Original subtitles

[ominous music plays]

1944, somewhere in German-occupied Poland,

or rather, deep beneath it.

For five bloody years, the Nazis have consumed

much of Europe, but now...

-[distant boom] -...as you can hear, the tide is turning.

Hitler fumes that one Beethoven symphony contains more culture

than America has produced in her whole history.

Well, perhaps.

But you know what we are really good at producing?

Long-range bombers.

Since entering the war, America has been unleashing

its airborne might with planes like the B-17 Flying Fortress,

the B-24 Liberator, and the B-29 Superfortress

with a range of more than 5,000 miles.

Our bombers drop over a million tons of explosives

on Nazi Germany.

[successive booms]

Hitler longs to strike back, bringing the war

to the United States and seeing New York go up in flames.

But his dreams are out of reach because he doesn't have a plane

that can cross the Atlantic, at least not yet.

Infuriated and desperate as the Allies close in,

Hitler demands the production of a so-called Amerikabomber.

Germany's best engineers race to design and build prototypes

of a long-range bomber to secure victory

for the Third Reich.

Ultimately, most will never make it off the page.

Others will crash or be destroyed in air raids.

In fact, not a trace of these experimental aircraft are found

at the end of the war.

But is there a forgotten bunker containing blueprints

of a secret plane?

Could explorers find underground weapons factory

with lost aviation relics?

Learning how close the Nazis came to reversing the outcome

of World War II would be history-making.

So join me as I uncover the truth behind Hitler's dream

killing machine, the Amerikabomber.

[suspenseful music plays]

-[theme music plays] -[Josh] The past is all around us.

Oh, my god!

It goes on forever!

[Josh] A world of mystery...

Come on! Look at that!

[Josh] ...danger...

Hang on!

-[theme music plays] -[waves crashing]

[Josh] ...and adventure.

It's just straight down!

I gotta get a new job.

[theme music plays]

I travel to the far corners of the Earth to uncover

where legends end...

We got it! Yes!

...and history begins. -Whoo-hoo! Here we go.

I'm Josh Gates, and this is "Expedition Unknown."

[accordion music plays]

Welcome to Poland and the city of Wroclaw,

formerly the German city of Breslau,

formerly part of Prussia,

formerly part of the Hapsburg Empire, Hungary, Bohemia,

and if you go back far enough, the Kingdom of Poland.

What can I say? Time's a flat circle.

Let's go.

Let's see, what else can I tell you about Wroclaw?

It's a big college town these days.

Nine Nobel laureates.

Oh, and they do have a major thing for gnomes.

600 of them, to be exact, scattered all over the city.

Why? Who cares? It's adorable.

There are gnomes bearing wedding rings.

There are gnomes eating ice cream, gnomes at work,

gnomes that do your taxes, and 596 more.

Let's just skip to the last one, perched here

on a smokestack high above town.

It has the best possible view of a city that has had

plenty of tragedy to go with their whimsy.

Strolling these charming, tranquil streets, it's hard to

imagine that 80 years ago, most of this historic city was

reduced to rubble.

On September 1st, 1939, Hitler invades Poland

in a sweeping offensive known as the Blitzkrieg.

Over the next five years, his forces slaughter

six million people of ethnic Polish and Jewish descent.

When the Soviet Red Army comes through on their way to Berlin,

the Nazis don't give up Wroclaw easily, and the city is left

in ruins, a fate avoided by American cities during the war.

But what if that terror had come to our shores?

What if Hitler leveled New York?

Well, it turns out, but the United States may have

been more at risk of losing the war

than we've ever realized.

Now, new evidence is shedding light

on Hitler's terrifying plan to reach America.

To learn more, I'm heading 90 miles away to the Polish town

of Lesna.

The historian I'm meeting with is going to reveal

a recently discovered artifact from World War II.

It was found in the oldest house in town.

I'm told you can't miss it.

Oh, boy.

[Josh] And I do not.

This place is insane.

