All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S13E08.Episode.8.1080p.UKTV.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-FFG_track3_[eng]

In Panama,
a jungle stronghold

built to defend
a prized American possession.

The Nazis knew that if they
destroyed what this protected,

they could potentially
defeat the Allies.

In Italy, the hilltop haunt
of a mad scientist.

There's grates to an underground
dungeon and shackles on a wall

as if you're in a torture chamber.

A remote Bulgarian facility
that brought hope to its occupants.

At a time when the rest
of Eastern Europe was suffering

under an oppressive
communist system,

this complex was in its golden age.

And in Germany,
a ghostly railway

divides a city, fractured by
conflict.

Families were torn apart
and this became

a staging post to fight back.

Decaying relics.

Ruins of lost worlds.

Sites haunted by the past.

Their secrets,
waiting to be revealed.

In northern Panama,

dense rainforest hides remnants
of an imperial age.

We're in the muggy, steamy jungle

and in between the trees,
you see these buildings

that, from a distance, you might
almost think were Mayan ruins.

But these are clearly modern,
man-made structures.

These are very solid,
lots of reinforced concrete.

The thing's built to last.

Exploring deeper, there are few clues
to its original function.

There really isn't anything left.
It's dark and it's dingy.

But you can imagine this was once
bustling and filled with people,

whose job was to man
the facilities here.

A distinctive,
rectangular structure

suggests this was once
a defensive stronghold.

One of the buildings is red
and white.

It's got these, kind of,
porthole-like windows

and on the side
it says Battery Baird.

It's facing the sea,

so it's clearly some kind of
a military fortification.

Today, this is just a crumbling
outpost in the jungle.

But there was a time when this place
was pivotal to the defence

of one of the most important pieces
of infrastructure in the world.

Joe Berger lives in
the nearby city of Colon.

When he was growing up,
this was his playground.

My parents were working here
from the '80s and in the '90s

and the guys would dress me up
with military fatigues

and they'd put all the military
makeup on your face so you could,

like, blend into the jungle
and all that.

It was towards the end of the
American presence here.

Joe's ancestors first came
to Panama from Pennsylvania

more than a century ago.

Not as part of the military,
but to help construct

one of the world's most ambitious
engineering projects.

My family came down in 1907

to work on the Panama Canal,
to build the Panama Canal.

It really is impossible
to overstate how significant

this was to global history.

For as long as Europeans
have been colonising the Americas,

they have been looking
for a shortcut to connect

the Atlantic Ocean
with the Pacific Ocean.

In the late 19th century,

the French were the first to try
and cut through Panama.

They discovered an area that
was full of mosquito-borne diseases,

especially yellow fever
and malaria.

It's estimated the French lost
about 20,000 people in their effort

to dig the canal.
By 1899, they'd given up.

But then along comes
the United States and says,

"We need a Panama Canal to connect
our east coast and west coast

and unite the continent
and to give us ready access

to Asia and Europe
from either coast."

The American government purchased
the abandoned French assets

and the rights to the canal
for $40 million.

Construction began in 1904,

but only after US engineers
figured out how to succeed,

where the French
had run into trouble.

There is a big river
called the Chagres River

that runs from the Panama highlands
down to the Atlantic

and sometimes it floods. It caused
a lot of problems for the French.

So the Americans, they build
this huge dam called the Gatun Dam

and formed a giant reservoir
in the middle of Panama

that feeds the canal.

Without that water, the Panama Canal
cannot operate.

By 1914, the 50-mile long waterway
was opened for business.

Effectively,
the Panama Canal project

cost about $375 million.

And obviously, when you spend
that much money,

you want to protect your investment.

So they decide, "All right, we
need to put fortifications around

the canal to be able to protect
that from any outside attack."

This is Fort Sherman.

It was made up of seven
defence batteries

intended to protect
the Atlantic entrance

to the canal and the Gatun Dam.

You've got, like, 14-inch guns,
ten-inch guns,

all these battery positions
ready to absolutely pummel

any adversary that closes up
on the canal.

This is Battery Baird and over
there, that's Battery Howard.

In order to triangulate the place
where they're going to hit,

they'd have a viewing point
over on one side

and a viewing point
over on the other.

