Original subtitles

Narrator: A vast, snow-covered behemoth in alaska...

Auerbach: A lot of this damage that you see around here --

It's obvious it came from the weather.

But something else happened.

It feels like something more powerful hit this place.

Narrator: ...An industrial wasteland

Filled with rusting relics...

Bell: The strangest thing about it all

Is that it somehow feels scarred,

Like the building and the decaying trains

Have suffered through the history.

It's like a dark secret that's been locked away for decades.

Narrator: ...And a long, stretching formation

That leads straight to the horrors of war.

♪

Engineering marvels now abandoned,

Ruins shrouded in mystery.

Within these decaying structures are the echoes of history.

They speak of death and destruction,

But also human ingenuity and endeavor.

Each haunted shell ready to be unmasked

And tell its own unique story.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

In the icy wilderness of southern alaska,

In the small town of whittier

Stands a colossal concrete construction.

Bell: It's this epic scene.

You reach it by crossing these freezing-cold waters.

And then, suddenly, there's this small town

At the base of a mountain.

Narrator: In this barren landscape,

One ruined super-structure overshadows everything.

The first thing that strikes you about this place

Is the sheer scale of the building.

You're talking about a space that has the same interior area

As five football fields.

Behind shattered windows and icy staircases,

The building hides hundreds of derelict rooms.

From the outside, it's not obvious what this place is,

And when you get inside, the mystery remains.

There's so much in there.

This is essentially a tiny fishing village,

And it's dominated by one gigantic building.

Why would a town this small need a building this enormous?

Narrator: It may still be standing,

But this vast construction has been ravaged by the elements.

It snows 22 feet a year here.

That's 1,000 times the national average.

Nature's spent years hammering away at this place --

Cold, harsh winds beating every inch of it.

But this isn't a weak building,

And it feels like something far more powerful

Than just weather has struck this place.

This building would find itself at the center

Of one of the 20th century's greatest conflicts,

Playing a part in averting nuclear war

As well as coming face-to-face

With one of nature's gravest dangers.

This mammoth construction may look like

It's in the middle of nowhere.

But at a certain point in the 20th century,

Alaska became a hotbed of military activity.

Prior to 1940,

There is a very small population in whittier.

And then world war ii comes.

Alaska is vulnerable.

It is seen as a possible place that might be attacked

By the likely enemy, which is the japanese.

Narrator: The american military began building up

Their presence in alaska.

And as the second world war came to an end,

This remote northern territory

Gained a new strategic importance.

At this point, alaska had been part of the u.S.

For less than a century.

In fact, alaska used to be russian territory.

It wasn't bought by the u.S. Until 1867.

Narrator: It's this historic link that offers a clue

To the purpose of this monolithic building.

At the northernmost edge of the pacific,

Alaska occupies the area between north america and russia.

We tend to think of these two countries as being miles apart,

On different sides of the globe from each other.

But from a different perspective,

You can see they're practically neighbors.

Narrator: And as tensions rose between the superpowers,

The threat, however small, of a russian attack on alaska

Focused american attention on this remote region.

But what if it became a soviet territory?

Suddenly, it would look very different

And would be a very dangerous prospect for the u.S.

Auerbach: In a worst-case scenario,

The u.S.S.R. Gains control of alaska.

They've got a foothold for launching troops,

Launching missiles, launching planes.

You don't want the soviet union

With territory just off your northern border.

Narrator: In 1950, the americans sprung into action and built this --

The buckner building,

A cold war u.S. Military facility.

It would play a crucial role in america's battle

For survival against the soviets.

Brenda tolman, a longtime whittier resident,

Has lived in its shadow for nearly 40 years.

Tolman: Built in the early '50s and surplussed out in '58,

The building has had no maintenance

In about almost 70 years

And still stands as strong, probably, as when it was built.

Narrator: The site in whittier was constructed at the same time

As a massive expansion of the u.S. Army.

This one structure was designed to accommodate

Up to 1,000 soldiers, or an entire battalion.