[dramatic orchestral music plays]

I cross the castle's bridge to meet a leading authority

on Nazi technology, Dr. Charlie Hall.

-What an entrance! -It's an incredible place, isn't it?

-Hey, I'm Josh. -Welcome to Czocha Castle.

[Josh] Yeah, it is, this is your summer home?

[Dr. Hall] I wish, yeah.

It's so impressive, isn't it, as you come up the bridge

towards it. -Oh, it's a jaw-dropper.

It's like something out of "Dracula."

I know, and you haven't seen the half of it.

-Inside is even more impressive. -Please.

[Josh] We enter the castle and begin our exploration

in the immense knight's hall.

Oh, come on.

Look at this place.

[Dr. Hall] It's an impressive space, isn't it?

[Josh] This is a hall.

This is, like, I feel like I'm in Camelot or something.

Yeah, so this is a proper medieval castle built

in the 13th century by a Bohemian king.

And so, what's going on here in World War II?

It gets a little cloudy then.

So this is in German territory

during the war. -[Josh] Right.

German military intelligence have a school

of cryptography here. -Of course they do.

-In a castle. -Yeah, naturally. Why wouldn't you?

-Exactly. -We also think that

the top Nazi scientist, Wernher von Braun,

stayed here for a period of time.

Von Braun is like a huge character in the story

of World War II. -[Dr. Hall] Mm-hmm.

He is the top rocket scientist of the Third Reich.

Wernher von Braun designs the Nazi V-2 rocket,

the world's first long-range, guided ballistic missile.

The V stands for vengeance, which it inflicts faster than

the speed of sound.

Incidentally, his membership in the Nazi Party won't disqualify

von Braun from later working in the United States Space Program

after the war, where he'll help get us to the moon.

So, what's the father of Nazi rocketry working on?

During some recent renovations in the attic of this castle

in a sort of secret hiding place, something really interesting

was found that might shed some light on what he was

doing here. -OK.

I can take you through and show it to you.

[Josh] I'd love to see it.

[suspenseful orchestral music plays]

-Welcome to the castle library. -Wow.

And this is what they found hiding in the attic.

[Josh] This was tucked away in the attic?

-Yep. -And this is what, an engine?

Yes, this is part of the engine of the Messerschmidt Me 163 Komet.

[Josh] This is that rocket plane?

Yeah, it's the world's first and only operational

rocket-powered aircraft. -[Josh] Right.

It's the first aircraft to go faster

than 1,000 kilometers an hour.

[Josh] The Komet isn't just state of the art, it's a trailblazer.

But it's also an extremely short-ranged fighter, only able

to stay aloft for eight minutes.

Even the vaunted V-2 rocket can only travel

a couple of hundred miles.

As the war drags on, Hitler becomes desperate

to extend his reach further than London, especially

as the US Air Force and British Royal Air Force use their own

long-range planes to relentlessly bomb the Reich.

US planes alone dropped tens of thousands of tons of bombs

every single month.

And yet, maddeningly, Hitler and his forces haven't

been able to drop a single bomb on the United States.

-But not for lack of trying. -Exactly.

And let me show you what they were working on.

-Just through here. -Through where?

-Through the bookcase. -Is it?

No.

-[Josh] This one? -[Dr. Hall] That's the one.

[thrilling orchestral music plays]

It's a secret passage. Oh, my word.

-[Josh] Up or down? -[Dr. Hall] We're going down.

[Josh] Here we go.

Sorry, I'm a sucker for a secret passage,

and this castle has over 20 of them.

Wow. Another stunning space.

[Dr. Hall] Yes, this is known as the marble room.

Wow. Incredible.

OK, so what have we got here?

-Josh, I've pulled a few things for us to have a look at. -OK.

What you've got to understand is Hitler has an obsession

by the end of the war

with bombing the mainland United States.

And he's talking about this to his closest confidants,

one of whom, Albert Speer, who's the Minister of Armaments.

He writes about it in his journal.

