Dark is best
- This article is about the Claudia from Adam's world. For the Claudia from Eva's world, see Claudia Tiedemann. For the Claudia from the original world, see Claudia Doppler.
- "You were always different. You saw the world differently from the very start."
- ―Egon Tiedemann[src]
Claudia Tiedemann was a time traveler and the main opponent of the secret society Sic Mundus in the war for control of time travel. She was born in the 1940s to police officer Egon Tiedemann and his wife Doris and was the mother of Regina. She never married but had affairs with Tronte Nielsen and Bernd Doppler.
She grew into a headstrong career woman and in 1986, became the first female director of the Winden Nuclear Power Plant. There, she unveiled that the God particle had been discovered.
Visited by her future self in 1987, she learned that time travel existed and became a key player in manipulating the events that unfold in Winden, earning the nickname "The White Devil" from her opponents.
Biography[]
1942[]
Claudia was born to Egon and Doris Tiedemann.
1953[]
As a young girl, Claudia lived with her parents, police officer Egon and Doris Tiedemann, and her dog Gretchen. She would often wander the forest. She was a bright girl, and her parents saw serious academic promise in her.
November 10[]
The family sublets rooms in their house to Agnes Nielsen and her son Tronte, and Claudia becomes infatuated with him quickly.
Being good at math, she tutors Helge Doppler, but otherwise pays him little attention. One day, as she is walking in the forest with Helge, her dog Gretchen disappears. Unbeknown to her, the older Claudia was there waiting to lure her dog deeper into the caves after Helge threw a stick for the dog to chase.
1954[]
June 23[]
One day while her mother and Agnes Nielsen are fooling around in the bedroom, Claudia walks in on them, saying she forgot her milk money. Agnes gives her some money to buy a sweet.
Claudia complains to Tronte that her mother acts like she doesn't understand anything. She says when she becomes a mother she will be different. She asks him about his time before they came to Winden. He says his mother was sad all the time and that she has a brother, but they seem to hate each other. She asks him if his mother is happy here, but he shrugs. She then asks Tronte if now is a good time and he pulls down his pants and stands in front of her.
September 24[]
Claudia is looking at a nude magazine of women with young Ines Kahnwald and Jana. They start talking about seeing men naked. Claudia mentions it is not fair that there are no magazines with naked men. Jana tells Ines she is crazy, and Ines asks her if she has ever seen manhood that is not her father's. Jana gets judgmental, and Claudia says she has. Curious, Ines asks what it looked like, and Claudia describes it as peculiar, and not looking like it was a part of him. Ines asks if she was referring to Tronte, and Claudia nods. Ines believes he is weird, and asks if his mother has returned. Claudia says that she had not, which Ines finds strange.
Claudia is at the Doppler's house. She is greeted by Helge's father Bernd, who comments Helge will be pleased to see her. He hands her 10 DM, which she thinks is too much, but Bernd tells her to accept things she wants, so she thanks him and heads upstairs.
Claudia and Tronte enter their house. Egon is angry and seated with a bottle. Claudia greets her father and asks where her mother is and Egon repeats what Doris said to him about the ways of the heart. Claudia and Tronte look at each other before the latter tells her to leave him be and they both leave. Later, she enters Tronte's room and removes her clothes.
1971[]
Claudia has a daughter, Regina, with Bernd Doppler. She raises the girl as a single mother, never revealing the father's identity.
1986[]
Claudia has a teenage daughter, Regina, in whom she is obviously and openly disappointed.
November 5[]
She drives her daughter Regina to school while practicing her first speech as newly appointed director of the Winden Nuclear Power Plant, a position previously held by Bernd Doppler.
At the entry gate of the power plant, she meets Helge Doppler, a groundskeeper, who gifts her a copy of the book A Journey Through Time by H.G. Tannhaus. Inside, her secretary gives her data on the plant from 1985 and '86 which she had previously asked for. She is surprised by the numbers. In the hallway, Tronte Nielsen is waiting to interview her for the newspaper but she tells him she has no time for it. Tronte tells her he misses her.
