A recap on the factions and characters in play for the second half of the season.
The Black Reichswehr, a group of revanchist right-wing army officers, industrialists, and veterans. They are trying to import phosgene gas from the Soviet Union for purposes unknown, and have also been involved in secretly rearming Germany with illegal weaponry and equipment. They are led by bespectacled ''Generalmajor'' Seegers. Another high-ranking member is the prominently-scarred Colonel Wendt. Bruno is also heavily involved with them, but the extent of this is not currently known. Also heavily involved is the steel conglomerate Nyssen AG, and their contact there is the owner’s son Alfred Nyssen. Nyssen has been arrested by the police and is facing charges in connection to the train full of gas. The Black Reichswehr are, at this point, completely unaware that the Sorokin gold is present on their train.
Opposed to the Black Reichwehr are the Social Democrats who are the chief power in the republic’s government. The most prominent leaders of this faction are Councilor Benda and Karl Zoergiebel, the police chief. Stefan Jaenicke, a police officer who can read lips, is working for Benda in spying on Bruno in attempts to unravel the Black ''Reichwehr'' conspiracy. Greta Overbeck works for Benda as a housemaid, and has fallen in love with Fritz, a handsome communist firebrand. Gereon Rath is an investigator with close connections to Benda, whose original mission – finding and destroying a blackmail film – has been fulfilled. Charlotte Ritter is a typist with a knack for observation and deduction, and has been working independently to advance the investigation into both the Black ''Reichwehr'' and the Sorokin gold.
Several factions and individuals besides these are vying for the Sorokin gold. The Trotskyists are the ones who originally smuggled in the gold, intending to send it to Trotsky in Istanbul to fund a coup in the Soviet Union. They are led by Alexei Kardakov, who has been heavily abused in the course of trying to acquire the gold and escape assassination. Most of the Trotskyists have already been massacred by Soviet agents, and were buried in a mass grave outside the city. The train driver, a man named Boris, was abducted, tortured, and killed by the Soviets, having confessed to them about the gold’s existence and purpose.
The Trotskyists were killed by the Soviets, led by their ambassador. They were tipped off by a mole within the Trotskyist cell: the Countess Sorokina, who engaged in love affairs with both Kardakov and Nyssen, works as a cross-dressing nightclub singer named Nikoros at the Moka Efti, and is in truth a Soviet spy. The Soviets seek to retrieve the gold for themselves and play off all the other factions against each other.
The Soviets are also allied with the German Communists, who are otherwise only loosely- or unconnected to the other plots. They are led most prominently by the Reichstag member Dr. Voelcker. They are heavily involved with a plotline regarding an investigation into police murders of civilians during recent May Day protests – Gereon is under pressure from the establishment, the Black Reichswehr, and the communists as a key witness. Fritz is a recently-enrolled member of the German Communist Party. The Communists are hostile to the government but are completely unaware of the gold’s existence. Loosely aligned with them also is a journalist and Austrian expat named Samuel Katelbach, who was a fellow tenant in Gereon’s residence, who is dedicated to investigating right-wing and government conspiracies.
Finally, there is the organized crime ring led by the Armenian, who owns and operates the Moka Efti restaurant and nightclub as a front for his operations. Countess Sorokina secretly works there as a male singer named Nikoros; Charlotte occasionally works in the basement brothel as a prostitute. The Armenian has deep connections to a heavily-scarred hypno-therapist named Dr. Schmidt, who has an unknown but close interest in treating Gereon and ensuring he remains unharmed. They have been replacing his medicine with barbituric acid to prime him for treatment by Schmidt. Also working for the Armenian is an enforcer dressed as a Catholic priest named Saint Josef. The Armenian seeks to steal the gold for his own purposes, and to deliver Gereon to Dr. Schmidt unharmed.