Take a look.

[Josh] This is from Albert Speer's secret diaries.

And he's writing about Hitler, and he says, "I never saw him

"so worked up as toward the end of the war, when in a kind of

"delirium, he pictured for himself and for us

"the destruction of New York in a hurricane of fire.

"He described the skyscrapers being turned into

"gigantic burning torches, collapsing upon one another,

"the glow of the exploding city illuminating the dark sky.

"He talks about a long-range bomber, and with such range,

"we could repay America 1,000-fold for the destruction

of our cities." -Yeah, it's a pretty dark vision,

but it isn't just a fantasy.

In 1944, planners working for the German Air Force,

the Luftwaffe, designed this bombing map of New York City.

Wow, look at this -- this is a bombing target plan

centered on Lower Manhattan. -[Dr. Hall] Absolutely.

Just imagine a world in which this happened.

It really gives you chills, because it might have

changed history. -Absolutely.

This was certainly Hitler's goal.

[Josh] Hitler believes that decimating US cities

will cause Americans to withdraw from the conflict,

freeing the Nazis to secure victory in Europe.

But they can't do it without the right plane.

What they need is a long-range bomber that can do

a 7,200-mile round trip across the Atlantic,

carrying thousands of gallons of fuel and a five-ton payload.

Right, they need a plane that's big and heavy, but also long-range.

Yes, and that's the Amerikabomber, which, in the 11th hour

of the Second World War, the Nazis tried to build.

[Josh] The Amerikabomber becomes Hitler's last hope of taking

the United States off the board.

So the Nazis commission all their defense contractors,

including companies like Messerschmitt and Daimler-Benz,

to build a working model.

Most of these so-called Wonder Weapons are prototypes,

but the concepts aim high.

One, the Silbervogel, or silver bird, was supposed to

use an onboard rocket engine to fly to suborbital space.

The most intriguing design comes from Daimler-Benz.

They propose a large, multi-engine flying wing

designed to carry smaller bombers, which would detach,

say, over Manhattan, and nosedive into the city

on a lethal one-way trip.

So how close did Daimler-Benz come to building

this Amerikabomber? -[Dr. Hall] Well, we don't know exactly.

At the end of the war, Germany is in ruins.

Many of the prototypes are lost and destroyed,

and the documents have either been stolen or lost or buried.

[Josh] The Nazis hid many wartime factories

underground, and there have long been rumors that

the Daimler-Benz Amerikabomber was being developed

in a subterranean facility.

However, we do have some real breaking news with this.

A research team here in Poland who are working on some of

those underground tunnel complexes that may be connected

to the Daimler-Benz design have just made a major breakthrough.

So just as this castle coughed up that rocket engine part,

they may have found something relating to the Amerikabomber,

which hasn't been seen for 80 years. -Wow.

Any chance you can point me in their direction?

I'd be happy to.

[Josh] If there's new information about Wonder Weapons,

it's something I have to see for myself.

I thank Dr. Hall and drive 120 miles north

from Lesna toward a sprawling underground Nazi complex

known as the MRUs.

The MRU network was staggering.

It was made up of 80 miles, that's eight-zero miles,

of subterranean tunnels connecting 100 bunkers.

In its day, it was nothing short of an underground city.

Construction of the MRUs began as early as 1934,

when this area was actually part of Germany.

In 1943, as Allied bombing became a daily concern

around here, Hitler moved vital operations underground

into the MRUs, where they remained until the end of the war,

when the tunnels were either imploded or sealed.

And if the Nazis did have a solid plan for

the Daimler-Benz Amerikabomber, what safer place to construct it

than in these tunnels?

The end of the road is just the beginning, as I hike

into the forest toward a set of coordinates I've been given.

In a secluded clearing, I find a huge, imploded concrete structure.

Pawel?

-[Pawel] Yeah? -[Oliver] Josh, here!

-[Oliver] Down here. -[Josh] Where?

-[Oliver] We're down here. -[Josh] You're in here?

