to me that 1933 would have turned into civil war otherwise.

The scene with the kid who signs Mahler for his deaf parents touched me very much.

The lead actor needs to show peen.

[quote]The scene with the kid who signs Mahler for his deaf parents

Which episode?

R40, I forget which episode that is exactly but it’s one of the early ones.

Anyone who likes this show should get the book VOLUPTUOUS PANIC, which is filled with tons of advertisements and photos from the seediest places in Weimar Berlin, including a detailed map of where all of the places were and descriptions of which places catered to which fetishes, etc. It’s fascinating. Don’t look at the pictures right before going to bed. Some of it is nightmarish.

Weimar?

Why not.

Why would anyone ever think of trying to watch any movie or TV show dubbed? Subtitles are not that hard, people.

I love this show - I find every episode riveting. Always surprised when each episode ends b/c it feels like it's only been half hour or so.

[quote]Why would anyone ever think of trying to watch any movie or TV show dubbed?

Dubbed is the worst.

Ich sehe, dass Sie das erste und beste boykottiert haben. Du magst kein Deutsch? Wir werden darüber nachsehen.

I must have missed something in the plot, but what was the purpose of switching Gereon's medication? Does it have anything to do with the final scene?

SPOILER ALERT!

I was shocked that they killed/drowned the lead actress! She was the best thing about the series.

I just started it and am enjoying it.

I really liked it. I almost shut off the first episode though, because they had this riDICulous nightclub scene where everybody's dancing, in sync no less, in very un-20s fashion to a very un-20s tune. I'm like oh forget this, but I was too lazy to turn it off. Except for that one egregious anachronism, the first season was flawless and I look forward to the next.

Ugh, the link at R32 is the scene I'm talking about. It's ludicrous. Sounds nothing like jazz in the 20s at all. The crowd looks like they're at a U2 concert in the 80s, ready to flick their lighters when the lights go down.

Just started this and after one episode I'm hooked.

I'm four episodes in and I'm definitely hooked. The series gives you a good feel for the hardscrabble life of the average German then, and it makes you understand how the Nazis could eventually come into power.

I like the program. I have to watch it with dubbing because the subtitles go by too fast for my partner.

I do *really* hate the anachronisms. I must say that part of my problem was that it was presented to me as being very historically accurate. It really isn't. If you are going to have CGI sets, why are there buildings that did not exist until the 1930s? The Trotskyites refer to The Fourth International which was not formed until 1938. The costumes are generally pretty good for a German film (the Germans suck at historically accurate clothing), but there are a fair amount of 1960s cloches pretending to be 1920s. The film that Charlotte watches in an early episode is from 1930.

Actually, I can deal with the new music. As someone mentioned up thread, is does capture the feel of the time.

The Nazis should be more visible than they are. Joseph Goebels was very active in Berlin and in 1929 a member of the Reichstag.

Just for fun, here is actual footage of the May Day riots.

R40, it's either in episode 3 or 4.

Thanks, R55.

[quote] I was shocked that they killed/drowned the lead actress! She was the best thing about the series.

Watch the next episode.

Does anyone know the actor's name who signs the Mahler song?

R58, it's Anton von Lucke.

Any gay characters?

R58, In addition to German, Anton von Lucke also speaks French and English.

R60, there are a couple characters who did drag, but I can't remember if they were gay.

The body of the Russian in the morgue, was that makeup, CGI, or a manikin? I cannot imagine that he had full body makeup. That would have taken hours.

I really wanted to like it -- i love that debaucherous period in history -- but it moved too damn slow. I gave up after third episode.

Thank you, r59. He's adorable.

Just finished the series today -- I want more! Not perfect (a couple episodes in the second eight dragged a little), but the best series I've seen in a good while. I especially loved the production design. And I probably have a TV crush on Volker Bruch (and possibly the Armenian ganglord). Sadly, I cannot get anyone else to watch it, probably due to it being 16 episodes of sub-titled German, even though I tell people it's got everything -- noir detectives (with secrets...), White Russians, Red Russians, drag queens, spunky typists, proto-Nazis, gangsters, hypnotists, murderous priests, etc. Sigh...