She confronts Bernd in his office over the numbers. He tells her the whole city depends on the plant and some things are better kept quiet. He shows her the entry to the Winden Caves on the plant's estate where yellow barrels of secret nuclear waste are stored. She calls her daughter to tell her she will be coming home late.
November 11[]
In the cave, Claudia encounters her dog Gretchen, which had disappeared 33 years ago. She realizes that the time periods are somehow connected and begins reading the book A Journey Through Time by H.G. Tannhaus.
Claudia hires the newly arrived Aleksander Köhler (in actuality fugitive Boris Niewald) to contain the barrels and weld a door shut.
1987[]
June 23[]
Claudia looks at the time machine she dug up the night before. She suggests to Regina that she skip school that day so they can spend the day together. Regina, however, says she has an exam and swimming. Claudia hugs her and compliments her hair. Regina says she has no time and has to go. This makes Claudia think of the book Helge gave her—A Journey Through Time—and takes it out.
She takes the book and goes to visit Helge, who is now in a mental hospital following his car accident. She asks him why he gave it to her. He replies that he thought she might be the only one who can understand him, saying "time is always with you." Claudia says she does not understand this. Helge tells her that Noah said there is a struggle between good and evil and that the travelers can undo everything. He grabs her tightly by the arm and tells her she must never trust him (Noah).
Claudia takes the book and time machine to H.G. Tannhaus' shop, asking him whether he wrote the book. He observes that she has different-colored eyes—heterochromia. He tells her he has been waiting to meet her again. Claudia is surprised to hear this, telling him they do not know each other, but he tells her that he knows her and that it is an endless cycle. They sit and converse, and he tells her that things have no origin, existing without ever being created. He admits that he is something of a fraud: The book traveled back in time to him before he even wrote it. A "bootstrap paradox". Is there a beginning? He tells her that her older self told him she would come so that he could explain the device to her.
Egon goes to visit Claudia at the nuclear power plant, telling her he has something important to discuss. She tells him she is too busy, he can't show up unannounced and should set up an appointment with the secretary next week. He tells her he has cancer. He didn't want to worry her but the cancer is spreading. Claudia is shocked and does not know what to say. He gets up to leave, and she hugs him.
Claudia takes the time machine into the chamber containing the radioactive barrels from the 1986 incident and activates it. She travels to 2020.
2020 (time travel)[]
June 23[]
Claudia travels to 2020, where she observes Regina remove her scarf, revealing her hair loss, causing Claudia to burst into tears.
1987 (time travel)[]
June 25[]
Claudia looks at a newspaper article concerning the death of her father Egon on June 26 1987 (the next day). Her assistant comes in to remind her that the French delegation is waiting for their meeting, but Claudia tells her to reschedule (again) and leaves.
She goes to visit Egon. He tells her it is a long time since she visited him. He tells her he is proud of all her accomplishments, and that her mother would be too. Claudia becomes emotional. She gets up to leave, telling him he should move in with her and Regina, so he would not be so alone, suggesting tomorrow. This surprises Egon, who says she is acting as though he is inches from death.
Claudia goes to visit Bernd Doppler at his palatial home and says she has checked the data and found it to be normal, so what really happened to cause the incident at the power plant? He shoves a binder across the table to her, saying he knew she would refuse to let it go; the binder contains the full results. She looks through it and says the values make no sense. He replies that the tests always came back the same, matching calculations of Englert, Brout and Higgs in 1964. Claudia knows it as the God Particle: the particle that gives all things the mass they have. She says this is sensational, such a discovery should be made available to everyone. Doppler, however, tells her that it is sometimes better to let sleeping dogs lie. The nuclear plant is his only legacy; he wants his name and the plant kept secret, at least until his death.
