Enter Europe
It starts with a break-in into a high-security building, perpetrated by a group of the greatest experts in their field. What sounds like the thrill of a bank robbery on a grand scale quickly turns out to be a kind Ocean’s Eleven for academics. The billionaire Wolfgang Adrian doesn’t care about more money, his concern is much bolder: the rescue of Europe. Right-wing ideologies and fake news are the cause of all evil for him. To push them back, he gathers a task force for the good. At its center is the data scientist Maryam. At first she doesn’t know what Adrian is up to and how he wants to achieve his goals. Her co-conspirators sometimes have to help her out. The interplay of the top-class cast around Maryam Zaree, Mark Waschke and Katharina Thalbach is a pleasure, and you can also learn something about Europe’s shift to the right. When it comes to pure adventure, the mind games often dominate the action. Dennis Mueller
File 88
Now they must finally bring the matter to an end, as they themselves say, “the two public service editors on an enlightening mission”. Meanwhile in the third season of their SWR podcast about “The 1000 Lives of Adolf Hitler”, Walter Filz and Michael Lissek still hold a ball of threads in their hands, which they have manfully untied from the first minute. But the matter is all too big and confused: Filz and Lissek are still shoving their way through all the rumors and stories that the self-proclaimed leader survived and is either on or in the earth or somewhere in the universe. “How can you believe something like that?” Is the central question, and: “If you believe it, what else do you have to believe in order for the belief to remain believable?” Lots of rubbish, that much is clear. The two authors give deep insights into the inner logic of conspiracy narratives, which are even more absurd in this final season. Filz and Lissek counter this with a lot of facts and their mocking, self-deprecating humor. Stefan Fischer
Victories of medicine
Inflamed tonsils are a painful experience. Today, they are removed using general anesthesia: the patient gently twilight away, the beeping devices in the background become quieter. A childhood memory of the actor Ulrich Noethen, which he wrote in the medical-historical podcast from Gesundheit-hoeren.de and Pharmacy magazine told. In the eight episodes he reports in storytelling format about milestones in medicine, such as anesthesia, X-rays or HIV medication. Noethen directs one’s gaze to the forerunners of modern medicine: from Hippocrates, the well-known physician of antiquity, to the Japanese Hanaoka Seishū, who performed the first successful breast cancer operation under anesthesia in 1804. The narrator moves on to the overcrowded field hospitals in the First World War to see the groundbreaking discovery of the bacteriologist Alexander Fleming: penicillin. The journey through time to places and people is vividly told, supplemented with expert voices and embellished with a thoughtful sound design. A podcast as entertaining as a historical novel by Ken Follett or Noah Gordon, but much more factual. Sarah Zapf
Our house
“Clubs are more than just celebrations.” The Spotify Original Podcast on clubs and their stories starts with this thesis. In order to give the German club scene a boost of energy after months of lockdown, a notorious German nightclub opens its doors in each of the ten episodes. Among others, the Munich “Blitz”, the Stuttgart-based “Freund + Kupferstecher” and the “Robert Johnson” from Offenbach. With a voice as if she had just come straight from partying, the host Paulina Schulz – known as DJ Gigola -, supported by journalists Laura Aha and Andreas Richter, explains why the clubs should not be missing as breeding grounds for creativity. Schulz characterizes them as places of resistance, but also of sociocultural togetherness and sexual self-determination. The podcast convinces with something that many claim for themselves, but only a few deliver: authenticity. Helena Zacher
sz.de/podcast-tipps