Vienna in the early twentieth century was a hotbed of philosophy, science and art, with a clash of cultures and ideas playing out in the city’s grand cafés and opera houses. It is the atmospheric setting for BBC2’s Vienna Blood, which returns tonight. In the shadows of the gathering storm of Nazism a wealthy Jewish family, the Liebermanns, are almost oblivious to what is likely to befall them in the future.

“It’s 25 years before the rise of Hitler and clearly this is something that is incredible unfolding without people necessarily knowing what is happening,” says Steve Thompson who writes the series, adapting The Liebermann Papers, a collection of novels by Frank Tallis which have been translated into 14 languages. The series — the first season of which aired in 2019 — portrays the strong undercurrent of growing antisemitism throughout.

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Matthew Beard as Max Liebermann with Luisa Von Finckh as Clara Weiss

“The Liebermanns are obviously very typical of families during that time who had a particularly good place in society and were very well to do and it all means nothing in the end,” says Thompson.

“The show is quite difficult for us to watch in some ways because obviously we know what is going to happen to them in 30 years’ time. There is a powerful and painful statue in Vienna of a Jewish man cleaning the road, which Jewish people were forced to do as part of the ritual humiliation once the Nazis came to power. This or worse will be the Liebermanns’ fate.
“It’s that old adage about the temperatures slowly raised. Antisemitism is an important part of the text, seeing it gradually begin and nobody really believing that it is going to become as dark and threatening and as terrible as it was. We refer to it throughout, sometimes subliminally. For example, at the end of last series the police commissioner makes a comment ‘I see you brought the Jew doctor.’ He doesn’t believe he’s being antisemitic, that is just part of the texture of the way they spoke.”

Each of the three 90-minute films focuses on a brilliant young Jewish doctor, Max Liebermann (Matthew Beard) an enthusiastic follower of Freud, and Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt (Juergen Maurer), an old school policeman, investigating a series of unusual and disturbing murders. Max’s extraordinary skills of perception, understanding of psychology, and Oskar’s forceful tenacity help them solve the city’s most mysterious cases.
Thompson, who also wrote Sherlock for the BBC, says, “Freudian analysis was in its infancy. Everyone was still divided on what they thought of Freud, it was still not in everybody’s eyes legitimate. Therefore, the sort of psychoanalysis Max was practising was not proven. I suppose it’s like Cracker but before anybody knew what psychoanalysis was and the police began using psychological profiling.”

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(Photo: BBC)

We are talking in one of the sets, the palatial surroundings of the Royal Suite in the Imperial Hotel in Vienna. ‘We’ here meaning he is surrounded by opulence while, ‘we’ the JC is in the back bedroom on Zoom. A press trip had been promised but dreams of strudel and waltzes were dashed when Covid struck.

The pandemic also affected filming. The first series was a huge success, BBC 2’s most watched drama, and filming for series two was due to begin in March 2020 but had to be delayed. When it did begin in late summer that year, it was under rigorous conditions; “We had constant testing and all the crew wore PPE,” says Thompson, “Having your Covid test was just one more job you have to do every morning. We all wore PPE and then we all went on set. Of course, PPE was a pain, but surgeons do it every day and everybody got used to it very quickly.”

The show’s director, Robert Dornhelm contracted Covid in the summer of 2020.“I was in the hospital for two full weeks,” he tells me. “I lost about 15 pounds in ten days because I hate hospital food. I’ve not been in hospital in 55 years so that was a new experience for me.” Otherwise they were lucky, with only two Covid cases to disturb their schedules.
On November 2, 2020, just hours before a national lockdown, Vienna experienced its first terror attack since 1981 when a man began shooting at people in six locations across the city, killing four and wounding twenty-three.

All synagogues, Jewish schools, institutions of the Jewish community of Vienna, and kosher restaurants and supermarkets were closed the following day as a precaution, after concerns were raised that the main synagogue had been the target. Soon after the attack though, it became clear that the target had been the general population, not the synagogue, which was closed and empty at the time. Robert Dornhelm lives in Vienna and recalls the attack: “I actually heard the shots because I live just across the river, maybe 1,000 feet away from where it happened. I thought at first it was thunder then I heard the police cars. The whole area was lit up blue there were so many police and fire trucks and Red Cross ambulances.”

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Miriam Hie and Juergen Maurer

Both Dornhelm and Jez Swimer the show’s producer are Jewish; “I’m not religious myself,” says Dornhelm “But Jez is trying to get me back to the tribe with dinner on Friday nights. I have experienced antisemitism myself from Romania where I grew up and Austria where I live. I’ve done films about antisemitism so am very familiar with it.” He was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2001 for his TV series Anne Frank the Whole Story.

The only Austrian in the main cast is lead actor Juergen Maurer playing the stolid detective Oskar Rheinhardt. Vienna Blood is his first English speaking role; “The first challenge was to dare to do it!” he jokes. “Secondly, the producers were kind enough to tell me they would take my accent as the role model for all the other characters!”
Matthew Beard plays the Freud devotee Max Liebermann, a character who is impulsive, eager and wants to learn. Hailing originally from Sheffield, Beard was nominated for a Tony award on Broadway when he starred with Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan in Skylight.

He found filming during a pandemic strange; “Meeting people wearing masks is strange, especially when people are talking in a second language, it makes them harder to understand. Everyone in the cast has made sacrifices and it takes a lot of discipline to keep up with the protocols.
“It was so strange to touch someone, it felt uncomfortable and wrong, because we got so used to keeping our distance. We filmed a ballroom scene with 50 extras and live music —it was so oddly moving seeing people being that close and hearing live music.”

While at university in York, Beard studied Freud.“I read most of his writings then and read more when this came up. I visited his house in London and his office here in Austria, which is now a museum. The buzzer has ‘Dr Freud’ on it which is kind of exciting.”
Playing one of the Jewish characters he is very conscious of the antisemitic undertones. “Antisemitism is in the news a lot. The politics of Vienna 1906 and rise of the far right are sadly still relevant today.

“We try not to make it the crux of the show, but it is depicted. There are constant references. In episode three of the last series, we see boys at a boarding school that Daniel, Max’s younger brother goes to, being anti-semitic and bullies and we know what they are going to grow up to become”.

Although Vienna Blood has a stellar cast of fine actors, the real star of the show is the city itself.
“Vienna has a flavour — I mean it’s incredibly sedate and quite calm and polite and very elegant” says Steve Thompson. “Vienna obviously was built as the capital of an empire. Consequently we are in this unusual position where we’ve never had to build a single set. Not one! We haven’t actually filmed in a studio at all!
“If I write a scene that takes place in a ballroom, the Viennese say ‘How many ballrooms would you like to look at?’ and show me a dozen and I can pick the one I like! Or a scene says it takes place in the palace and they show you ten to choose from! There’s this sort of luxury of riches, I’m amazed more shows don’t get made in Vienna, it really is quite an incredible place.”
Robert Dornhelm adds: “Vienna was the centre of Europe. What is so tragic is that with all that the beauty there was the end of the monarchy. They didn’t know if there would be a tomorrow. It is a parallel to the Covid scenario.

“It was a time of profound change. In music there were new composers, painting too had new expression. But hand in hand came nationalism. A time of beauty and this ugly face of nationalism.”

Vienna Blood returns to BBC 2 tonight. The Liebermann Papers by Frank Tallis are published by Arrow