What we're looking at here is what was once

The largest building in alaska.

Bell: It is a vast complex.

It's got six visible floors,

And then another basement level hidden away underneath.

Corum: It will have your troops.

It'll have your medical support,

People for security, your military police.

Auerbach: It had accommodation.

It had a canteen. It had a movie theater.

It had a rifle range.

It even had a bowling alley.

Corum: Normally in a u.S. Army post,

These things are scattered over a large area.

Here, you have them all concentrated in one place.

Narrator: Covering 275,000 square feet,

This enormous concrete bunker was a city under a single roof

So that if it came to it,

None of the 1,000 troops would ever have to leave.

But why would such an extreme arrangement be necessary?

And what devastating force

Would finally shake this building to its core?

♪

Narrator: In alaska stands the snow-topped buckner building,

A cold war military facility

Designed to provide everything an army battalion could need,

All within one mammoth construction.

Because in this place you get such a massive snowfall

During the year,

It made perfect sense

To put everything into one building.

Narrator: It was crucial to the u.S.

That the buckner building could withstand

The worst of the alaskan weather.

The reason whittier was built

Was because it's an ice-free, deep-water port.

It was built to bring supplies to interior alaska by rail.

95% of everything consumed in alaska is brought in.

47% of that still comes through the port of whittier.

This was the u.S. Military's primary route into alaska.

Troops, weapons, equipment, all had to come through here.

It needed to be up and running 365 days a year.

Otherwise, the whole operation would be at risk.

Narrator: The buckner building allowed the u.S.

To maintain control of and access to alaska.

As the threat of an aerial attack by the soviets increased,

This territory became even more crucial to america's survival.

Corum: In the cold war equation, alaska is very important

Because one of the best routes to attack the united states

With nuclear weapons is over the north.

Narrator: A series of radar stations were built

To warn the u.S. If soviet planes,

Potentially carrying nuclear weapons,

Were hurtling towards their shores,

And many of them were in alaska.

Bell: Without alaska, any attack coming from that direction

Wouldn't be picked up until it was too late,

Leaving very little time to react

And, possibly, a deadly scenario to follow.

Narrator: But these defenses could only be maintained

If american forces and supplies could reach them,

Via whittier and the buckner building.

The was incredibly well-built --

Thick concrete walls, solid structural foundations.

It was designed to survive

Whatever the soviets or nature could throw at it.

Narrator: Would an attack by the russians

Leave the buckner building in the line of fire?

By the end of the 1950s,

Weapon technology had advanced dramatically.

The invention of intercontinental

Ballistic missiles

Meant the soviets could launch a nuclear attack on the u.S.

From thousands of miles away.

So why go through the extraordinary expense

And trouble of maintaining this massive military facility

On the edge of nowhere?

Narrator: In 1960, the military moved out of whittier,

And the city under one roof was left empty.

In the end, it wasn't the cold war

Which put buckner's engineering to the test.

In 1964, a natural disaster devastated alaska.

Whittier is hit by the largest earthquake in u.S. History --

9.2 on the richter scale.

Tsunami over 40 feet kills 139 people,

13 of them in whittier.

But despite this devastation, the building survives.

The ground moved for three minutes,

And the building stayed up.

They built this thing right.

♪

Narrator: Today, the buckner building is derelict,

But this massive feat of engineering is still standing --

A monument to america's determination to defend itself,

Even in the harshest of conditions.

♪

In the southwest of Spain, in the city of seville,

Is a landscape of confusing and surprising structures.

Meigs: There are a number of odd, kind of whimsical elements.

There's a large rocket,

Something that looks like a giant satellite dish.

You have a platform for a train.

You have a globe.

You have a bridge that doesn't go anywhere.

It's almost as if some child was imagining

The super-fantastic city of the future,

Starting building it, and then got bored

And went out to play and left his toys on the floor.

Narrator: But this is no ordinary abandoned site.

In fact, much of it is filled with activity.

Barratt: On one side, we've got these crazy pockets

Of abandoned space.