Please tell me there'll be more!

Did they really have porn movies in 1929...with 3 ways??

R67, yes.

I really liked it.

SPOILERS:

There is no way the drowned girl of the bad cop would have been alive. That was just silly.

I am glad that the "hero" was shown to be anything but that at the end. It makes it more interesting.

[quote] Did they really have porn movies in 1929...with 3 ways??

Yes!

A few minutes in it was just collection of made up tropes. You have one chance to hook people and you waste it on a fucking police rooftop chase? Could you be any more generic?

The girl playing Greta was very appealing. I had the hots for the Russian embassy guy. And the lead was handsome.

I think it's absolutely brilliant. It's my understanding that there will be at least another season. On the face of it it is a period detective story, but there's enough background to understand the bigger picture of what was happening in Weimar society. I loved the episode where a lot of it was about a typical Sunday: church, drinks at the boss's house, swimming at the Wannsee. In a way it dragged, but I think that was intentional to contrast with the flow of events and show how people actually see their daily lives.

R10, Berlin was considered very left-wing. Wedding, the neighborhood where the riots were centered, was known as Red Wedding because of the concentration of Communists.

I'm hoping for multiple seasons in the future. Spend the money, Germany!

I’m glad we’ll at least be getting Deutschland ‘86 thanks to its success on Sundance over here.

I wish they had covered gay life in Berlin. Voluptuous Panic goes into great detail about the varieties of gay prostitutes that were available.

There was just that one bit in it where the two rent boys fought over Gereon in the street, I guess.

When does Deutschland '86 start?

I think it starts airing here in the fall.

Finally finished. Phew. Damn, that was one great final twist at the end.

I hope the lead actor presents his hole in the next season.

The actress playing the lead’s lover looked so much like Renee Zellweger (before she had all that work done on her face).

Thanks for the recommendation. Wonderful. If anyone is interested, there's a book called "Gay Berlin" . I guess Berlin was a military city in the 1700s, and so homosexuality was quiet and accepted for years. Beautiful book, wonderful series.

I now have recurring dreams about dancing with Gereon in our pajamas, concluding with incredible sex.

That was one of my favorite scenes, R85. I wound it back several times. I also like the little barback girl in the neighborhood bar who liked to watch Gereon dance.

R86, she was adorable. That was a lovely touch. I hope she returns for S3 but I hope she doesn’t end up in the Hitler Youth!

I just finished this series. This is one of the best series I've watched on Netflix and was totally riveting to the end. I felt like was watching an old 1920 silent film movie, it had the feel and vibe of an old time movie. The production was beautiful and the actors incredible.

SPOILERS:

I am so glad Charlotte survived. I really thought she was a goner. I don't think she looks like Renee Zellweger, no way she's far too beautiful. She has an amazing face and has a great future ahead of her. I think she is in Starz Counterpart.

The lead actor is handsome but he's a little too short. He seems very intense. I cracked up at the dancing scenes, he dances like a nerd having a spaz attack.

R88, I posted that I thought the actress who plays Gereon’s lover/sister-in-law looks like Zellweger.

I think they started shooting S2 this month!

Oh I misread, Helga does look like Renee Zellweger, Helga is very plain and uninteresting. I'm Team Charlotte/Gereon.

Great to hear they're shooting the next season, it is such a fascinating series.

lasted half way thru episode one.

it trys way too hard...

I’m wondering how much we’ll see that Russian emigre performer/assassin gal in Paris.

Loved it all! Charlotte was such an likable character that actress was amazing. Gereon I have mixed feelings about, he is an excellent actor but was maybe not the physical type?