Claudia meets with a technician in her office, and asks him to test a sample in secret. He asks what it is, and she replies that if it is what she thinks it is, it will change their understanding of the world forever.
June 26[]
Claudia is sitting at her desk in her office at the nuclear power plant, recording her research findings. When she realizes that it's the day her father Egon is supposed to die, she hurriedly rushes out to see him. She continues to push him to move in with her, and Egon shows increasing reluctance to leave his comfortable apartment. Claudia, disheartened, then asks if she can come with him to his first chemotherapy appointment that day, to which Egon responds with heartfelt joy.
Egon begins to tell Claudia that he knows time travel really exists. When he starts to put the facts together and realizes that Ulrich (in reality a time traveler from 2019) kept returning to the caves, Claudia grows increasingly hostile and defensive. He tells Claudia she knows about time travel too and it is connected to the power plant. He starts phoning the police to search the caves. Claudia stops him and says this is too important to be jeopardized. He tells Claudia she has no heart. They struggle over the phone and Egon falls backwards, cracking his head open on the table. Claudia calls an ambulance (which could have saved his life) but hangs up, remembering what her older self said about sacrifices and everything happening as it always has so Regina will live. Egon speaks his last words to his daughter: "You are the White Devil."
After leaving her father to die, she heads home, visibly distraught, and begins to wash the blood from her hands, sobbing uncontrollably. She is then startled as the teenage Jonas enters with a key but she does not know who he is or how he has a key. She realizes he must have got it from her older self. He tells her that they have to go and don't have much time. He knows what she did, but it doesn't have to happen again. Next time. "Where are we going?" she asks, "To the future," he responds.
June 27[]
The younger Jonas and Claudia are in the Winden Caves. His future self had tried to close the wormhole, to reverse it all, but had not broken the cycle. The elder Claudia had told him that they could change one factor in the equation so that he would be successful on the next attempt, and all the subsequent events- Mikkel vanishing, their fathers dying- would never take place. All he would need to do is change the details- a grain of sand. The younger Jonas leads Claudia deeper into the cave to open the portal again, telling her he has accepted that he has to be part of the very disaster he wanted to prevent, having learned much from the older Claudia. There are two sides at war: Adam and Sic Mundus, who want to create a new world, and Claudia and himself, who want to save this one. Claudia does not know who Adam is. Jonas inserts a vial of radioactive waste in the cave into the machine, which activates it. "'This is time"', he says, '"We connect past and future".
2020 (time travel)[]
June 27[]
Teenage Jonas and Claudia from 1987 exit the cave in 2020, the day of the apocalypse. He tells her to take the machine to the bunker near Helge's cabin and heads off, saying he must find his mother Hannah and Martha.
Alone at home, Regina is on the phone with the police, pleading for Aleksander's release, or to be able to visit him, but gets nowhere. Suddenly, 1987 Claudia appears at the door, telling her not to be afraid, quite unsuccessfully. Claudia apologizes for how she left and asks Regina to come with her now. Regina bursts into tears as Claudia embraces her. They go to the bunker to join Peter and Elisabeth Doppler. Peter realizes Claudia is the white devil from the picture there. Claudia stares at it strangely. They are later joined by young Noah.
September 22[]
Claudia took care of the very weak Regina following the apocalypse.
Claudia removes a wooden stick blocking the entrance to the police station as a radio mentions scientists are looking for an explanation for what happened on the day of the apocalypse. She turns the radio off and grabs pills from her backpack, which she gives to Regina, asking how she is doing. When Claudia turns around, Regina inquires why, but Claudia simply responds that she would be back before the sun went down.
Claudia looks at the broken time machine and records herself stating that three months have passed since the catastrophe, but it is unclear what exactly triggered the events. She mentions that if the God Particle could be stabilized, then maybe everybody could be saved.
Claudia returns to find Regina's unmoving body. She drops her flashlight, putting her hand on Regina's and sobbing.