But on the other side, we're in a modern, bustling city

Full of people working and going about their business.

Meigs: If there's a message to all this architecture,

It's kind of hard to figure out what it is.

And why were some parts preserved

And other parts left to decay?

♪

Narrator: With its original completion in 1992,

The remains of this site today

Are torn between the updated and the neglected.

But at the start, this was a chance

At something new for the city of seville.

In the 1970s, Spain went through an amazing transformation,

And they managed to convert from a fascist dictatorship

To a free, democratic society without violence,

Without a revolution.

This was a first.

Narrator: Spain's success continued,

And this site was supposed to be a bold statement

Of the country's intent for the future.

Spain began to boom,

And all through the '80s, this country that had been

An economic and cultural backwater

For a few decades was all of a sudden

Entering the elite nations of europe and the world.

Narrator: Peaking in the early 1990s,

With this site, Spain was garnering the world's attention.

But the result today

Doesn't necessarily speak clearly of success.

1992 for Spain is a new start.

Suddenly, we're into the modern age.

We're moving forward,

And Spain is about to announce its arrival on the world stage.

Narrator: This is the site of the 1992 world expo,

Or world's fair.

To host an expo is about dreaming big.

It's about looking forward to the future

And showing the world what your country can do.

They get remembered.

They are huge -- not a one-day event.

It's not a week event -- six months,

And with millions of visitors.

And the legacy they leave lasts for years.

Meigs: Spain really had a lot to be proud of,

And they wanted to show it off to the world.

They wanted to tell the other elite nations,

"we've joined your club. We've arrived."

Narrator: But during construction,

It would be hit by disaster.

So was the whole event cancelled and abandoned

Before it even got started?

♪

Narrator: In seville, the strange mix of structures

Of the former expo '92 site

Conceal the message of what that event was all about,

As joe cooper,

The former british commercial consul of seville, explains.

Cooper: These structures here in front of us

Are really symbolic of what the expo's all about.

The main theme of the expo was about celebrating

The 500th anniversary of the discovery

Of the new world by Spain.

But also, it was about projecting, if you like,

An image of Spain as a modern country looking forward,

Being involved in discovery in the future, as well.

In that context, all these weird and wonderful things

Start to make a bit more sense.

Narrator: All around the site

Are grand gestures towards this idea,

And over 100 nations got to work building their own pavilions.

But keeping to schedule on the largest expo ever

Was a monumental challenge,

And as time slipped away, the pressure grew.

One could say that Spain was overly ambitious with the expo.

Barratt: Project-managing infrastructure on this scale is a nightmare,

Especially with that deadline.

An opening ceremony cannot be moved.

Gough: They were trying to do too much

In a short period of time,

And it could lead to problems.

Narrator: The hosts were building

A number of themed structures,

Like this -- the future pavilion.

But as they rushed to finish off another, disaster struck.

The discovery pavilion, unfortunately,

Caught fire just before the expo started.

You know, doing lots of things together, as it were --

Painting and welding at the same time --

Pots of paint on the floor

And welders up above on the ceiling,

A spark fell down, and it all caught fire.

Narrator: With thick clouds of black smoke

Pouring out of the pavilion

And abandoned ruins scattered across the site today,

It seems this could have been the end of the dream.

But it turned out to be just a small stumble.

Despite the problems, the expo was a huge success.

They had a record number of visitors

From all over the world.

If Spain wanted to show off to the world

That they'd arrived, they really succeeded.

Barratt: Over 240,000 people turned up every single day

To look at these buildings,

To wander through these structures.

What an incredible success.

Narrator: Over 41 million visitors came to see the expo,

Many working their way along this stretch here

Which used to be a flowing canal.

You could either come here by boat,

Or you could come by the cable car,

Or you could just simply walk across one of the bridges

That linked the city to the site.

People would visit the pavilions.

They had a good look around and then came out

And went on to the next one, and so on and so forth.

Narrator: But the site today shows a strange mix

Of use and neglect.

So what happened after the success?

At the end of an expo, everyone disappears.

