Original subtitles

- (theme music plays)

NARRATOR: We are beginning our journey in Guantanamo

on the island of Cuba.

In 1903, the Americans lease a plot of land here

from the Cuban government in order to build a military base.

In 2002, the infamous internment camp

is put into operation.

The reason: the September 11 terror attacks.

Since 2002, mainly suspected Taliban and Al Qaida members are detained.

The camp is very controversial.

The accusation: the USA aren’t adhering to the Geneva convention.

This means that the prisoners have no rights at all.

Each of our steps and of course what we film is watched.

- (indistinct chatter)

- Everybody else that you talk to today in the camps can be,

but no shots of guards.

NARRATOR: Especially trained public relations officers lead us

through the camp.

First we visit the library.

We are not allowed to show the face of the soldier who runs it.

The prisoners can choose from over 35.000 different books,

DVDs and magazines in all kinds of different languages.

They were all donated by humanitarian organisations.

LIBRARIAN: We take them to them on a weekly basis

and we'll take a couple of hundred items.

We'll box up and take them over to them.

And they are allowed to tell us: "Hey, I’d like to get this item

this week" or... We're looking for things that promote good order

and discipline in the camps, have positive themes and values...

NARRATOR: Positive; this is how the soldiers

want to present the camp to us.

Time and time again they emphasise how well the prisoners

are treated here.

We hope that we will be able to gather our own impressions

about this.

A bus takes us across the compound.

We are not allowed to roam freely.

The camp seems to be huge.

During its peak times, 700 prisoners were locked up in the cells.

We want to get an idea of the detention conditions ourselves.

At the time of our filming, 79 people are imprisoned here.

Most of them are in camp six.

This is where the soldiers take us next.

The filming restrictions become even stricter.

DIRECTOR: Can we film during the drive?

- Uh, no.

We'll tell you when you can start.

- Here they have the opportunity to engage with one another.

NARRATOR: Here we meet Colonel Stephen Gabavics

for the first time.

He is the commander of the prison camp.

- It is extremely important that the world gets to see

what we do here and how great our soldiers, sailors, airmen,

marine and coastguard do the mission on a daily basis to provide

the safe and secure humane and legal treatment to our detainees.

The majority of our detainees are here in camp six.

Roughly 60% are here at camp six and another approximately 20%

are in camp five.

NARRATOR: That means there is another 20%.

But they do not want to show us how these are housed.

At least we are allowed to take a look around camp six.

In an empty single cell, the soldiers present to us

the items that the prisoners are allowed to have.

These include clothing, blankets, headphones, cosmetics,

the Quran and writing utensils that are self-harm-proof.

But the cells are empty.

In this part of the camp, no more prisoners are detained.

Then the officers take us to another part of the prison...

everything is darkened.

We may now only whisper.

Behind mirrored glass, we now see prisoners for the first time.

Trying to get in contact with them or even speaking to them

is strictly prohibited.

It is prayer time at the moment.

The detainees don’t know that we are watching them.

These men are locked up without having been sentenced

and nobody wants to tell us what they are charged with.

The only statement: because of the war.

Again and again ex-prisoners report of random arrests.

Apparently the Americans pay a premium to soldiers

or the police in Pakistan and Afghanistan to hand over

terror suspects to them.

The officers take us to neighbouring camp five.

Again they present a single cell to us...

..and the media room.

According to them, the prisoners can watch television here

for four hours per week...

in leg shackles.

Time after time, the officers and guards emphasise

how well the prisoners are treated here.

They even say that it is better here than in the American prisons.

The officers keep stressing that Guantanamo is not a prison.

- The biggest difference is that in a prison

as you have in the United States or elsewhere,

those are for people who have been convicted in a court of law

but detainees were not arrested,

detainees were detained in relation to some law of war aspect.

NARRATOR: The soldiers stand behind this principle.

Colonel Gabavics, too.

He has only worked in the prison camp for a couple of months.

- Oh, love it. It is a great job.