-[Pawel] Yeah. -[Oliver] Come down here, yes.

-[Josh] Hey! -[Oliver] Come down here.

How are you? Oh, my word.

I climbed down to reunite with researcher Pawel Pietkiewicz

and his translator from Germany,

my old friend, Oliver Kruger.

Pawel is one of the world's foremost experts

on the MRU tunnels.

We first met when we investigated a different

and extremely flooded section of the MRUs,

where we discovered remains of artwork stolen by the Nazis.

Look at this.

Aha!

Dramatic place to meet.

OK, so let's talk about this location.

What are you looking for here?

[speaking foreign language]

So we know that in 1943, 1944,

Daimler-Benz relocated an engine aircraft

factory into the undergrounds of the MRU.

They did -- they moved the factory underground?

-Yes. -And we know that Daimler-Benz is one of the companies that

could possibly have produced an Amerikabomber.

That's correct, and the documents show that there has been

1,500 machines producing aircraft parts underground.

-In the MRU system? -[Oliver] Yes.

-OK. -Also, a new drawing has surfaced recently,

and maybe a sketch of this bunker system.

It may show this actual bunker? OK.

In their research of the tunnels, Pawel and Oliver

uncovered a recently declassified plan,

which depicts a section of the MRUs that hasn't been seen

since the war.

Tunnels that may have contained a secret

aircraft manufacturing facility. -Nobody's been inside.

there since 75 years.

OK, so how are you going to get into this space?

We may have found a place where we can get in.

Do you think it's easy to get in?

No, it's not easy, and if it would be easy, we'd have been

there already. -Well, a guy can dream.

What does it mean?

[laughter]

It means I'm hopeful that it's not some horrible thing

I have to -- it doesn't matter.

-Very useless activity. -[Josh] Oh, man.

All right, come on, show me where this is.

Let's go. Please.

-[Pawel] OK. -Germans.

[Josh] Despite Oliver's typically German optimism,

I'm still anxious to get into the tunnels.

So we hurry to where we hope we'll be able to break in

to this possible secret weapons plant.

[suspenseful orchestral music plays]

What is this?

This is a very deep shaft

used as a staircase to go underground.

Stairs are gone, obviously.

You think you may be able to get in down there?

50-50.

[Josh] Deep in the forests of Poland, researcher Pawel Pietkiewicz

has discovered the remains of a concrete silo that we hope is

an entrance to a Nazi tunnel system that hasn't been seen

since World War II.

This may have been a factory dedicated to building

Hitler's dream weapon, a bomber capable of reaching America.

Well, how the hell do we get down there?

-We need help. -Yeah, you need serious help.

Do you understand? I mean, a psychiatrist.

Maybe, but also someone with a rope.

Yeah, I know.

To get us down safely, Pawel has brought in

rappelling expert Legion Beyer and his research partner,

Jaroslaw Strozniak.

Lee has permission to drill a few discreet anchors into

the crumbling concrete slabs.

We hope they're strong enough to support us on a drop

80 years into the past.

Pawel will be the first to descend.

-[Josh] OK, you ready? -Ready.

[Josh] OK.

[suspenseful orchestral music plays]

OK, slow, slow, slow.

-How does it look? -[Pawel speaking foreign language]

-It's going straight down. -Straight down, OK.

Do you see anything?

[Pawel speaking foreign language]

There's like sand and rubble.

OK, is there any place where it goes deeper?

-[Pawel speaking foreign language] -[Josh] What's he say?

-He's saying that there's a potential entrance. -There's an opening?

[Pawel speaking foreign language]

-Yeah, we have to go down there. -He sees an opening?

-[Oliver] Yes. -OK, we're coming down.

OK.

OK, on belay. Here we go.

It is just straight down.

It's just sheer huge, huge pieces of concrete

with busted rebar in them.

[suspenseful music plays]

-[Josh] Almost there. -Are you down, Josh?

Almost down. OK, I'm down.