Did anyone answer why they changed Gereon's medication to what appears to be heroine or morphine? Because his brother was prescribing it? It is definitely not an easy series but it was a joy to come back to. I streamed over 6 weeks.

[quote]it trys way too hard...

Oh, dear.

You should try harder.

I see the blocked bitch at r94 is being obnoxious here as well. Because of course. Why is it that the most annoying posters are also the most prolific?

The actress who plays Charlotte has a very likable quality. And in some angles, she looks like Catherine Deneuve.

R96 She is the find of the show.

Just finished this today. What a great show! You have to wTch it in German with subtitles. The Englsh dubbed version is terrible.

So next season:

I guess we learn the fate of the maid that was tricked into murdering the DA. And maybe the gold train car. Did Gereons lover fuck Nyssen after their dinner? So Gereon was a coward and abandoned his brother. Got that. The horse in the gas mask means the brother had something to with the porn. Is that right? Will the Russian Fake countess come back to Germany? Or will we get to see Paris too? There's a lot to flesh out.

I wished they hadn't killed the fat police officer. He was corrupt but interesting. The scene with the flaming train was incredible. In fact, this was one of the most beautifully filmed tv shows ever made. You can see the money in it.

Can't wait for more Gereon. He's hot. But pocket sized right?

I love me some pocket sized Gereon.

I love this show but I cannot figure out how to revert it back to the original German without the dubbing (which I find infuriating)... any hints?

It's in the options menu on Netflix r100. What type of streaming device do you use? I use Roku and just hit the options button while its playing. The show freezes and I scroll down to subtitles and German with English subtitles is an option. Select and hit play.

Couldn’t finish the first ep because of the hard-core porn.

It’s just male fantasy.

Disappointed. Watched the clip at r37...omg so cheesy. I can’t even.

R102, you’re missing out, then. It’s a great series. Season 2 finally starts shooting next month.

Filming of season THREE with 10 new episodes has begun.

[quote] The third season, set in the early 1930s, sees Rath investigating the movie industry just as the talkies start to eclipse silent films, “leaving many by the wayside: producers, cinema owners – and, of course, silent film stars,” the producers said. Actor Volker Bruch returns as Rath and Liv Lisa Fries as Charlotte Ritter.

Sorry, R104, of course we had two seasons on Netflix, not ome, but they were released together.

The next season cannot come soon enough. If there wasn't so much else to watch these days I would happy rewatch BBerlin. I just wish I could get others to watch it. NO ONE will. I need new freunden.

R115, I strongly recommended the series to a couple friends. They eventually did try watching it but couldn't get past the first few episodes, sigh.

When does the new season drop?

Next season is wrapping up shooting this month. It is supposed to drop at the end of the year and in 2020, on a series of different platforms and a rolling release schedule.

Thank you, R118

I so want Volker Bruch to dance around my apartment in pj bottoms and a tank top. And then I want to fuck him for hours.

The new season will take place in the early 1930s, Deadline reported, and the burgeoning German film industry will play a big role. Rath will confront the dark side of the movie business when a star is found dead. Ritter will also be back for the new season.

Some of the new season will be shot at the historic Badelsberg Studio, one of the oldest film studios in the world.

“We’re continuing with the plot lines of the first two seasons — the personal and the political,” co-director and co-writer Tom Tykwer told the Hollywood Reporter. “But to be able to take this story to Babelsberg at this pivotal time, at the transition between silent film and sound, is very important for me. Personally, it’s the most interesting, and challenging, aspect of the new season.”

Tykwer has said he’d like to eventually adapt Kutscher’s entire series of novels for the screen, which means the story would run from 1929 to 1936.

“I’d been looking for something set in that period – it’s an un-filmed period in comparison to what came afterwards, the Run Lola Run director told Screen Daily.

“I’m fascinated by these years, which are so different from what came before and after,” he added.

The third season is scheduled to premiere in late 2019.

I can’t wait for the new season.