The opportunity to be with all these soldiers, sailors, airmen,

marine, coastguard and everything, it’s fantastic.

Just every day to be able to come out here and see

what these great Americans do is...

makes me feel good.

NARRATOR: The day is coming to an end.

But there is no chance of sleep anytime soon.

Until midnight we are sat in the media inspection centre.

Picture for picture, the officers check our filmed material...

lots of it is deleted.

Over 700 prisoners have been released

from Guantanamo by the Americans in the last years.

Does this mean that all of the detained people

were innocent after all?

We ask the chief PR officer.

- And once they are transferred from Guantanamo

and the custody removes from us

to some other entity,

we've done our job.

And so it is not up to us to talk

about guilt or innocence.

It is our job to detain the detainees

and care for them safely and humanely while they are here.

NARRATOR: Due to torture accusations

Guantanamo keeps appearing in the headlines again and again.

It is rumoured that soldiers even use illegal questioning techniques

like waterboarding.

We want to know: is this true?

At the final press conference, the highlight of our trip,

we have the chance to ask the chief commander

about the torture accusations.

- There is no torture.

And when we do voluntary interviews...

.. that is exactly what they are. They're voluntary.

I can’t speak for what may have happened in other places

or many many years ago here

but for a long time now

there has been nothing that could be considered by anybody as torture.

We do voluntary interviews.

NARRATOR: In 2009 the then US president

promised to close Guantanamo.

His time in office is now over but the prison camp still exists.

For how long?

- All I can tell you is that right now, we are following the directives

that we are given and the intent right now

from the presidency is to close Guantanamo bay,

we'll continue to do what we need to do to facilitate that.

NARRATOR: Unfortunately nobody can tell us exactly when

this is going to happen.

Our visit is now over...

what remains are the nightmarish pictures

from one of the most secret places on Earth.

NARRATOR: Chongqing in China.

At over 29 million inhabitants

this city is more than three times the size of New York.

Here we are looking for a mysterious house.

Do the locals know the building in our picture?

- (translation from Chinese)

NARRATOR: The metro in Chongqing carries

2.3 million passengers per day on its only four lines.

And there it is.

After the underground station, Niujiaotuo, the metro tracks

lead right through a house with its own stop.

The station: Liziba.

- (bell chimes)

10 years ago, the worldwide unique skyscraper was built.

Through that, during peak times, a train passes every two minutes.

The mega city has an enormous space problem.

But we will find out later if this is the reason

for this unusual building.

But what do the inhabitants of the house

think about their unusual neighbour?

Julen Pun has been living here for 20 years.

- (speaks Chinese)

NARRATOR: Vegetables haven’t grown here for years.

To be more specific, since the metro was built through the house.

NARRATOR: The last house that Julen Pun and his wife

lived in was torn down because the government

wanted to build a motorway there and they were made to resettle here.

But is it possible to ever get any sleep with this noise?

NARRATOR: Altogether, over 500 families live

in the Metro skyscraper.

Only one storey above the tracks is the home of Niki Wen.

NARRATOR: Surrounded by the river and mountains,

the town planners thought it to be the best idea

to build the tracks through the house.

YuChan Fu is a former employee of the Metro

and was co-responsible for this bizarre building project.

NARRATOR: But living in the metro house also has its benefits.

Thanks to the good connection

everything is only a stone’s throw away.

Julen Pun loves the close vicinity to his metro.

The underground stops right inside the house

and the government even pays the fares for them.

NARRATOR: Two stops, less than five minutes ride away

he is already at the next biggest shopping centre

which fortunately is also right inside the underground station.

NARRATOR: Before the metro was built

the supermarket was a 45-minute-walk away for Julen.

Using line number two it now takes him less than ten minutes.

Back home, right beneath the roof garden,

about four metres under the tracks

the two-bedroom apartment is located.

Here he lives with his wife Fuyan.

NARRATOR: By the way, the rent in the metro house at $150

is four times cheaper than in the surrounding buildings.

So this means that the people in the residential metro community

save a lot of money.

Gryfino in Poland.