-[Josh] What'd you find? -Yes, Josh.

Oh my gosh, it's inside. Does it go all the way in?

-Yeah, yeah [speaking foreign language]. -Oh, it does go in.

-[speaking foreign language] -Oliver, come on down. Bring the gear.

[Josh] Oliver and Jaroslaw follow us down.

Once the team is together on solid ground,

we ditch our rappel gear.

OK, here we go.

And prepare to enter a pitch-black

and dangerously collapsed world.

[suspenseful music plays]

Oh, these look like the old stairs.

-[Oliver] Josh it goes back? [indistinct] -[Josh] Oh, there's a tunnel.

Oh. It's part of the tunnel system.

Oh, my word. Look at this.

This is part of the old tunnel.

Partially choked with sand, but it looks like you can get

through, yes? -Tak [yes].

OK, let's go.

Please, go ahead. Be very careful, everybody.

-[Pawel speaking foreign language] -[Josh] Uh-huh.

-Keeps going? -[Pawel speaking foreign language]

[Josh] What's that?

Oh, my god! It goes on forever!

So it leads into the main tunnel complex.

OK. Let's see where it goes.

[suspenseful orchestral music plays]

[Pawel] Wow!

Look at the size of this. It is unbelievable.

What is this system in the floor, this inset?

-[Josh] What is this? -[speaking foreign language]

[Oliver] This is a channel for electric cables.

For electric cables. Oh, you can see cabling here, yeah.

So, this whole thing would have been electrified.

Yes, it was sort of an underground city.

Yeah, unbelievable. OK.

We continue down the tunnel, navigating past several

collapses as we venture deeper into the heart

of darkness, until...

Oh, boy.

It's collapsed.

So, very, very tight here.

There's big pieces of rebar

bent throughout here.

There's an incredibly tight section ahead,

two collapsed pieces of wall.

I don't know if I can fit through this.

-[shuffling] -[grunting]

[Oliver] How are you doing, Josh?

Um, even with exhaling, I'm not sure my rib cage can pass it.

I gotta exhale.

[exhales heavily]

-[grunts] -OK, I'm through.

OK, we're through.

-More tunnel. -[Pawel] Yeah.

Whoa.

It's wetter in here, muddier, so water's coming in

from somewhere -- let's see where it goes, yeah?

-[Pawel] Yeah. -Let's go.

-[suspenseful music plays] -[splashing]

[Josh] Tunnel splits, it looks like. So this is a dead end behind me.

This is a no-go for sure because not only is it flooded,

but the tunnel seems to slope down, so there's no way

we're getting in there. -[Oliver] Yes, anything that's there is underwater.

Totally. This looks like it was a passage.

-[Josh] You see how they've covered it with bricks? -[Oliver] Yes.

[Josh] And you can see where it's cracked.

This was not the original ending of this passage,

I don't think. -[speaking foreign language]

-Dig under it? -[Oliver] Yes.

[Josh] Pawel isn't going to let a dead end stop us.

He decides we should try to burrow beneath the obstruction.

I, of course, need to carefully consider such a crazy idea.

OK, sure, let's dig it.

-[rocks scraping] -[suspenseful music plays]

[Josh, whispering] Oh, that's tough.

[Josh] Oh, it's hollow.

-[Oliver] Oh, no. -[Josh] Oh, my god, it's broken.

-[Josh] You can get through. -[Pawel] Yes?

-[Oliver] It's a hole -[Josh] It's a hole.

-[Oliver] There's space. -[Josh] Holy [bleep].

[Josh] It goes through.

Just when I think it's over...

[speaking foreign language]

...there's more.

We have to dig this out as much as we can.

-[suspenseful music plays] -[scraping]

OK, looks big enough.

God knows where it leads, but, Pawel, you're up.

Pawel advances into the opening, and I follow.

Oh, no.

-That is tight. -[grunts]

Squeezing into a passage that's been carved

out of the solid clay.

Josh -- right, and two lefts.