And with their calculations,
they would be able to triangulate

where the ship was heading.

And then, right here is where those
calculations, those coordinations,

would pop up for the people
down there operating the mortars

to be able to line it up
accordingly.

Altogether, Fort Sherman
was really this formidable ring

of concrete and firepower.

In the decades to come,
it would be put to the test.

In 1939, Europe went to war

and from the start,
Americans feared that

the canal could potentially
be a German target.

It was absolutely vital to be able
to move forces and trade

between the two oceans,
and if an enemy could take it out,

that could be their path to victory.

The US had to do everything
they could

to keep enemy aircraft
from ever reaching it.

As the United States got involved
in the Second World War,

they saw the necessity
for more troops.

These are where the soldiers
would be stationed.

The perceived threat
was all too real.

Fort Sherman was well prepared,

so in order for an attack
to be successful,

the Nazis knew they would
have to use a different approach.

Under the code name
Operation Pelikan,

the Germans made
an audacious plan.

They have this idea.
"We're going to put a couple of

Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers in pieces
on U-boats

and we're going to, like,
sail them to this little island

just off the coast from Panama."

And then we're going
to, like, put 'em together,

load 'em up with, like,
a dam-busting type bomb

and then we're going to bomb
the Gatun Dam."

A successful strike may have altered
the course of the war.

If you could knock out that dam,
it would take years

for the Americans to rebuild
and reopen the canal.

Ultimately, what happened to that
plan? We don't really know.

I mean, the Stukas never
appeared over Panama,

never dropped bombs
on the Gatun Dam.

Fortunately, the canal
was never attacked.

And eventually, the army
came up with another use

for this outpost in the jungle.

Many of the soldiers who were
destined to go to the Vietnam War

did their jungle training here.

So there was even a mock-up
Vietnam village

that was set here
for them to train in.

Former Lieutenant Colonel Dan Smith
served in the US Special Forces

for almost 20 years.

When I came here,
I was 23 years old.

First, they would give
you basic living,

plants that were poisonous,
things you could eat,

poisonous snakes
and non-poisonous snakes

and then they would teach you
how to build a jungle refuge.

Learning to survive in the jungle
was the easy part.

Soldiers were also trained
to withstand potential enemy torture.

This area, I can remember

because they had a different torture
in every room.

We were brought here blindfolded

and immediately stripped
of all of our clothing

and they would send you in
for an interrogation

and if you refused to answer,

they would send you out
and you could go into the birdcage,

which was about that high.
It was made of barbed wire.

They put it down over you
and then you couldn't move.

And if it was on
an ant nest, better.

Only the toughest went the distance.

I had one classmate and they put
him in a box with water up to here

and every 60 seconds, they would
pound on it with a heavy log.

And he came out of there screaming.
He got claustrophobia.

They said, "All right, you're out."
That was it.

I went to Vietnam in 1967

and it was challenging,
but I think my training was good.

After the Vietnam War, this facility
was still used for jungle training,

but Fort Sherman's end was in sight.

On the 31st of December 1999,

the US surrendered control
of the canal to Panama,

ending its 150-year presence
in the country.

The American government
tried to retain Fort Sherman,

but the Panamanians, like,
held firm and they said,

"No Yankees on Panamanian soil."
So the Americans handed it back.

But it just, sort of,
fell into disuse.

And so it's been taken back
by the jungle in the years since.

My grandfather helped build
the canal.

So I've been steeped in the lure of
the canal since I was a little kid.

Going back and seeing
a fort like this,

all the work that went
into protecting that canal,

to save it from being attacked
or destroyed,

it's a reminder to us of how
crucial this kind of infrastructure

can be in our civilisation.

On the outskirts of Bologna, Italy,

an eclectic structure
defies explanation.

There's gold leaf onion domes,

minarets, towers and turrets.

It looks like it was built
one wing at a time,

each one in its own style.

There are endless medieval,
Arab, Moorish decorations

in a labyrinth of towers,
staircases and courtyards.

It's clear this is the creation
of a very wealthy individual,

one whose face is immortalised
in the stained glass.

Here, he came up with
his greatest invention.

He set out to cure cancer

and the famous and the desperate
made pilgrimages to the sanctuary.

