All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S06E11.The.Human.Zoo.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Narrator: A peculiar mix
of structures left derelict

in a parisian park.

There seems to be no
rhyme or reason to it,

it's all just smashed
together in the same spot

and that's part of the wonder
and mystery of this place.

A watery graveyard
forgotten by time,

the silent protector
of an English village.

This isn't just one old
rowing boat tossed aside,

these things dominate
the landscape.

A network of relics forged through
deception on a grand scale...

Audacious doesn't cover it,

you had a team
of 1,000 overseers

watching to make sure
they adhered to the rules

and if they were caught
breaking those rules,

it could have
started another war.

..And a site on america's east
coast harbouring vast secrets.

Inside you're presented
with this large cavernous void

and then as you venture deeper,

you see these rusting elements
that suggest that something hefty

was being hoisted or
lifted up and down here.

Decaying relics,
ruins of lost worlds.

Forged through years of
toil, now haunted by the past.

Their secrets waiting
to be revealed.

Paris, France.

The city of light.

Gay Paris it's a
proper Metropolis,

a real melting pot for
cultures around the world.

Liberty, equality
and brotherhood

it's really a particular
vision of human democracy,

of equality that really
resonates in France.

But on the outskirts of the city

are a series of crumbling
structures that don't seem to belong.

You have this park that
combines some features

of seemingly far away cultures.

There are facets of architecture

that look like they've been
airlifted from around the world.

Vietnam, Tonga, China,

there's a bridge there that
looks vaguely Japanese,

appropriately
surrounded by bamboo.

Alone each of these
things are really beautiful

but they're smashed
together rather curiously.

The items in this collection
are relics of a past that parisians

would rather forget.

You wonder when they're
bought together what they mean,

what they were used for

and why they were
placed in juxtaposition.

The story begins at the
dawn of the 20th century

with the opening of a garden.

In 1899, the French government
decided to open a garden

with a greenhouse
to grow exotic plants.

Catherine hodeir has studied
the garden's dark secrets.

In the greenhouse you had
plants such like cocoa beans,

or coffee beans
or vanilla beans.

But this wasn't just
an ordinary greenhouse

growing garden tomatoes,

this was an institution
of scientific study

and where were all
these plants coming from?

The French colonies.

In the 19th century,

France had an empire that stretched
across 8% of the world's surface.

Alongside england and Germany,

France has colonies that
really are all over the globe.

You have French
colonies in the Caribbean,

you have a French
colony in South America,

you have them in
Asia and in Africa,

north Africa and west Africa.

The 19th and 20th centuries
were a time of rapid discovery

and the major global powers
competed for scientific superiority.

So the work that these
French experts were doing here

has real potential

and any new commodities
that they discover

can then be processed and
redistributed across the empire.

But all that doesn't
explain these buildings.

For seven years French botanists
studied the samples gathered

from the colonies.

But by 1906, the
garden was broke.

This garden needed some cash.

The ordinary French population
just didn't seem that interested

in the work that
was being done here,

even though it was
very, very important work.

They needed to get the
French people excited

about the colonies
and their products again.

To raise capital for the garden,

they decided to stage
a grand exhibition

and at it's centre were new
buildings inspired by the colonies.

Imagine a turn of the
century Disneyland,

so you were going to see the
orient right next to the African jungle.

And it was a huge hit,
thousands of visitors came

and they even got the
president of the French republic

to come and check it out.

The samples of architecture

in this garden were French Guyana
from indo-China, from Tunisia,

Morocco, Madagascar.

The noise would
have been incredible

from music to squawking
animals and the hub bub of people

and there would have
been a cocktail of rich odours

from spices to camel excrement.

This was quite an exhibition,

the rarest treasures from
the colonies were on display.

There was nothing you couldn't
see here including human beings.

Mongolians, Chinese, africans,

they would have been presented
in what would have been considered

representative indigenous wear,

clothing that may or may not
have had ceremonial purposes

but they would be presented
sort of as exotics in dress.

And in speech and in behaviour.

It was meant to be
a cultural exchange

but the exchange
was in one direction.

With people who were on display

being gawped at,
almost like being in a zoo.

The owners of the garden
hoped to make big money

from their exhibits.

History had taught them

that the human zoo
could draw a crowd.

These type of colonial exhibitions
or human zoos if you will,

were not limited to, to France,

you had similar examples
in terms of england,

in terms of the United States.

London, Berlin even New York,
put human beings on display.