September 23[]
Claudia walks back to a dilapidated police station during a downpour outside. After hearing noises inside she grabs a piece of rebar, only to find another version of herself waiting there for her.
Claudia is confused because her other version tells her she is from another world. Claudia asks what she wants, and is told the other Claudia is there to guide her to the light because there are two groups time traveling: light and dark. The other Claudia tells her to join her side: Eva's side. Claudia is confused, so her alternate version tells her she cannot trust Jonas because he belongs to the dark. What Eva wants is to save both worlds. In order for this to succeed, Jonas needs to bring the cesium to the passage so the apocalypse can occur.
Alternate Claudia tells her other self that Adam must not untie the knot, so she needs to guide Jonas, Elisabeth and everybody else. Alternate Claudia tells her she must maintain them on the same path so the knot is preserved. She says that is their mission in their respective worlds. Claudia is left alone with the newly finished triquetra notebook, which alternate Claudia says contains everything.
September 24[]
Claudia looks at blueprints for the nuclear plant, where she sees the location of the God Particle and is told to follow the signal. She walks into the room where she sees it and tries to touch it before she is told to stop by Jonas.
Claudia asks Jonas what the God Particle is, and he tells her it is what was leftover from the catastrophe. She asks what the machine they see next to it is, and Jonas mentions the passage no longer exists, but if he figures out how the God Particle works, he could go back in time to save Martha and Mikkel. Jonas asks how she had found him, but Claudia asks for the apparatus which needed dark matter. Jonas asks if she has it, and is taken to the time machine, which Claudia mentions does not work. Claudia mentions that they brought dark matter into the passage again, and so the variables in the equation had changed, but Jonas loses his temper and shouts he cannot wait 33 years to try again. He asks himself why older Claudia had never told him anything, knowing Martha would die and wonders why he should trust middle-aged Claudia. She tells him that she knows what the material at the power plant is, and can help him save Martha and everybody else.
2023[]
In 2023, Jonas (who did not travel to Eva's world and who will later become the Stranger and Adam), working in tandem with Claudia, continues to try and open the dark matter portal.
2040[]
In 2040, Noah, Claudia and Jonas (now all 17 years older), successfully open the dark matter portal, but cannot stabilize it enough to travel. It is at this point that Jonas formulates his plan to go back and change things in the past, to break the cycle (a plan we see him enact throughout Season 1 that ends in failure). Elisabeth is now pregnant with Charlotte.
Claudia continues to meet with her otherworldly self. Eventually she rebukes her advice, realizing she has been manipulated, and kills her in the woods. Taking her other self's device, she travels to their world and meets Eva, who gives her the time machine plans that she will later give to H.G. Tannhaus in 1953.
2053 (time travel)[]
An older, but not yet elderly (post-2040), Claudia collects Tronte from 2020 and brings him to 2053. In the woods, Claudia and Tronte stand in front of Regina's grave. Tronte tells her that he thought he was her father, which Claudia admits she wanted for a long time. She mentions that it's better that she be dead for now because she is not part of the knot and would live after it is broken. She instructs Tronte to go kill her, but to not let her suffer because she is hardly living a life anyway.
2052 (time travel)[]
An elderly Claudia tells Stranger/Jonas what he must do in the past and says he must speak to Tannhaus about completing the device. Jonas then leaves to travel back to 2019. Claudia rips out the last pages of the triquetra notebook and stuffs them in her coat.
2019 (time travel)[]
Claudia has become an experienced time traveler and Adam and Noah's opponent in their war on control over time. She was allied with the adult Jonas Kahnwald coming into this year, but Noah claims that he is nothing but her puppet. As an old woman in 2052, in the post-apocalyptic Winden, she maintained a string wall in the bunker to keep track of Winden's inhabitants.