The site has done its job, and what you're left with

Is this crazy aftermath of an engineering party.

And how different countries choose to move on is up to them.

Narrator: Often, what's left behind after such events

Is an alien-looking wasteland.

But not here, as luis pérez,

Innovation manager of the site, explains.

Over the years, many buildings have been replaced,

While others have been renovated and repurposed.

♪

Today, just a few solitary structures remain

In fenced-off areas,

With the most recognizable having been saved for last.

The rocket and the satellite dish --

They've become quite iconic.

And gradually, they're gonna get absorbed.

And once again, this area will be redeveloped

And thronged and busy with people with new purpose.

♪

Narrator: Near germany's western border,

Cutting across the quiet countryside

Is a strange line of concrete spikes.

♪

Nusbacher: You start passing the first bits of concrete,

And you think that maybe you're gonna go three or four meters

And you'll be past it.

And there's more...

And there's more, and there's more.

Meigs: You could be walking through a field or through the woods,

And here and there catch sight

Of remnants from a different era.

It's not really clear what it is.

Narrator: These bizarre relics

Are a reminder of this location's dark past.

The rows of concrete teeth are not alone.

Across this rural landscape are dozens of other structures,

And they all bear the marks of a violent end.

Meigs: There are these concrete structures

Hidden throughout the woods,

Just coming out from under the moss

And under the tree branches.

You might see these structures and really wonder what they are.

What purpose did they serve?

Nusbacher: We're used to seeing concrete that's degraded,

That's crumbled.

But this concrete has been hit with something very heavy

Over and over again.

They look like they've been smashed.

Narrator: So, what connects these forgotten ruins?

And what brutal events left them in this shattered state?

♪

Construction of these concrete spikes,

Known as dragon's teeth,

Began in the years leading to the second world war,

When hitler hoped to shore up germany's defenses

Along its western border,

As local expert michel baert explains.

Hoping to stop an enemy tank invasion in its tracks,

The construction was a simple but effective fortification.

Running north to south

Across almost 400 miles of german countryside,

This defensive network was known as the west wall,

Or the siegfried line.

But with the nazis invading other countries in the war,

Was this defensive line ever called upon?

♪

Narrator: Along germany's western border

Are the remains of a vast defensive network

Built in the late 1930s

That stretches from the netherlands down to switzerland.

Corum: The siegfried line is actually not a continuous line

Or a continuous defense.

Certain areas are fairly heavily defended

With clusters of bunkers and anti-tank defenses.

Some areas are much less defended

Due to the hilly terrain.

Narrator: Running for hundreds of miles

And designed according to the terrain

And likelihood of attack,

Dragon's teeth were installed in vulnerable areas

With some locations having multiple layers.

But to make it all function as a unified defense,

It required a deeper infrastructure.

Meigs: Really, it's more like a zone,

In many cases going miles deep into germany,

Of a combination of different kinds of defenses.

Narrator: In 1938, hitler showed off the strength of the siegfried line

In a specially commissioned film.

But not all was as it seemed.

Corum: Hitler gave the impression that the siegfried line

Was like the maginot line, with massive underground forts.

In reality, this is a very relatively thin defense line.

This is not an impregnable defense line.

It had great propaganda value at home.

As hitler was getting his country for war,

It helped him reinforce the idea that he was protecting

His people from these hostile neighbors.

Narrator: So was this a real defense?

With the nazis invading poland

And then quickly overrunning France,

By 1940, the siegfried line was left behind,

And the guns and equipment were stripped out.

But the damage wrought on these defenses shows

This wasn't the end of the story.

The one thing I don't think hitler did plan on

Was the situation in which the line finally did become

Quite useful to the germans.

After the d-day invasion of normandy,

The allies were slowly advancing towards the german borders.

The siegfried line then became an important part

Of their defenses.

Narrator: In 1944, the germans quickly scrambled to defend

The ill-equipped line.

Meigs: They began to deploy troops.

They began to dig new trenches.

And they really got the line fully occupied and staffed up

Only a few days before the allied forces reached it.