High minded
scientists would come

and perform a systematic
study of non Caucasian people

to try to classify
the differences

but the conclusions
they came to,

today they would be
considered extremely racist.

To raise enough
capital for the garden,

they needed the most
eye catching displays

from France's most
distant colonies.

There were adventurers
who would travel

to the four corners
of the French empire

and they would offer to pay
these people handsomely

if they would come to France

and talk to French
people about their culture.

The recruiters offered things
like a percentage of ticket sales

but that often
never materialised.

And the vast majority
of these people

didn't speak any French,

so they were completely at
the whim of the adventurers

that had bought them there.

The colonial exhibit of 1907
raised thousands of dollars

for the garden,
ensuring it's future.

But a global crisis
less than ten years later

would see the garden
put to a different purpose.

So during world war I,

the garden was converted
in to a war hospital

because the people
from the French colonies

were bought here
to fight for France

on the French western front.

France's colonial subjects

were recruited by the
hundreds of thousands

to fight on the side of
their own colonisers.

Buildings that used to be
exhibition spaces or ticket halls

were now things like surgeries

for France's foreign
and native soldiers.

They even built Paris' first
mosque for Muslim colonial troops.

And you'd think that this would be
some type of watershed moment,

now that these people
had fought for France,

that they'd get
recognition, if not as equals

then at least more respect

than being put on
display but you'd be wrong.

Over a decade after French
and colonial soldiers fought

as brothers in arms,

France threw their biggest
colonial exhibition, ever.

For this 1931 exhibition

there are some 32 million
tickets sold over six months.

There was even an entire nomadic
tribe of people from Senegal.

You have to wonder
how they were convinced

to participate in such.

This would be the last time

this kind of display
was seen in France,

the colonial exhibitions
soon went out of fashion.

The park was again
closed to the public

and the buildings left to rot
in this quiet corner of Paris.

Today, historians like Catherine

dedicate their work to recording
the history of the colonial era.

So, today, the garden
is partly abandoned.

It became very important in 2005

to reopen the
garden to the public.

Although these exhibitions end,

the legacies of colonialism
has a very, very long after life

but that idea some
how that allure,

that exoticism still persists

and we should blame
at least part of that

on the history of putting
people on display.

Standing in the waters off
the New Jersey coastline,

is Sandy hook,

a sandbar littered with
the remnants of war.

Looking around Sandy hook today,

it's like a kind of a yard
sale of military technology.

Some look like very typical
cold war era installations,

others look as though they
date back as far as the civil war.

The assortment of structures
and weapons on show here,

makes you wonder is this
your typical military base

or something entirely different?

The sites position seems to
offer the first clue as to it's purpose.

This long narrow peninsula
points like a dagger

right at New York harbour

and this hints at it's
strategic importance.

Because any deep draft vessel
approaching New York harbour,

is going to have to swing
right by this peninsula.

Yet, this wasn't a place
with just one role to play.

Or one story to tell.

I see construction from times

when america was
just another colony,

parts that show america's
rise to military superiority,

I see evidence of the moment

when the United States
stopped being just another country

and became the
military colossus it is.

Here it is, on this little
Sandy bit of ground.

Towards the northern
end of the peninsula,

an old light house
provides a commanding view

across this baffling complex
and hints at it's beginnings.

The construction
of this lighthouse

points to Sandy hook's
significance in American history,

dating all the way
back to the mid 1700s.

It's need was driven by
New York's merchant traffic.

This is a harbour that has
been strategically important

to anyone trying to
hold the north Atlantic.

It was an important Dutch,
English and American harbour

and when you look
at that lighthouse,

it shows how long
people have needed

to navigate safely in
and out of New York.

Park ranger, Tom Hoffman,
knows the danger of these shores

better than most.

Even on a clear day,

Sandy hook is so low and flat
it blends in with the ocean water

and imagine that's the day time

and at night time,
you don't see anything,

the night they lighted it

for the first time

was 11 June 1764

and it's been standing here
on this location ever since.

But these ruins show
the treacherous coastline

wasn't the only danger here.

The story of war
written across this place,

actually began at the lighthouse

when the British hoped to
defend this vital navigational aid

during the American revolution.

The British
dispatched two frigates

and anchored them right out here

and had an armed guard here
and sure enough who shows up?

But 200 American
soldiers with two Cannon...

..In 1776, they're
sneaking up the hook,

the commanding officer
ordered the cannons

to fire at the lighthouse

but as he put it in a report,

"we bombarded the
tower for over an hour

"but could make no impression."