The creator of this peculiar world
won international acclaim,

but his monumental legacy
would become his prison.

At the heart of it all
is a drawbridge,

not at the front of the building,
but inside it.

You must have a certain
frame of mind

to build a drawbridge on the
outside of your private quarters.

He descended into paranoia.

He felt like everyone
was out to get him.

Carlotta Rubini grew up in
the shadow of this looming mansion.

We always got used to this
mysterious castle on top of the hill

that we didn't know much about.

But I could never see the castle
from the inside

because it closed before I was born.

For decades,
rumours circulated in the local area

about the eccentric man
who once lived here.

In August 2015, Carlotta
got to find out the truth.

I remember the first time
I walked in here,

I was, like, pinching myself

because I couldn't believe
I finally got to set foot

inside this castle.

We were able to learn the real story
of the Count Cesare Mattei.

By most measures,
Cesare Mattei led an enviable life,

but it wasn't without hardship.

Born to a wealthy
Bologna family in 1809,

illness influenced his life
from an early age.

He was just 21 when his mother
was diagnosed with breast cancer,

which she fought for 15 years
before it eventually killed her.

Disappointed by incompetent doctors,

he decided to take matters
into his own hands.

His purpose was to find
a new medicine

that could cure everything
from a simple cold to cancer.

In 1850, he acquired this hillside
to build a residence

that would house
his growing obsession.

Cesare didn't trust anyone else
with the design

and was the architect
of his own outlandish vision.

It became known as Rocchetta Mattei.

The count loved the Moorish style,

which is prominent
inside the castle.

Eccentric is a good word
to describe it, I think.

It's very peculiar.

But it was more than
just Cesare's folly.

Here, he would atone
for his mother's drawn-out death.

He came up with an alternative
form of medicine

called electro-homeopathy.

This is the room of the visions,
where the count claims

to have had the original idea
for his medicine,

which he then had painted
on the wall there.

Cesare believed his unique,
plant-based method

could cure diseases
by balancing electrical charges

and chemicals inside the body.

He turned to grinding
various plants into pulps

and mixing them in vials.

It was made of 33 types of granules
and five liquids

that, mixed together
in different dosages,

were supposed to cure everything.

He administered
his herbal concoctions

to the sick of Bologna
without charge.

Word spread and patients soon
came from all over the world

to take the supposedly
magical medicine.

And as Cesare's empire expanded,
he won approval

from the very highest authority.

So this room is the Pope's room

and it was originally built by
Mattei to host Pope Pius IX.

But all of a sudden,
the good friendship

between the Pope and the count
stopped. We don't know why.

And it was a big blow to the count,

for the Pope to ignore him
and never come to the castle

after he built all of this for him.

Despite the high-profile snub,

electro homeopathy continued
to go from strength to strength.

At the height of his empire,

there were some 107 distribution
centres throughout the world,

from the UK to America and China.

There's even mention
of the remedies in a novel

by the famous author, Dostoevsky.

But in 1873, after surviving
a horrifying train crash,

Cesare became increasingly reclusive

and gradually withdrew
into his house on the hill,

where he lived, childless,
single and alone.

But Cesare was getting older
and he had no named heir.

Increasingly aware of his legacy,

Cesare turned to his closest family
to maintain his empire.

But a betrayal would threaten
to destroy everything he'd built.

The count's mental health
had deteriorated

and he made the fateful decision

to allow his nephew,
Luigi, to run the business.

His nephew was originally
supposed to inherit everything,

but his nephew liked to gamble
and he had embezzled a lot of money.

Luigi brought Cesare
to the edge of bankruptcy

and the count had to rely
on a long-time collaborator,

Mario Venturoli,
to save him from ruin.

He was able to make the count get
back most of the money he had lost.

As a thank you, the count adopted
him and made him his heir.

He brought Mario to live
with him in his castle

and gave him his own private
quarters in a separate wing.

But Cesare was growing
increasingly deluded

and became convinced that Mario
and his wife were trying to kill him.

Cesare Mattei did not like her

and accused her of trying
to poison him through coffee.

The claim was never proven,
but whether it was true or not,

the story says much about the state
of Cesare's mental health.

It got worse and it got to the
point where he trusted no-one,

except for his maid.

