Welcome to the World (3/6)

Welcome to the World (3/6)

Paul Ehrlich's wife Hedda is ready to give birth, but the midwife can't get the foetus turned the right way. When the child's pulse starts to fade and the situation gets critical, there's only one surgeon left at the clinic who can help: Emil Behring.
Meanwhile, thousands of physicians from around the world arrive in Berlin for the World Medical Convention to hear Koch speak: His careful announcement of a possible remedy for TBC causes waves of excitement in the international medical community. But the drug has never even been tested on humans yet.
Georg Tischendorf wants to marry Ida, even though she's not socially acceptable for someone of his standing. In order to get his conservative father's approval, he joins a student fencing fraternity. Ida is taken aback by his efforts to do what Wilhelmine society expects of him and become a "real man". When Georg unexpectedly proposes to her, she asks for time to think about it. She confides her feelings for Dr. Behring to Nurse Therese, especially since he encourages her to pursue her medical ambitions even though women aren't allowed to go to med school in the Reich.

The Charité
Between breakthroughs in medical research and enormous social upheavals in 1888, the Charité is well on its way to becoming the most famous hospital in the world. It is a city within the city, following its own laws and rules. At the beginning of the Wilhelmine Period, up to 4,000 patients are treated annually. Along with the expected injuries caused by the booming Industrialization, patients are suffering from infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid and cholera, as well as from sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis. In addition, there are over 1000 students, taught at the Berlin University, who are being trained in this famous hospital by the eventual Nobel Prize winners and most prestigious doctors of the time: Rudolf Virchow, the founder of the modern health care systems, Robert Koch, the discoverer of the tuberculosis virus, Emil von Behring, whose work contributed greatly to the healing of diphtheria and Paul Ehrlich, who developed the first drug against syphilis.

Sönke Wortmann - The Director
Director Sönke Wortmann is one of the big names in contemporary German cinema. His epic melodrama "The Miracle of Bern" (2003) was a world-wide success and his 2006 Football World Cup documentary, "Germany: A Summer's Fairytale", ranks among the country's most successful documentaries. He has also directed the opulent historical drama "The Pope" (2009) as well as "Maybe, Maybe Not" (1994), the most successful German film of the 1990s.