Here there is supposed to be a crooked wood.

But why do all the trees here look like this?

We head out in search of the answer.

- (translation from Polish)

NARRATOR: So the woods exist but nobody knows its exact location.

We are trying to find somebody responsible from the municipality.

We are sent to ask ranger Daniel Pogorzelec.

NARRATOR: We follow him... and the thick pipes

along the side of the road.

They are heat conducting pipes from a close by nuclear power plant.

Some people say that the pipes are responsible for the crooked trees.

But we'll get to that later.

After about a 4 km long drive, ranger Daniel stops his car

in the middle of a forest without any crooked trees.

We follow him on foot.

NARRATOR: And really, the slanting trees,

the crooked forest as it is called...

..it looks just like in the pictures. Mysterious, almost spooky.

The woods could easily be the set for a fantasy movie.

NARRATOR: But why is it this way?

The about 12 metres high pine trees look like

upside down question marks. And not only one of them.

We count them and there are...

..94. How odd that there are so many.

NARRATOR: And how did the trees develop?

NARRATOR: One of them: close by there is a power plant

whose heat-conducting pipes run by close to the woods.

The theory: the combined heat and power station

has poisoned the ground through incorrect storage of coal.

But the power plant was only built in 1974

and the crooked trees have been in the woods for much longer.

What we know for sure: the pines were planted in 1934.

Scientists agree that 6 to 10 years later a mysterious occurrence

made the trees grow at a slanting angle.

So this event must have happened during the Second World War.

Another popular theory is that of the tanks.

NARRATOR: Is this possible?

Probably not, because if the tanks had come through here

there would be a big swathe of crooked trees

and not a circular area that is enclosed by straight trees.

By now the mysterious forest has started to attract tourists,

as in a few years the trees will have died

because this kind of pine doesn’t get any older than 100 years.

People who want to see the trees, need to hurry. Just like Magdalena.

NARRATOR: We think so too.

Ranger Daniel uses his local contacts

and arranges a meeting with two scientists for us:

a cultural scientist and a specialist

from the forestry commission office, who both have very different

approaches to the issue.

NARRATOR: The condition for this would be

that the snow masses bent the trees for several months.

And really during the war the area was hit

by multiple prolonged periods of extreme cold with lots of snow.

But would this not mean that the whole woods

would then have been affected?

NARRATOR: A technique like this was used back then.

Young trees were cut in two places and tied down.

This way this shape came about.

Years later the trees were made into furniture or into sleds.

But because of the war they were probably forgotten here

and weren’t cut down.

This would be a possibility.

But then we receive a call.

A German professor is said to have a suspicion.

So we drive to Germany.

At the college for sustainable development in Eberswalde

we meet professor Tobias Cremer.

The tree and woodland scientist examines

the mysterious phenomenon for us.

- (translation from German)

NARRATOR: Manmade? That would support the furniture theory.

But this technique was only used until the 18th century.

So 200 years before the trees were planted in Poland.

It is these inconspicuous-looking holes that lead the scientist

onto the right track.

They prove that the trees were cut when they were still small.

NARRATOR: The explanation:

at the age of six to ten years the pine trees were cut back.

Only the lowest branch remained.

It then grew towards the sunlight and eventually became

the thick main stem.

As the loggers left the lowest branch on all the trees

he probably knew: the trees would continue to grow.

So this way the stranger created one of the most mysterious

and fascinating woods about 70 years later.

NARRATOR: In Germany.

Prora. At four and a half kms, it is the longest building complex

in the world.

The monster by the sea, as Prora is also called.

Built by the Nazis, used by the GDR-Regime.

Today the longest youth hostel in the world is located here

and is planned to become a holiday paradise due to the new luxury flats

that are to be built here.

But how will this structure make the step into the future

without forgetting all the things that happened here?

At the southern end of Prora, the old ruins

have already turned into a 500-metre-long building site.

Architect Ulrich Stuke has taken on a mammoth project with Prora.

His team has already removed 8,000 tons of debris

from this tract alone.