Cesare's paranoia was most evident
in his castle's innermost sanctum.

This was the entrance to the
private quarters of the count.

There's a drawbridge here,
in the middle of the stairwell,

which is a bit bizarre,

but he built this so that
he could isolate himself

from the rest of the castle.

He actually passed away
on his own, inside his quarters

and he was found
a few days later,

after they pulled down
the drawbridge.

Mario inherited
Rocchetta Mattei in 1904,

but one crucial piece
of information was missing.

Mario Venturoli could never
replicate the same medicine.

The count never shared
his recipe with anyone.

He and the maid were the only people
who made the medicine in here.

She survived the count.

She never shared the medicine
with Venturoli or anyone else.

Even so, Mario managed
to keep the practice

of electro homeopathy going

until the mid-20th century,
using his own method.

As modern science develops,
the appetite for homeopathy

and pseudoscientific remedies waned.

Mario stayed in Rocchetta Mattei
until his death in 1937.

Over the following years, the
building changed hands several times.

It briefly opened
as a tourist attraction.

They branded it
as a medieval castle

and they brought in torture chambers
and these unsettling statues.

In the late 1980s, it was deemed
unsafe and forced to close.

In 2015, after almost
a decade of restoration,

the castle was opened
to the public once again.

It provided an opportunity
for people to learn

about this eccentric count.

There's still an air of mystery

and so much that we don't know
about him or his life.

The interest
in the tourists' faces

and people coming from
completely different cultures,

they have no idea
what went on in Italy.

I feel, like, a lot of pride
in my hometown.

In the breathtaking sierras
of central Bulgaria,

the sharp lines
of a brutalist structure

slice through the fresh mountain air.

All you can see for miles around

is the rolling landscape
and thick forests.

This is a place of calm
and tranquillity

and then, you see it.

This strange, long straight line
poking out

from the top of the treetops.
It's, like, dagger shaped.

And it goes on and on and on and on.

It's curious to have
a building of this size

just plonked down
in the middle of nowhere.

The remote location holds the key
to this structure's function.

We are as far away as you can get

from the smog and smut
of a big city.

It could be a hotel,
like an outdoor resort,

but inside it has more
of an institutional feel.

There are what appear
to be lots of dormitories.

The distinctive design
hints at its origin.

You've got rooms with books
just falling off the walls.

There's what looks like a cinema
and a gymnasium

and then you see things
that give the game away,

surgical rooms, X-ray machines,
lab equipment.

This was clearly some
kind of medical facility.

The unlikely visionaries
behind this complex

were ahead of their time.

This place was built by not one,
but two enterprising women.

At a time when the rest
of Eastern Europe was suffering

under an oppressive
communist system,

this complex was in its golden age.

But when seismic change
rocked Bulgaria,

this all came to an abrupt
and chaotic end.

It's clear that whoever left here,
left in a hurry.

Valentin Nedkov grew up near
this groundbreaking facility.

Today, he's on a mission
to save it from destruction.

The story of this
innovative sanctuary

started almost a century ago.

In 1930, Tsar Boris of Bulgaria

marries an Italian princess, Joanna.

She was known as
a very charitable woman.

She funded many,
many charitable organisations,

including a children's hospital
in the capital of Sofia.

When Giovanna took the throne,

the country was in the grips
of a deadly epidemic.

Bulgaria has one of
the highest death rates

from tuberculosis in Europe.

Tuberculosis,
or TB as it became known,

is a bacterial infection
that mostly affects the lungs.

Over 20,000 people died
of the disease every year.

And so there was a feeling
inside Bulgaria

that, "We have to confront this.
We have to come up with strategies

to solve the problem of tuberculosis
in Bulgarian society."

Tsarina Giovanna took
a personal interest in the project

and championed the construction
of a specialised hospital.

The Bulgarian government
commissioned a team

to find the ideal location
to build it.

The air is clean and fresh and dry,
so they choose this place

for a state-of-the-art
Bulgarian sanatorium.

A competition was launched
to find the best architect

to bring Giovanna's vision to life.

It was won by another
groundbreaking woman of the age.

Victoria Angelova Vinarova

was one of the first, famous,
female architects in Bulgaria.