I have a problem with series that take so fucking long between seasons. I almost have to rewatch season 1 all over again to get up to date.

Season 3 finally wrapped last week.

I couldn’t get through the first ep.

Porn was not as hardcore back then as they depict.

[quote][R10], the prevalence of Communists in Berlin during the early years of the Depression were partly how Hitler came to power. The Germans were terrified of them running amok in Germany, and Hitler exploited that fear when he set fire to the Reichstag and had a Communist persecuted for it.

Well, there’s some of that, but the main reason the communists enabled Hitler was they were determined to fight the SPD (socialist party) as their prime enemy, rather than uniting with the other leftist parties to defeat the rise of fascism in Germany.

Sound familiar?

That decision was supported by Stalin until it was too late—only after the Nazis were effectively in control did he declare that the goal of Comintern was to form a united front with other leftists to defeat fascism. By then the horse was already out of the barn.

How different history would have been. But then again if Germany had turned into a communist state they would have formed an unbeatable axis with Russia and together they would enslave the world through nuclear force.

Was this based on a book?

r129 Yes, it's based on the novels by the German author Volker Kutscher.

Can’t wait to see the next season.

The new season drops on Netflix US on 28 February. Plenty of time for a rewatch of the previous two seasons. I started yesterday. I pretty much binged BB on first watch so will take it more slowly this time. I still love it. And I cannot get ANYone else to watch it. (Granted, it's a hard sell.)

R124, yes. Watching Season 1 again to prepare for 2 & 3. It's phenomenal, even on a second viewing, two years later.

The musical number "Ashes" was epic.

One of the best series in recent years.

So far the new season is excellent, though I'm sorry there's not more eye candy. Volker Bruch, who plays Gereon Rath, is so handsome for such a short man. I wish there were more male shirtlessness, of course, because several of the men are quite attractive.

I am surprised how scary "The Phantom" is. He/she really is (appropriately) like a character from 1920s melodramatic films, but it's all filmed so beautifully he's genuinely terrifying.

The callbacks to Expressionist films and modernist fiction in German is terrific. One extended sequence is like the decadent masked sex party in Schnitzler's "Traumnovelle" (which was adapted into the film "Eyes Wide Shut"), and the movie being made at the film studio is like a cross between "Caligari" and "Metropolis."

My partner and I are watching and loving BB.

The art direction on this show is amazing, in addition to everything else.

I love how they don't glamorize everything.

Everyone looks sweaty and like they smell bad.

There probably wasn't anything going on in Weimar Berlin that wasn't going on in London or Paris or New York in the same era. It was just hushed up better.

Just started S3 after doing a rewatch of the first two seasons, which I loved (both times). Did the producers pony up even more money for this season, because all the money is on the screen. (I cannot stop looking at all the wallpapers, even the crummy ones.) I SO wish someone was doing recaps of this. I had to go to Wikipedia to figure out Weintraub's relationship to Edgar (apparently, he's Edgar's business partner).

My only complaint is that the subtitling is pretty herky-jerky and some sentences fly by with no translation sometimes. I haven't lost any plot points (yet...), but they could be better. (My two years of high school German classes are not exactly helpful.) And everyone said the dubbed version is wretched, so I'm not trying that.

I still miss Stefan Janicke (and his lovely parents) and Benda (and his beautiful house). Hoping we get to see wee Volker Bruch dance again.

So glad I saw this. Started watching and now I'm hooked!

I just watched episode 5 in the current season and it amused me that a nasty, washed-up whore was called "Erna."

There's a young medical student who goes full frontal at the beach several times in the seventh or eighth episode of Season 1. Nice hairy chest and gorgeous blue eyes.

Just in case you want to check it out.

Rudi, the young medical student, also turns up in S2 in a scene that didn't surprise me but made me laugh. I'm halfway through S3, and he's had one brief appearance so far.

I'm not loving the latest season as much.