November 4[]
Claudia returns to 2019 following a long absence. She meets Tronte Nielsen and Peter Doppler in the bunker, just after Peter witnesses the dead body of Mads Nielsen materialize before his eyes, and tells them where to leave the corpse so the police will find it. She recruits their help and gives Tronte the triquetra notebook.
November 11[]
Claudia visits her grandson Bartosz, who long believed her to be dead. She admits to him that if she could turn back time, she would do many things in her life differently. She gives him an old photograph of her and Regina "from before that summer" as a gift for his mother.
1953 (time travel)[]
November 11[]
Claudia visits H.G. Tannhaus in his shop after hours. He entices him with a set of bizarre blueprints, in reality plans for a time travel apparatus given to her by Eva of the alternate world. She only tells him that it will "set the course of time straight."
1987 (time travel)[]
June 22[]
Near the end of her life, Claudia visits her younger self in the power plant. She explains how Gretchen is in fact her dog because she and Claudia are the same person. Convincing the younger Claudia that she is who she says she is, they go to the section of the caves on the plant's grounds where the barrels are hidden. She gives her younger self a map, informs her that she must stop Adam, promises that Regina will live if she does so, and then disappears into time.
1954 (time travel)[]
June 22[]
In the night, after returning from 1987 and having roped her middle-aged self into time travel, Claudia buries her time travel device in the spot near where her house will be built for her younger self to find.
June 23[]
Agnes goes to the bunker where the elderly Claudia waits. Claudia tells her that they sent Helge back today (from 1987) and that Noah has also returned. Agnes tells her that she is not afraid of her brother Noah any more. Claudia then reports that Sic Mundus is preparing for the next cycle, which will begin in four days. She tells her that all the suffering that Noah causes will come to an end. She hands her a newspaper clipping. Claudia thanks her and tells her that her mother loves her. They hug.
Claudia visits Egon at the police station. He observes she has different colored eyes, like his daughter. She tells him he is too good a person, the world doesn't deserve him. She asks for his forgiveness, saying he never deserved any of what happened. He will understand someday. He is unsettled by her remarks and orders her out.
Claudia visits Tannhaus in his shop. He tells her the time machine is not ready yet. She tells him it will take 33 years. He says he does not understand the blueprint. She hands him a copy of his book A Journey Through Time, saying she will be dead soon, and no longer needs it. Claudia says they will meet again—after she dies, which perplexes him. She then says that when he next sees her, he will have to show her how to use the time machine—and that someone else will explain it. Tannhaus is confused and has more questions to ask. She tells him everything will happen as it always does.
Claudia is met by Noah at the bunker, who brandishes a shotgun. He says Agnes has betrayed her, that she took it all from him, and that she will die. Claudia responds that she knows she is going to die and meeting him is part of the game he still doesn't understand how to play. He says he is not one of her pawns anymore. Claudia says that Noah is himself being manipulated by Adam and the paradise promised is a lie. He is not free. He shoots her.
2053[]
September 22[]
Agnes is looking at the unstable God Particle while Adam stands beside her, telling her she has chosen the correct side. He hands her a newspaper clipping which mentions the unidentified woman (Claudia) who was found dead in the woods in 1954, and tells her to give it to Claudia when it is time to do so.
2053 (overlapping reality)[]
September 25[]
Adam activates his machine and kills the alternate Martha, but the dark matter disappears in a flash along with Martha. Realizing his plan has not worked, he is interrupted by the arrival of old Claudia.
Claudia tells Adam that every journey may have a beginning, but that his has no ending. She tells him he is there to help it come to an end. Adam is confused, certain it is impossible she is alive because he had her killed. Claudia tells him he still has no idea how the game is played. She tells him he wants to destroy the knot, yet keeps it intact with every action he takes. Adam is in shock because he killed Martha and thus the origin, but Claudia tells him that neither his nor Eva's world should have existed in the first place. She explains that the concept of dualities is wrong, and Adam realizes she means the triquetra. Adam realizes this means there is a third world, which Claudia explains as the world that gave birth to the knot, and where everything originates. In this world, H.G. Tannhaus committed a single mistake: he tried to bring his family back from the dead, but instead destroyed and divided his world. However, Claudia assures Adam that there is a way to destroy the knot: preventing the travel of space and time in the original world.