She was awarded the contract
for the construction

of what would be her most
significant architectural project.

Within the year,
Victoria Vinarova had created

a state-of-the-art brutalist design.

They break ground in 1939,
but the construction

almost immediately has to be halted
because of the outbreak

of World War II.

The Bulgarian tsar opportunistically
allies with the Germans,

but when the Soviet Red Army
crosses the border

to liberate Bulgaria in 1944,

the communist partisans
quickly take over power in Bulgaria

and they make Bulgaria a satellite
state of Stalin's Soviet Union.

By 1946, the Bulgarian monarchy
had been overthrown

and a new Soviet-style government
installed in the country.

Luckily, the new communist rulers
placed an enormous importance

on public health.

So construction continues

and the hospital is eventually
finished in 1955.

When the doors of the Raduntsi
Specialised Hospital for prolonged

treatment of lung diseases
finally opened,

its visionary architect was missing.

What's really sad is Angelova built
a hospital for tuberculosis patients

and ended up dying of tuberculosis
before the hospital opened.

Her creation,
unrivalled in its time, lived on.

The hospital at Raduntsi was
the longest hospital in the Balkans.

It housed 200 male patients, 100
female patients and 100 children.

Valentin's mother came to work here
as a specialised nurse.

They also had the latest,
cutting-edge medical equipment

and everything they needed
to get their patients

back in working order.

The Raduntsi Hospital had
a golden age, when, you know,

not only Bulgarians but people
from all over the Soviet Bloc

came to this hospital
to be treated for tuberculosis

and other lung ailments.

But when Soviet communism
collapsed in 1991,

Bulgaria had to rebuild
its government,

putting the hospital in jeopardy.

The Bulgarian transition
to a capitalist democracy

had been marked by corruption,
cronyism and depression.

All of the state-owned enterprises

that were effectively,
property of the people

were sold off at bargain prices.

In 2015, things really came
to a head when the hospital

had its electricity cut,
with patients still in it

because of unpaid bills.

The Raduntsi Hospital went
without power for 30 days

and was reaching a crisis point.

Its last hope lay in the hands

of controversial politician,
Petar Moskov.

He once, reportedly,
during a TV interview,

got the location
of the hospital completely wrong.

He was out by 100 miles,

so you can tell that
he really wasn't

on top of what was going on here.

Moskov then went on to blow
the national health budget

on divisive and costly projects,
like biometric technology.

And he spent so much money
on all this data collection,

he had to close this hospital
and others like it

with nothing to show for it.

In August 2015,
the last patient left

and the hospital was abandoned.

Raduntsi Hospital has become a symbol

of the country's complicated
relationship with its past.

This place is a perfect
example of the red nostalgia

that still exists in countries
like Bulgaria today.

There's the sense that, well,
as bad as communism was,

things like Raduntsi Hospital
worked quite well

and if you went there, they would
cure you and you'd actually enjoy

the experience and were treated
like a human being.

Now, there are plans in progress

to bring the once-innovative
treatment centre back to life.

With the hope it can again
serve its original function

as a sanatorium.

As of April 2023,
the complex has new owners.

It feels like the history
of this building

has not yet finished.

In north-west Berlin,
a rusting relic

is a chilling reminder
of the city's turbulent past.

There are long, straight lines
of trees reaching into the distance,

splitting the neighbourhood in two.

In the midst of this,
is an isolated viaduct

that seems stark
and sharply out of place.

Along its length are a series
of battered buildings.

All of a sudden, you realise
you're at a railway platform.

There are structures
that might have been

waiting rooms or ticket offices.

The windows are smashed,
the doorways are boarded up

and there's debris
covering the floor.

But the real question is
why isn't it still in use?

Further down the line,
a disturbing clue emerges.

A bridge leads out to the river,
but it's been cut off

and is left marooned
on the bank.

Its destruction marked the start
of an oppressive new era.

Families were torn apart
and this railway became a symbol

of the brutal division.

Historian Mathias Hiller
sifts through the remnants

of a desolate station.

Mathias specialises
in the capital's city-wide

railway network known as the S-Bahn.

The abandoned track dates back
to the 19th century,

when electrical engineer, Werner von
Siemens was looking for somewhere

to base his revolutionary
enterprise.

