In President Reagan's March 1983 "Evil Empire" speech, when he talked about the evil empire, he did not make this line up himself, but was quoting from Northern Ireland novelist and poet, C.S Lewis 1942 Screwetape Letters, which said "The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid 'dens of crime' that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice."
When being questioned about his abilities, Martin Rauch says that he doesn't play the piano. Jonas Nay, who plays the character, revealed in an interview with British newspaper 'The Guardian' that it was only after filming the scene that he told head writer Anna Winger that he can actually play the piano.
Series music coordinator Reinhold Heil said that he was on board the project when he saw the first scene of the show, where two teenagers are being interrogated by the border guards (one of whom was Martin, the main character) for attempting to smuggle two books by William Shakespeare and Karl Marx across the border. He said that it was very realistic, which comes from his similar experience when he was caught smuggling music (Igor Stravinsky and Johann Sebastian Bach).