Charité (2017)

Review

Charité is a German drama television series based on the real life hospital in Berlin – established in 1710 and now Europe’s largest hospital. The first season, written by Dorothee Schön and Sabine Thor-Wiedemann, is set in 1888 at a time when the hospital is becoming one of the most famous in the world for medical research and teaching. The series combines fictional characters with real ones such as Robert Koch, the discoverer of the tuberculosis bacillus; Emil von Behring, who discovered a diphtheria antitoxin, and Paul Ehrlich, who developed the first antibiotic against syphilis. All three won Nobel prizes for their work. The series premiered on 21 March 2017 on the German channel Das Erste, and was distributed internationally through Netflix. Sadly, Netflix did not renew its licence for the show and it left the streaming platform in 2022.

Ida Lenze arrives at the hospital gravely ill with appendicitis and her life is saved by Emil Behring who carries out an emergency appendectomy, however Ida cannot afford to pay for her treatment and agrees to work it off as a nursing assistant. However, Ida struggles to please Matron Martha who seems to find fault with everything she does but she becomes friends with a young nurse called Therese and a medical student Georg Tischendorf. As Ida’s interest in medicine grows, she is dismayed when Behring informs her women are not allowed to study medicine in Germany but he encourages her to read his medical books. Ida eventually receives a marriage proposal from Georg Tischendorf who confesses he really wants to be a photographer and is only studying medicine to please his father. Ida knows if she accepts his proposal she will not be able to continue her studies and she is also aware his family will likely oppose the match as she is not of the same social class as Georg.

As well as her desire to become a doctor and her romantic entanglements, Ida serves as a witness to the different medical breakthroughs taking place at the hospital and seems to have a lot of influence over the doctors which is a bit far-fetched. Famed institute director Robert Koch is trying to find a cure for tuberculosis but his research is going nowhere fast and he is under pressure from the emperor to deliver something in time for the World Medical Convention. Koch tentatively announces a possible remedy for tuberculosis, however the drug has not been tested on humans. When Nurse Therese falls ill from tuberculosis, Ida persuades Koch to test the tuberculin on her so she can remain at the hospital. When Therese seems to recover, the new drug is hailed as a miracle and hundreds of tuberculosis patients and doctors descend on the hospital for the cure. However, Therese’s condition deteriorates and she dies proving the new cure to be useless. Koch is branded a fraud and treated as an outcast.

Meanwhile, Behring is testing his new diphtheria serum on infected rabbits and the results are proving to be positive. Behring excitedly shares the news with Ida and they end up kissing. When a nurse comes down with diphtheria, Behring uses his newly created serum which actually works. However, Behring is plunged into despair when his serum is ignored as people are wary after Koch’s failures but thing change when Virchow publicly endorses the new serum and his rising social status leads to him becoming engaged to Else Spinola much to Ida’s repair as she had fallen in love with him.. Disappointed, Ida makes arrangements to travel to Switzerland where women are allowed to study medicine as her debt to the hospital is finally paid.

As the series comes to a close, we learn Ida did become a doctor but when she returned to work at Charité she received no pay. Emil Behring won a Nobel Prize for his diphtheria cure, while Robert Koch won the Nobel Prize for his research in tuberculosis which was eventually developed into an effective diagnostic tool for the disease. Paul Ehrlich created the first cure for syphilis and won the Nobel Prize in 1908, but his achievements were denounced by the Nazis as he was Jewish. Virchow continued to advocate for basic public health care and is known as the father of modern pathology.

The setting for this first season is quite a pivotal moment in German history as 1888 was known as the year of the three emperors. After the death of Kaiser Wilhelm I, he is succeeded by his son, Friedrich Wilhelm, who is suffering from laryngeal cancer and is seen as a patient at the hospital. Friedrich Wilhelm died after ninety-nine days and was replaced by his son, Wilhelm II, who would prove to be the last emperor of Germany. One of the themes of the show concentrates on the race to find a cure for some of the most virulent diseases of the time, tuberculosis and diphtheria, which claimed the lives of hundreds every year. While Robert Koch fails to find a cure, he does create a diagnostic tool which is developed into the BCG. Emil von Behring is more successful with his diphtheria serum but he is shown as a mercurial character with a drug dependency and a reputation as a womaniser.

As previously stated, the character of Ida bears witness to the activities of these great men and helps to serve as a link between them. However, Ida also has a personal stake in the story as she battles sexism in her desire to become a doctor in a country that refuses to give women permission to study medicine. There is also a disparity with her social class which leads her to having to work of her debt to the hospital in the first place and makes her marriage to Georg Tischendorf unlikely from the start. Ida is played engagingly by Alicia von Rittberg who won a Bambi award (German TV award) for her portrayal.