Narrator: Some parts of the line were easily broken.

But early gains in areas like the huertgen forest near aachen

Soon turned into slow and costly battles.

The fighting in the huertgenwald is immensely difficult.

The germans are defending area that is densely wooded,

And that not only means that it's hard to see other people --

It's hard to see the enemy --

It also means it's hard to use artillery.

Corum: Because aachen was symbolically very important,

The germans placed a priority on its defense.

And, in fact, a few first-rate troops managed,

In that very horrible terrain in very, very bad weather,

To slow down, inflict a great many casualties,

The american army.

Narrator: On September 19th, the u.S. Army began

Fighting their way through the suffocating woodland.

The siegfried line was finally being put to the test.

Meigs: A defensive zone like the siegfried line --

It doesn't have to be impenetrable.

In fact, in some places, they made it intentionally weak

So if the allied forces were to penetrate through it

And move a few miles into german territory,

Then they might get bogged down in a deeper area

Where there are more hidden bunkers, more tank traps.

Corum: The terrain in the huertgen forest

And the approach to aachen is very tough terrain.

It's very hilly. There are many ravines.

It's easy to channelize the attacker.

Narrator: A first row of dragon's teeth

Was sometimes followed up by a second row,

Offering up two points to stall and attack the enemy.

Beyond this, often in woodland, were pillboxes waiting

For an unsuspecting advancing infantry.

The result could be devastating.

But to make it all work, communication was key.

♪

Narrator: The u.S. Army was about to engage

In one of the longest and deadliest battles

In their history.

♪

Narrator: In the fall of 1944,

The u.S. Army was fighting through the defensive zone

Of the siegfried line in the huertgen forest.

With little tank, artillery, or air support,

Almost every inch of terrain had to be taken the hard way.

Nusbacher: The american army fights its way through the huertgen forest

By clawing their way through those woods

And dying in the process.

Narrator: For three months,

Little progress was made by either side,

But tens of thousands died in the campaign.

Finally, the germans mounted a counterattack to the south,

Now known as the battle of the bulge.

But with their eventual defeat,

The allies soon crossed the siegfried line

And headed for the heart of the reich.

Meigs: By the time they broke through

In February of 1945, they had also decimated

The strongest elements of the german military,

And that meant the path to berlin was much easier

Than it otherwise might have been.

Narrator: Today, much of the siegfried line

Has since been demolished or removed.

But the sacrifice made to break through these fortifications

Should not be forgotten.

In central europe, in hungary's capital city of budapest,

Is the stripped carcass of an industrial relic.

♪

Bell: These buildings are on the brink of collapse.

They look like even the slightest knock,

Or maybe a strong wind,

Might bring the whole lot crashing down.

Nusbacher: Pieces are falling off the walls.

The skylights are without their glass.

It is as though thousands of years have passed.

Narrator: Remaining upright for now,

These warehouses are like vaults crammed full of memories.

What you're seeing here is almost a century

Of transportation history.

You see hungary's economy and government

All wrapped up in this one building.

Bell: These buildings are filled with locomotives, carriages,

And all kinds of equipment from a past world.

It looks like someone locked it all up and threw away the key.

But now, finally, we can get a glimpse inside.

Narrator: Stranded on an old set of overgrown tracks

Are rail carriages that tell of a troubled period

In hungary's history.

Corum: In the later stages of world world ii,

A more radical, extreme regime comes to power.

And in 1943, '44, the jewish community

Is quite brutally rounded up in budapest

And placed on trains and sent to concentration camps,

Where the vast majority of hungary's jews will be killed.

Narrator: In total, over half a million hungarian jews

Were massacred during the war,

And the use of the railways was central to this slaughter.

Bell: Some of those carriages left standing in the yards

Are the same type used to transport the jewish population

To concentration camps, carrying them to their death.

Perhaps even some of them are the very same ones.

Narrator: Following the war,

This place would feel the terror of a new occupying force.

But in time, dreams of revolution would be born.