Continuing to shine
for centuries to come,

the lighthouse would oversee
a dramatic transformation

of this land.

In 1874, nearly a decade
after the civil war ended,

thunderous shots rang
out over Sandy hook,

fired from this
now silent platform.

A now united nation was
weary of external threats,

this empty landscape had become
the us armies first proving ground.

A proving ground is a place
where you can take in new design

and where you can take samples
of all of your military production

and you can prove them.

They would check to make
sure that the rounds worked,

the fuses worked,
the range accuracy,

the detonation, the explosion.

They would test every
aspect of the projectile

and the gun firing it

and so you needed a place
where you could fire freely

without risk to, you
know, civilian life.

Over the coming half century,
hundreds of thousands of rounds

would be fired from the
Sandy hook proving ground.

And some of the largest,

most ambitious weapons
ever created were tested here.

Yet as some of the
structures here testify,

this site was about more
than simply testing weapons

or helping ships
navigate these waters.

What if the fight came to Sandy
hook and america's own shores?

We're talking about the two
big stories of Sandy hook,

one's the lighthouse and
that will guide any ship

from around the world
in to New York harbour

but in times of war,

you have to have
some kind of defence

to stop enemy
warships from coming in.

In the mid 1890s, war with
Spain appeared inevitable.

So more emphasis was put
on nearby defensive structures

like fort hancock.

The us did not have the capacity
at the end of the 19th century

to build a big enough Navy,

so instead of
building a lot of ships,

the United States builds
a lot of batteries of guns

to defend all of
it's major harbours.

What you had here were
four 12-inch calibre mortars

and you can see their
bases had been circular,

that's because a mortar
fires projectiles high up

to come back down
on your enemies ships.

As a proving
ground for the military

and with access to
the latest technology,

Sandy hook was set
as an example to follow.

The decision is taken
in the United States

to protect every valuable
harbour with these shore batteries

and so breach loading eight,
ten and 12 inch naval guns

are delivered to
forts like hancock,

starting in 1895 to
defend america's harbours.

While the Spanish
never came within range,

other enemies would
soon threaten these shores.

And while the us
had always trailed

the European powers
in military might,

here at fort hancock, that
old dynamic was shifting.

European gun makers are
developing artillery pieces

that can shoot smokeless
powder, fire quickly, disappear

and Sandy hook is where
the American versions

of these guns are
being developed.

Here is where
American technology

is keeping up, thanks to
us government research.

This is the very first
and only steam powered

disappearing gun battery,

so you load the
guns while inside

then it lifted up through
openings in the roof

to fire at enemy
ships out in the ocean

and of course, once you
fire, now you've got to reload,

so the gun comes back
down on the elevator

and it's a disappearing gun.

Within a few years of
being completed however,

this battery was
already outdated.

But the race to keep
ahead was still on.

In 1918, a u-boat reported
fired 16 shots at fort hancock

and the guns that stood
here responded in kind.

The German submarines were a
sign that the times were a changing.

The two big threats to
American ports in world war ii

were enemy bombers
and enemy submarines

and those big coastal gun
emplacements designed

to defend American port facilities
were no longer as important.

What remains is a legacy
of both the history of this site

and the route america took on
it's journey to the modern era.

By the 1950s, Sandy hook
entered it's final chapter.

We're walking in the
last defence system

used by the us army
here at fort hancock,

the Nike air defence radar site,

designed to shoot
down Russian bombers

if the cold war went hot.

Once Russians
have atomic weapons

then everyone in america
instantly understands

that American cities

are immensely vulnerable
to Russian attack.

After more than a century
defending New York from the sea,

attention now
shifted to the skies

and the gravest threat
the us ever faced.

For hundreds of years, Sandy
hook's military installations

had helped protect the
waters around New York...

..But by the 1950s,

they were also defending
the city from the air.

Nike batteries were part of the
us army air defence command.

These were placed strategically
near cities across the country

to prevent the
destruction of the centres

of america's great retaliatory
and productive might.

The Nike positions
around New York City

are designed to stop another
Pearl harbour style sneak attack.

So we just went under
one of the platforms

that held the
missile tracking radar

because the missiles
were a mile south of us

and once you launch the missile,

the radar here guided
the missile up to the target

and then another radar,
the target tracking radar,

was tracking the target and
through a computer system

bought the two together
and guaranteed a hit.