The whole "crazy police forensics guy" storyline was a letdown. It seemed so random.

Berlin was quite open about being a destination for sex tourists.

This site describes the various types of prostitutes available. However, it doesn't list the male whores which were in abundance.

I was sad this season we didn't get to see any shirtless scenes with "Fritz," the sexy red-haired Nazi peon (real name: Richard) who tricked Greta into assassinating Benda and his little daughter.

I've been watching one episode a day of S3 and have two episodes left. While I think this season teeters on Flying Off the Rails (the whole film studio/Phantom plot, while fantastic to look at, belongs in a different show, I think), I still look forward to my daily episode, just for the production design alone. (I do miss Moka Efti, though.) And Graf singing to his lover at his birthday party while his boss accompanied him on the accordion and Charlotte and Gereon necked in the hall dinged my hard little heart.

[quote] And Graf singing to his lover at his birthday party while his boss accompanied him on the accordion and Charlotte and Gereon necked in the hall dinged my hard little heart.

Then, wait until the final episode of S3.

I don't get the storyline with the ugly rich guy.

How can you sell short with a bank when the bank goes under in the crash?

Who was he going to collect his money from?

I just finished Season 3.

Liked the wallpaper a lot more than the writing.

Volker Bruch is so damn gorgeous to me, petite but gorgeous.

I kind of want to start a thread about good shows that go bad because Babylon Berlin is getting close to being ridiculous now.

Volker Bruch is a weird case of looking extremely handsome one minute and looking pretty ugly the next.

By the time I got to episode 12, I just didn't give a shit anymore.

[quote] Volker Bruch is a weird case of looking extremely handsome one minute and looking pretty ugly the next.

He's a "two face."

You know, what makes me really proud?

That Babylon Berlin made it to the US/international market.

Germany free TV is still full of trashy US productions.

But it looks like, there are writers, directors and producers in Germany who are really great in finding stories and storytelling,

I've watched 2 episodes and it is sensorial overload. A masterpiece of detail and tone and feeling and history.

Finished S3 yesterday. I kinda wish the season hadn't been a flashback from the market crash as it took away some of the power of the last scenes (which from our history books we knew was going to happen anyway). At least evil Wendt got screwed a bit. I still don't know what Helga sees in Nyssen (or why the Coincidence Fairy kept having Charlotte see Helga around Berlin, he said vaguely so as not to spoil anything). Toni! What is *wrong* with you?

I assume/hope/pray there's going to be a fourth season, otherwise they wouldn't have introduced (sorta) Charlotte's unknown brother, a handsome athlete. Also, where is that traaaaaaaaiin!?!?

Man, Weimar German politics were complicated. I still don't understand all of the factions. Wasn't there a German terrorist organization still active in the 70s and 80s?

Just starting season 1. It’s good but it seems slow and lacking anything truly interesting. Too many characters too.

I don't think I even finished the first episode. The tone was weird--pumped-up action drama + Weimar cliches.

Nearly at the end and Season Three hasn't lived up to the earlier shows though it still has had its moments. Charlotte's lesbian romance with her prostitute co-worker needed to be further developed. I'd have liked the Louise Brooks-like actress to have had more of a run before he was gone.

R163 One of the reasons it is good. Unlike so many series it has lomg story lines and nothing is solved in one episode.

Would have loved it if the two gangsters were secretly gay lovers and the prune-faced actress was merely their beard. Would make more sense than both of them being in love with her.

I wish they’d get into all the occult goings on in Berlin at the time. Hanussen the psychic was so successful, he built a “Palace of the Occult,” where he had much-publicized seances, and was reputed to have been influential with Hitler, teaching him dramatic poses and how to pause for effect.

Fascinating man. Very influential, until he was prosecuted for fraud, hiding the fact he was actually a Jew named Steinschneider. Later murdered by the Gestapo. There have been a couple of German films about him: “Hanussen” (1988), and “Invincible” (2001), both very good.