Berlin, 1929: a metropolis in turmoil. Speculation and inflation are tearing away at the foundations of the young Weimar Republic. Growing poverty and unemployment stand in stark contrast to the excesses and indulgence of the city's night life and its overflowing creative energy.

Gereon Rath, a young police inspector from Cologne, is transferred to Berlin. Together with stenotypist Charlotte Ritter and his partner Bruno Wolter, Rath is confronted with a tangled web of corruption, forcing him into an existential conflict as he is torn between loyalty and uncovering the truth.