Yet, like all the weapons and
defence systems on show here,

it's lifespan was short.

In 1974, with the Nike
missile programme outdated,

the last of the equipment

and military personnel
left the peninsula.

Left to the elements on
this windswept coastline,

what remains here paints a
picture not just of the story of this site

but of the birth and
history of a nation.

All of these artefacts
taken together,

reflect america's
rise to world power

from this vulnerable
colony of the British empire

to a nation that
then projects power

and then has the latest
cutting edge technology

to defend the free world
against the communist threat.

It's all right here
on Sandy hook.

Southern england,

in a quiet village
called purton,

lying beside a mighty
river is a fleet of the dead.

They certainly look like boats but
they appear to be made of stone,

can you make boats of stone?

Are they statues?

These monoliths
stand half submerged

in britain's longest
river, the severn.

Some of these boats, you
can only see the very tip

of their rotting bow just
poking out from the ground.

They draw a line 1.5
miles along the shoreline.

There are so many of them,

but they definitely all seem
to have been there for a while.

It's almost as if they've
been put here for a purpose,

as if it's been designed

but yet they're completely
enveloped by the land.

The river and a much
calmer body of water next to it,

both connect the village of
purton to the rest of england.

We have a major river
right next to the canal,

I mean talk about belt and
braces, why would you need both?

Nearly 50 years ago,

a young boy and his family came to
this river bank in southern england.

When I came here as a child,
this was a great place to play.

Paul barnett and his
father found strange shapes

sticking out of the mud.

But they had no
idea what they were.

Well, my father
being an ex sailor,

he had his own curious
sort of observations

as to what this may be and
he just naturally assumed

it was just a great and easy
place to get rid of vessels.

We didn't know, we
really didn't know.

The secrets of the site
and it's boats made of stone

would remain buried,

until Paul returned to solve
the mystery 20 years later.

Well, the first thing
that I chose to do

was to carry out
a research project

at the local archive,

the information held
therein was very sparse.

I was absolutely astounded
by the lack of information.

These things
dominate the landscape,

you would have thought
that if they'd been put here

for a reason, that there
would be an official record.

But the archives were empty.

Paul's investigation
had hit a wall.

But a clue would be found in
the river severn's storied past.

Although it may not look it, this
is an immensely dangerous area.

Nobody had ventured
out in to the river severn,

it's incredibly treacherous,

the tide itself actually
runs in at about 13 knots.

The river severn is deadly

but next door is a more
placid body of water.

Directly next door to this
powerful river is a canal,

200 years ago, canals like these
were the main ways of moving freight

around britain and people
came to rely on these,

these canals were the arteries

for moving goods around
britain, including here at purton.

The sharpness
canal opened in 1827,

the people of purton

were now connected
to the rest of england.

But less than 100 years later,

the canals existence
was under threat.

The canal, a major piece

of infrastructure for trade

is protected from this
very dangerous river

by a very narrow mound of dirt.

That mound in some
places, just 20 feet thick,

is all that keeps these two
bodies of water separate.

With the full force
of the river coming in,

it was hitting the bank

and as a result of which it
was now prone to erosion

which was happening
almost on a daily basis.

The river bank literally
holds back the tide

without it, the river
would consume the canal.

For nearly a century the canal
and the river co-existed in Harmony.

But in 1909, that
Harmony was shattered.

A massive storm hit
the south west of england

and the river severn
began to over flow

and spill over in to the canal.

The full force of that
storm came into the bank

approximately 60m
of it was removed.

One hit and it was swept
away by the river severn

and it's fast flowing waters.

Tonnes and tonnes of dirt and
silt were carried away down stream.

Nearly 200 feet of the
bank was swept away.

The canal was now in
real danger of breaching.

Something had to be done.

The storm almost
obliterated the river bank

but a fleet made of stone
was about to change it forever.

They had no money for
big restoration projects,

this was a very
small part of britain

that had very limited
means and very little time.

But the chief engineer for
the canal had a radical plan.

The engineer for the dock
company made a request,

are there any barges that
could be bought to his point,

run up to the foreshore
and add their strength

in order to protect
that waterway.

For the plan to work, they
needed a whole fleet of boats,

so they asked the locals
to volunteer their old tugs

and they rallied to the cause.

In total, 15 wooden vessels
were bought to purton.

This was actually
one of the first vessels,

in actual fact, the first
vessel to be beached here.

20 minutes before high tide, the
vessel with a full head of steam

would come thundering
in to the bank.