The mission: to turn the mystery place Prora into a luxury resort.

Here luxury roof terraces with a view of the sea will be built.

Not an easy task, as Prora is a listed building.

NARRATOR: In the longest building in the world,

flats, holiday homes and hotels will be built.

56 kms of sandy beaches attract 1.5 million holiday makers

and nature lovers every year.

Back then, the Nazis built the so-called

"coastal resort of the 20,000".

It is concrete proof of the megalomania

of the National Socialist regime.

Susanna Misgajski wants to commemorate it with her association,

as behind the holiday resort was a perfidious plan.

NARRATOR: The individual was supposed to vanish in the masses

in Prora. Brainwashing included: via loudspeakers,

the NS propaganda reached every room.

NARRATOR: So, from 1936 onwards,

eight blocks are built along the coast.

A gigantic festival hall was also planned but it was never built.

Also no holiday makers ever came here

because in 1939 the Second World War broke out.

This meant that the building process was put on hold.

All that is left of the "monster by the sea"

is the shell of the building.

What is remarkable is the so called "resting halls"

in which the holiday makers were supposed to have a lie down

during certain times.

In block one, the structure of the building was dilapidated

so it had to be torn down.

Connecting the past and the future...

this is the great task for the architects in Prora today.

NARRATOR: Juliane Heidrich and her mother

have also heard of the new life coming to Prora.

They are interested in the apartments

that are being built in block 3.

Investor Michael Jacobi shows them what the current state of things is.

NARRATOR: The past is inseparably connected with the building for her

even just through the incredible dimensions.

About 20 kms of corridors originally existed in Prora.

NARRATOR: The corridors were connected to 10,000 identical rooms

each with a sea view. Each 12 square metres large.

It is difficult for Cornelia to imagine that stylish apartments

will be built here.

NARRATOR: Showing the run-down part of the building first

is part of Jacobi’s plan.

The surprise will be even bigger when he presents

a finished apartment.

NARRATOR: About one third of the 4.5 km long colossus

is already renovated.

And opposed to back in the day, the holiday-makers

will be even closer to the sea on their very own balconies.

NARRATOR: And this view doesn’t give Cornelia the impression at all

that she is in the longest building complex in the world.

But it is especially the size of the building

that keeps attracting unwanted visitors.

Therefore Michael Jacobi regularly checks the ruins with his team.

NARRATOR: The problem: especially the ramshackle buildings

of Prora magically attract adventurers

and of course the owners cannot secure

the whole 30-football-field large complex.

NARRATOR: The roofs of the complex also become a risky playground.

NARRATOR: After the end of the Nazi rule,

the end had not come for Prora yet.

During the time of the GDR, the national people’s army

continued to use the building.

NARRATOR: In 1989, Karel Bosel attended

the military academy in Prora.

Today the 46-year-old is visiting the detention cells

in the former entrance control building.

Cells like these existed in every block.

NARRATOR: Without a trial soldiers were locked up here

for up to ten days.

Prora became the biggest military facility in the GDR.

NARRATOR: In 1991 the last tanks left Prora.

The building goes over into the possession

of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Karel Bosel has bought two apartments here.

They are located in the same block as the military school used to be.

He can enjoy the view.

Others condemn the decision to turn the historically charged

building into a holiday resort.

But what else could be done with a mega structure like this?

The state has by now sold four of the five blocks to investors.

In one of them the longest youth hostel in the world is located,

on about 200 metres in block 5.

Denis Brosseit has been the manager since it opened in 2011.

NARRATOR: For the start of the season

he has to prepare 96 rooms that offer space for over 420 guests.

Something that many of them don’t know:

the 840 windows are not all the same size

and therefore had to be especially made.

But Brosseit sees the biggest challenge

for this place somewhere else.

NARRATOR: The history of Prora.

NARRATOR: Travelling on to New Zealand.

Close to the town of Waimoto there are some very special grottoes:

the Waitomo caves.

Also known as the firefly caves.

Even Hiria Kohe-Love's ancestors came here.