The company we know today as Siemens
was founded in 1847

and they started out
producing telegraph technology.

By 1890, it's this huge
engineering conglomerate

and it has thousands of employees

and they need a space
for all of their factories.

They found the ideal place
in Berlin in 1897

and the area was officially renamed
Siemens City in January 1914.

This is the Siemensbahn.

A little-known branch
of Berlin's S-Bahn.

It started close to the River Spree

and transformed the lives
of thousands of workers,

carrying commuters
from all over the city

into the factories of Siemensstadt.

When it began operating,
the Siemens railway

is thought to have carried
up to 17,000 passengers a day.

But this boom time would last
for less than a decade.

At the height of World War II, the
electronics factories of Siemensstadt

and the railway that served them

became a prized target
for Allied bombers.

However, Siemensstadt is lucky.

Despite ferocious bombardment,

most of the Siemensbahn
infrastructure survives.

But it was the Germans themselves,

who destroyed the Siemensbahn
bridge across the River Spree.

When the war ended, the victorious
Allies dismantled Hitler's Reich

and redrew the map of Germany,
including Berlin.

The city was divided up
between the Allies

into shared zones of control

and the East German State
Railway Company,

which was run from the Russian zone,

is picked to run the S-Bahn,
which included the Siemensbahn.

Most of the railway workers
were West Berliners,

who now found themselves working for
the East German-controlled company.

It was a logistical nightmare, but
as long as they were still allies,

it wasn't a problem.

But with their ideological
differences,

it didn't take long for relations

between some of
the Allied powers to cool.

This was a division between
two different worlds.

In the East, we had Soviet-style
communism, socialist societies.

In the West, we had a capitalist
democratic society.

Despite this, the agreement that
the East German Railway Company

would keep operating the S-Bahn,

even though it was in West Berlin,
remained in place.

Railway police employed by East
Germany controlled the stations.

The West Berlin police also have
their own patrols here,

so in short, it's a total mess.

The tense situation escalated
at the start of the 1960s,

when the East German authorities
took a drastic step

to prevent citizens from escaping
their draconian regime.

On August 13th, 1961,
the Berlin Wall rises

and it completely separates
families. It separates friends.

It's a true tragedy.

The residents of West Berlin
were quick to vent their anger

on the Communist-controlled
S-Bahn,

which encompassed
the Siemensbahn branch line.

The railways became a symbol
of East German authority,

a symbol of the oddity
of the division of Germany.

Even though the boycott caused chaos
for commuters across the city,

West Berliners continued to protest.

The network lost
up to 80% of its passengers,

which really just put this
already-struggling railway,

kind of, further into the red.

They were desperate to cut costs

and eventually, the only costs
that were left to cut were staff.

So in January 1980,
they fired 78 railway workers

and reduced the service
and people were furious.

The cutting of hours

and the firing of a pregnant woman
is the final straw.

This was when the workers
decided to strike.

They occupied signal towers,

ensuring that trains couldn't run
without effective signals.

The network was brought to a halt.

They abandoned the trains,
blocked the tracks.

I mean, they wanted it shut down.

Many businesses were brought
to a standstill

as thousands of commuters
struggled to get to work.

East Berliners could not risk
taking part in the protest

and the communist authorities
were quick to act

against the striking West Berliners.

The East German Railway Police
stormed the signal towers

and dragged out the occupiers,

and so basically,
the strikes were broken.

But the cost of these delays

and the whole breakdown
of the system,

meant that it was not economically
viable to keep the network running.

Over 40 miles of lines were closed.
That's almost half of the S-Bahn.

Four years after the strike,

West Berlin finally negotiated
control of its section of the S-Bahn.

But by now, a new underground line
had been built

along the route
of the Siemens branch,

which had never recovered from
the strike and remained abandoned.

Today, there's a project to bring
the Siemensbahn back to life,

just in time for its 100th birthday.

Project engineer Dorothee Blendin
understands that for Berliners,

this railway is more than just
a means of transportation.

The people in this area are really
connected to the Siemensbahn.

It's, like, their track
and I think in reactivating it,

we're giving back
something to the people.

It's important for getting
this area of the city

connected to the train again.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media