The two walk to Adam's study, which is now destroyed. Claudia apologizes for having him go through everything he had to go through, but comment that the path needed to stay the same. Adam asks if the conversation they are having has happened before, and Claudia tells him he has tried to kill the origin many times, but that was the first time they have ever had this conversation. She tells him everything Adam and Eva have done has maintained the knot for eternity.
Claudia tells Adam that everything he and Eva have done has been because of love, and yet have brought nothing but pain and suffering. Adam asks Claudia how she knows about the origin world. Claudia tells him she has tried to put the pieces together to understand how it works, and she realized that not everything is part of the knot. Claudia admits to Adam that she has led people to pain and suffering so that she can be here on this day, adding that everything she has done has been for Regina. She has been looking for a way for her to live, trying to understand how everything is connected until she understood that Regina would only live in the origin world. She tells Adam she lied to him, and to Eva, but the knot had to stay intact, with both worlds having the same tragic events happening only at different times or places. However, now she knows how to untie the knot. She explains how during the apocalypse, time stands still for a fraction of a second, which Eva has used in order to send her younger self to Adam's world, and keeps the knot intact. She states that he must use it to send Jonas on a different path. He must send Jonas and Martha to the origin world so that they put an end to everything.
Claudia talks to her other self, and the younger version tells old Claudia to tell Egon she is sorry for what she had to do. Old Claudia tells her that if everything works, Regina would live before she leaves.
As a result of old Claudia's actions, the middle-aged Claudia looks at her hands and sees them fading, along with her surroundings. Realizing her plan was a success and Regina's life has been saved, Claudia looks at Regina's picture, shedding a tear as she ceases from existence.
Original world[]
In the origin world 2019, a family photo of a young Regina, Claudia, and Bernd is shown in Regina's house during a dinner party, revealing that Bernd was the father of Regina in all three worlds.
Appearances []
Season 1 []
- Episode 3 "Past and Present" (1986)
- Episode 8 "As You Sow, so You Shall Reap" (1953, 2019)
- Episode 9 "Everything Is Now" (1953, 1986, old time traveler: 1953)
- Episode 10 "Alpha and Omega" (1986, old time traveler: 2019)
Season 2 []
- Episode 1 "Beginnings and Endings" (2053, voice recordings from 2020)
- Episode 2 "Dark Matter" (1987, old time traveler: 1987, voice recordings: 2053)
- Episode 3 "Ghosts" (1954, 1987, old time traveler: 1954)
- Episode 4 "The Travelers" (1987)
- Episode 5 "Lost and Found" (1987)
- Episode 6 "An Endless Cycle" (old time traveler: 2019)
- Episode 7 "The White Devil" (1987, old time traveler: 1954)
- Episode 8 "Endings and Beginnings" (1987 --> 2020)
Season 3 []
- Episode 2 "The Survivors" (2020)
- Episode 4 "The Origin" (1954)
- Episode 5 "Life and Death" (2020)
- Episode 6 "Light and Shadow" (2020)
- Episode 7 "Between the Time" (1987, 2020-2053, old time traveler: 2053)
- Episode 8 "The Paradise" (2020-2053, old time traveler: 2053)
References[]
- ↑ Story on July 4, 2019, on the official Dark Instagram page https://i.imgur.com/0uMsyP5.jpg
- ↑ Dark Season 2 Episode 3: "Ghosts"
- ↑ Dark Season 3 Episode 8: "The Paradise"
- ↑ Dark Season 1 Episode 8: "As You Sow, so You Shall Reap"
- ↑ Dark Season 3 Episode 2: "The Survivors"