♪

Narrator: In budapest, hungary, the old ruins across this site

Tell of the country's struggles throughout the 20th century.

But as sándor tibor, an engineer who worked here, recalls,

This was once at the center of the rail network.

[ speaking hungarian ]

Interpreter: Here we are,

In front of the istvántelek metal works.

It was built in the 1920s,

And practically all the steam engines

Of the hungarian state railways were repaired here.

Corum: Eastern europe was always an area

That was undeveloped in roads.

And in 19th century when the railroad came,

This opened up eastern europe.

How does the economy work? How do you transport goods?

How do you transport people?

You do it by rail.

Narrator: At the heart of this country

Were the hungarian-designed mav locomotives.

Interpreter: Since we are a landlocked country,

Hungarian state railways plays a vital role

In transporting goods.

This was a high-speed train.

It was a very fast locomotive.

It could transport passenger carriages at great speeds.

Narrator: Once a crucial maintenance facility

For the state railway network,

This place has more recently become known

By a different moniker.

Bell: One train found here reveals what happened to hungary

After the second world war,

And it gives this place its name --

The red star graveyard.

Corum: The red star, which was the ubiquitous symbol

Of the soviet empire, was everywhere.

Narrator: This seal of the new oppressive ruling regime,

However, meant more dark days were on the horizon.

Nusbacher: At the end of the second world war,

Russia is economically very unhealthy,

And they rip out as much industrial capability

In eastern europe as they can.

The hungarian locomotives and rolling stock are stripped out

And shipped back to russia to be reused.

Narrator: For a country so reliant on their railways,

This was a devastating blow.

But often when a people are oppressed,

The seeds of rebellion are sown.

Engineer jósef deák recalls

Hearing about those tough post-war years.

Interpreter: There was a dire need for the renewal

And restoration of the railways,

Because the country would have paralyzed without it.

The railway was the pulsing vein of the country.

Narrator: Even without a fully operational rail network,

The soviets enforced strict quotas and demands on hungary.

This disregard for the people

Only amplified any thoughts of rebellion.

One has to understand that the eastern bloc

Under the soviet union

Was essentially a colonial system.

Nusbacher: The soviets expect their slave states

To rebuild their economies

And get functioning very quickly.

If you were not achieving your production norms,

You could be taken out back and shot,

And your deputy would be put in charge.

Narrator: As a vital part of the effort

To keep up with the ruthless demands,

Attention fell upon this maintenance facility.

Deák: [ speaking hungarian ]

Interpreter: There were different regions.

The reason why budapest is important

Was because at the time,

There wasn't a similar repair plant in the region.

Others came later,

But this was the only place for the restoration of steam engines

That had both the capacity and the capability

To work on the larger models.

Narrator: But in 1953, joseph stalin died,

And suddenly, everything began to change.

Many hungarians saw this as an opportunity to break free

From the shackles of soviet oppression.

The stage was set for revolution,

And as ever, the railways would be crucial.

There is a feeling in hungary

That with the old dictator gone in moscow,

Hungary might be able to stand on its own feet again,

And hungary might start to liberalize.

Corum: The eastern governments are trying to repress this,

But there are hopes in the population.

Now, the hopes reach a point of outright rebellion in 1956.

Eventually, state security police opened fire on a crowd,

And that triggered the start of the violence that followed.

Narrator: The ensuing conflicts saw danger

Filling the city streets,

But it had arrived there by rail.

In 1956, the soviets' army is not a fully motorized army.

It is very, very dependent on the rail system.

Nusbacher: It was the hungarian railways

That became the lifeblood of the soviet occupation.

The soviet army crushed the hungarian uprising,

Killing thousands, imprisoning thousands,

And exiling thousands.

Narrator: In the aftermath,

The railways, locomotives, and carriages

Were put back into service,

And for more than 30 years,

Hungary remained a communist state.

Finally, outpaced by diesel engines,

The locomotives and this old workshop

Have since been retired.

And now this place acts as a keeper of memories,

Of both the good times and the bad.

♪