The plan was to then drill
holes in them to let water in,

this would allow silt
and mud from upstream

to come down then
fill into the boats

and around the boats

and effectively
rebuild the river bank.

The barges were
beached on the river bank,

protecting the canal
from the severn,

they became known
as the purton hulks.

It appeared the
canal had been saved

but the celebrations
were short lived.

The one thing about
wood is that it rots.

What was happening was
the timber, were now rotting

and as a result, they once
again, the canal was in danger.

So wooden boats rot
and metal boats rust,

fortunately history
provided the answer.

In the years after world war I,

the price of timber
and iron Rose sharply,

it became too expensive
to make river boats.

So boat makers turned
to an unlikely material,

the concrete boats
could be made really fast

and really cheap but apparently
they were a nightmare to drive.

Old concrete barges
were the solution

to protecting the river
bank, permanently.

In the 1960s, eight were bought
to purton, the final purton hulks.

60 years later, the banks
thickness has doubled.

The canal was saved.

Knowing how you can work with
the sea, you can't work against her.

Absolutely astounded
by the real seamanship

that would have taken to
get these vessels in here.

The purton hulks now
stand as silent guardians

made of wood and stone.

For the last 60 years
they've been there,

protecting the canal from
the powerful river severn,

a testament to engineering
by the seat of your pants.

In a remote region
of western Poland

an engineering giant
is hidden in plain sight.

When you approach this site,
it really doesn't look like much.

And then as you get closer,

you see that there are pillboxes
dotted around the landscape.

Once you spotted one,
you then see another

and as your eye carries on,

you realise this line
goes on almost forever,

this is a really major
piece of engineering.

So it reminds me of the
marginal line in France,

but we're not in France,
so it couldn't be that.

These pill boxes draw an outline
of a fortress buried underground.

There is an immense
network of tunnels

that seems to go on just forever

and in one of them,
there's a railway line.

People worked here
and then they left

but they left some clues

as to what they were
doing down there.

A room with a sign above
it that says maschinenraum,

machine room.

This is a place where clearly

an immense
engineering effort went in

but ultimately, it
came to nought.

Almost 22 miles of tunnels are
buried in the Polish countryside.

But a clue on the surface
points to a history of deception.

There's this one
above ground feature,

this odd bridge.

That's the key to
understanding the structure.

What secrets are buried
beneath the surface?

A mammoth engineering
project spanning nearly 40 miles,

stretches across and
under the Polish countryside.

Most of this site
is underground,

it's miles and miles of
tunnel, the train tracks

but the clue to what
this site is about

is right here in this one
above ground part of it,

the bridge, a bridge
with an odd hinge on it.

Historian and
architect, Robert jurga,

has spent his career exploring

one of Poland's most
overlooked historical sites.

Translator: "The plan of
this bridge is still protected

"by the patent
that's kept in Berlin.

"The level of
security was so high

"that the operators consisted

"of a specially trained
group of soldiers."

Swing Bridges are
common on major rivers

to let large ships pass through.

But the water here
is practically a trickle.

The swing bridge is here
because this entire set

of fortifications
is actually illegal.

In western Poland,

just 40 miles from
the German border,

a swinging bridge was part

of an illegal
fortification programme.

The origins of this structure
date to the end of world war I,

when this part of Poland
belonged to Germany.

Think back to what happened

in Germany at the end

of world war I.

They were defeated by a big
allied coalition, they were disarmed,

they lost territory,

they lost citizens to
the treaty of versailles.

The treaty was
punishing to Germany,

they had to give up
their entire empire

they had to allow
the allies to occupy

part of their
industrial heartland

and they also had to limit
their army to 100,000 men.

Germany was also forbidden

from building any new
fortifications along it's border.

Leaving the country
virtually defenceless.

The Germans felt a great sense
of vulnerability about their border

because after world war I,

they were a universally
loathed nation

but they had
enemies on their right,

there was Poland and
behind Poland of course,

the Soviet union.

With limited defences,

Germany was vulnerable
to invasion from the east.

It's biggest weakness was
a stretch of land sandwiched

between two rivers.

This region was flat and
had no natural barriers.

It was a highway that
led straight to Berlin.

If the Poles or the Soviets
wanted to invade Germany,

that was the perfect route

'cause it gave them a direct
path to Berlin, the capital.

This was a huge hole
in Germany's defences

and they wanted to plug it.

But with the treaty
making the contraction

of new defences illegal,

the German government
concocted a rouse.

