#dr schmidt

Babylon Berlin doodles I LOVE that show !!!

For obvious reasons Helga Rath née Schwartzbach is quite an unpopular character of BB. She is a part of Gereon’s trauma and an obstacle between him and Lotte. In the hotel registration book Helga wrote she was born 23.7.1901 which makes her 28 years old. She got married young as by the end of WWI (1918) she was already having her son Moritz. We don´t know for sure why she preferred Anno to Gereon (in Gereon’s dream she said she fell in love with Anno) but we can speculate she chose the more promising of the two brothers. Anno was older, probably could provide for her better and had leadership qualities according to old Rath. Delivering her speech for Nyssens’ foundation Helga looked pretty sincere crying over her missing husband. Or was she feeling sorry for herself?

Helga got a conservative upbringing, she wants to be a housewife, to have a cosy home and fancy clothes. She is quite a down-to-earth and unsophisticated lady (her awful checked hat says it all). She has a practical touch to life! As soon as Anno is pronounced dead she comes to Berlin to get settled with Gereon (her plan B) and in S2 succeded in it, but in S3 something went wrong. Dr Schmidt did good job to brainwash Gereon, and Gereon became cold and indifferent to her.

I actually feel for Helga as she found out about her pregnancy after moving to Nyssen’s hotel which made the whole situation fishy. When she came to see Gereon in hospital in S3E8 to tell him the baby news, she found Lotte next to him. Gereon was clinging to Lotte’s arm and she was sitting on the edge of his bed, and not in the chair for visitors. Helga noticed that the girl is younger than she, good-looking and apparently very confused to see her. 2+2=4! What is worse Gereon noticed Helga right away but didn’t immediately release Lotte´s arm and just stared at her without saying hello. Poor Helga couldn´t introduce herself to Lotte. She couldn’t call herself Gereon´s wife and she didn’t want to say she was his sister-in-law. Her only weapon was a hostile glance.

After Lotte left Gereon scolded Helga about staying in the posh hotel paid by an unknown man and questioned his paternity (he wasn’t happy to hear the baby news at all). It´s understandable that after such a reaction Helga went for abortion as having a child outside of a wedlock would be a disaster in her case. Another misfortune for Helga was that Lotte accidentally bumped into her as she was going through the abortion. Now Lotte has another ace up her sleeve (remember it was Lotte who revealed to Gereon the hotel where Helga was hiding in S3E5) because Helga lied about having a miscarriage.

Alfred Nyssen appeared in Helga´s life just in time (an amazing coincidence, right?) They make a perfect couple as both are tired of loneliness and disappointing relationships. I wonder what Dr Schmidt will say about their union as he is also Nyssen’s therapist. Or was it Dr Schmidt’s plan to get them together? Well, it depends if he really is Anno (I’m still not 100% sure yet) or is he just cheating Gereon to manipulate him and exclude human relationships and passions from his life in order to turn him into a human android or Mensch-Maschine .