Charité III
This is what happened to doctors after the Berlin Wall was built
"Charité III": The young doctor and researcher Dr. Ella Wendt (Nina Gummich) starts at the Berlin Charité.
© ARD / Stanislav Honzik
The long-awaited third season of the hospital series "Charité" starts on Tuesday. This time it is playing at the time the wall was built.
The wait is over, from January 12th the third season of the award-winning historical hospital series "Charité" will be broadcast on Tuesdays from 8:15 pm on the first. After season one (2017), which takes place in the period of medical progress, which was largely shaped at the Charité, at the end of the 19th century, and season two (2019), which takes place in the time of National Socialism, the six-part season three now tells about fate famous doctors who did their partly groundbreaking work at the time of the building of the wall.
The Berlin Wall
"Nobody has any intention of building a wall," was the infamous sentence that the then East German state and party leader Walter Ulbricht (1893-1973) said in a press conference on June 15, 1961. But two months later the Berlin Wall was there. On the night of August 12th to 13th, 1961 ("Day of the Wall was built"), the police and army began to cordon off the roads and railways to West Berlin. In the following days, walls were built and fences put up.
Due to the division of Berlin, the Charité Clinic was located in East Berlin and was now directly adjacent to the Berlin Wall or the Spree, the Humboldthafen and the Berlin-Spandauer Schifffahrtskanal.
That's what the third season is about
Berlin, summer 1961: the young doctor Dr. Ella Wendt (Nina Gummich) comes from the provinces to the Charité in Berlin. The hospital is facing major problems these days, more and more doctors and nursing staff are moving to the West – there is a risk of their personnel being drained. The wall will be built overnight and the Charité will become the border area.
Ella Wendt wants to advance her research on cancer screening at the Charité and seeks contact with Prof. Otto Prokop (Philipp Hochmair), who enjoys an excellent reputation as a serologist. Prokop's real hobby, however, is forensic medicine. His autopsies help clarify criminal cases, the results of which he compiles in an atlas of forensic medicine. The first dead from the wall are also on his table.
Ella Wendt can only do research after work, because the work on the Inner Ward demands her. She manages everyday clinical work together with her former fellow student Dr. Alexander Nowack (Max Wagner). But the political events shattered mutual trust – especially when Ella increasingly turned to the surgeon Dr. Curt Bruncken (Franz Hartwig) lets in, who fascinates her with his thirst for freedom and his rebellious nature.
In contrast, the passionate pediatrician Ingeborg Rapoport (Nina Kunzendorf) stands as a staunch supporter of the socialist idea. As a specialist in infant medicine, Rapoport is developing a visionary approach to reducing infant mortality. In doing so, she repeatedly offends the conservatively thinking gynecologist Prof. Helmut Kraatz (Uwe Ochsenknecht).
Which characters have real role models?
As in seasons one and two, there are also fictional and real characters in the new episodes. The young doctor and passionate cancer researcher Dr. Ella Wendt, played by actress Nina Gummich (29, "Alone under …"), is fictional. As many other characters as Dr. Curt Bruncken (Franz Hartwig) and Dr. Alexander Nowack (Max Wagner) or caretaker Fritz "Pflaster" Krug (Uwe Preuss).
The situation is very different with the characters embodied by the actors Nina Kunzendorf (49), Philipp Hochmair (47) and Uwe Ochsenknecht (65, "Welcome to the Hartmanns"). The pediatrician Ingeborg Rapoport (1912-2017), the serologist Prof. Otto Prokop (1921-2009) and the gynecologist Prof. Helmut Kraatz (1902-1983) really existed and their work was groundbreaking in their respective fields.
Is it worth switching on?
In any case. In fact, the series producers have once again succeeded in creating an interesting, exciting, atmospheric and very dense sequel. The actors are outstanding and the individual medical cases that are told in the great historical context are very impressive. Astonishing parallels to today are shown by those scenes that deal with polio caused by polio viruses. At that time there was talk of the "epidemic from West Germany", of vaccinations, school and swimming pool closures …