The rules of the
treaty of versailles

limited Germany's
spending on the military

and on fortifications
but it didn't say anything

about water management,

so they bought in engineers

and dug up hundreds and
hundreds of tonnes of earth,

redirected rivers and essentially
created a new natural barrier.

Translator: "The main tool
against the tanks was water,

"many tactical canals were built

"and they became the main
barrier against the enemies tanks

"on those channels, they
built a line of tactical Bridges."

A series of Bridges across
an artificial waterway,

each with a mechanism
to stop an enemy advance.

Translator: "Those Bridges
were closed in case of the arrival

"of the enemy and in normal
times, were used by the civilians."

Over five years, a line is drawn

between the varta
and odor rivers...

..This is the beginning
of the ostwall.

Audacious doesn't cover it,

you had a team
of 1,000 overseers,

watching to make sure
Germany adhered to the rules

and if they were caught
breaking those rules,

it could have
started another war.

An embolden, German government
began to add tunnels and bunkers,

making the ostwall a state
of the art battle fortress.

But in 1938, Germany's
leader comes to inspect it.

He was not happy.

When Hitler visits
the ostwall in 1938

he is definitely underwhelmed,

Hitler is somebody who
wants to see, you know,

parades of panzers
in the street,

flyovers by luftwaffe bombers,
dive bombers and fighter planes.

Goose stepping infantry,

he does not want to see
these subterranean fortress

with just a little machine gun
turret poking out of the pine trees.

The ostwall failed it's inspection
and the construction was put on hold.

The following year,

Hitler marched his troops
past the wall and into Poland.

Once Germany had
conquered Poland,

this fortification lay in the middle
of German controlled territory,

so was militarily useless

after a decade of pouring so
much effort and money into this line,

it was left as a lame duck.

This speaks to Hitler's
conception of warfare,

that the German army
had to be on the move,

it had to be attacking

and it was not going to sit
passively behind fortifications.

With the ostwall cancelled,
the tunnels were left empty...

..Until the furore found
a new use for them.

After Hitler stopped
construction on the ostwall,

it was largely unused

but when the allies begin their
strategic bombing of Germany,

it finds a new purpose,

they move machinery down
here to build aircraft engines.

With most able bodied soldiers
fighting on the front lines,

only a small regiment
was left to defend the wall.

Regular troops
weren't stationed there,

you just had militia,

which were mostly
poorly trained Hitler youth

and men too old to be
sent to the frontlines.

Conditions were dreadful,
it was dank, it was dark,

it was under funded,
there were no resources,

the people who were here
really had been forgotten about.

Remember the front line
was hundreds of miles away,

until everything changed.

By the end of 1944, the
Germans were being pushed back

and the Soviets were
creeping closer to Berlin.

So Hitler was not by any stretch
of the imagination a military genius

and he insisted on
this tactic of no retreat

and what happens is,

hundreds of thousands of
German troops are surrounded

and captured by the red army

until one of the last things
in-between the Soviet war machine

and Berlin is this
one bit of fortification.

The ostwall and those defending
it, were about to be put to the test.

Translator: "Enemy was approaching
from that side, approaching slowly.

"Firstly he had to overpass
the antitank barrier on the road."

So, these Hitler youth
and these old guys,

militia they stand no chance
against the Soviet army

but that doesn't stop
them, they put up resistance

and they were determined
to defend the border

and defend this fortification.

In just days, the
wall was breached

and the red army
rolled towards Berlin.

The slightly pathetic
thing about the line really,

is that after so much
deviousness, so much planning,

so much hopes for it,
when the time actually came,

they weren't prepared to put
the manpower or the resources

in to using it

and the lame duck
became a damp squib.

Translator: "Had this
fortification been completed

"the way it was designed,

"most likely it would have been
very precious to the German army.

"Unfortunately for them,
they completed it only to 30%.

"And without anti tank weaponry,
the soldiers didn't have a chance

"against the power
of the Soviet army.

When the war ended
and the treaties are signed,

the borders are redrawn and
this area ends up inside Poland,

the very nation it
was built to keep out.

Now the ostwall lies empty...

..Rumours speak of Nazi
treasure still hidden in the walls...

..But all that fills the
dark corridors today

are some 35,000 protected bats.

Abandoned, disintegrating,
reclaimed by nature.

Structures once
at the cutting edge,

bearing witness to the forces,

pioneers and villains
that define the world today.

Emblems of a shared
past standing in our present.

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