-[Josh] Goes to the right. -Yeah.

[Josh] This is extraordinarily dangerous.

This tunnel isn't reinforced with concrete, which means

there's nothing preventing collapse.

We struggle to navigate the tight corners of this

hand-dug passage.

I think this opens up into a room.

-[Pawel] Really? -[Josh] Yes.

[suspenseful music plays]

[pained grunts]

OK, I'm on the ground. I'm in a room.

We're in a room!

Oh, my word! Look!

Two levels!

[Pawel speaking foreign language]

[laughter]

Unbelievable! Oliver!

We coming!

[Josh] No longer in corridors and tunnels, we have emerged

into an actual facility. It's a major discovery,

If the Nazis were building an Amerikabomber here,

the evidence may be close at hand.

-[Josh] Look. -Oh, my god.

-[Oliver] What is that? -[Josh] Look at the size of this place.

-They have blown it up. -Yeah, they did blow it up, right?

Because the ceiling's intact, but all of this is destroyed.

They must have blown it up from the first floor.

We begin to explore the massive chamber, looking for any signs

of so-called Wonder Weapons, and aware that at any moment,

more of the room could collapse.

[suspenseful music plays]

[Josh] Oh, there's writing.

Oxygen reading.

-[Josh] Where does this go? -[Oliver] Oh, my god, there's a room here.

There's another room.

[Josh] Oh, my god. Careful in here, guys.

What does this say?

-[Pawel speaking foreign language] -[Oliver] It's a relaxing room.

Relaxing room, like a common room?

[Oliver] No, no, more like a sleeping room.

-Oh, it's a barrack. -[Oliver] Yes, exactly.

This huge, double-floor room we just came in must have been

a soldier's barracks. -Yeah, yes.

Wow.

This space could be where soldiers working on the Amerikabomber

were living, spending months

at a time underground.

Let's look around, though, see if we can find anything in here.

We have these stories about Daimler-Benz operating machines

in these MRU tunnels, so we're looking for aircraft parts,

aluminum, riveted material.

Guys, we're looking for anything that may tell us

what this room was for.

Plans, blueprints, anything like that.

-[suspenseful music plays] -[rustling]

[Oliver] Whoa, look at this.

[Josh] What'd you find? Is that a gas mask?

That is a gas mask container.

A gas mask would be standard equipment for a soldier living

underground in a time of daily aerial assault.

There is just...

a million pounds of rubble in here.

[Josh] This, on the other hand...

Oh, what is this?

What is this?

Oh, paper.

[Oliver] These are documents.

[Josh] Oh, wait a minute. That looks like a diagram.

-[Oliver speaking] -[Josh] Oh!

[Josh] Wait, are these for weapons?

[suspenseful chord strike]

[Oliver] These are some build instructions.

This is a plan how to build or construct a grenade thrower.

[Josh] I'm in a Nazi bunker that has been buried for eight decades

beneath the Polish countryside, searching for traces of

a prototype plane called the Amerikabomber,

technology that would have allowed the Germans to bomb

the East Coast of the United States

and possibly win World War II.

Now, we're finding mysterious documents in the ruins,

which aren't the kinds of things you read every day.

I cannot believe this is all just sitting in here.

Nobody's been here since the war, so it's just

lying here. -Yeah.

The last person in here were the soldiers living here.

-[Oliver] Yes. -[Josh] Oh, lots of writing.

-[Oliver] Yeah. -Look.

[Oliver] This is, like, how to construct land mines.

-[Josh] Land mines? -[Oliver] Yes.

[Josh] So this is what, like this is like a manual for...

setting up mines and traps -- look at that.

[Oliver] That's amazing. Wow.

[speaking foreign language]

This is a booby trap in a tree.

[Josh] Oh my word, look at that.

So this is what, like, a trip wire down here?

Yes, that's a trip wire.

[Josh] And an explosive attached to the tree, which just blows up

when you go over the wire. -[Oliver] Yes, exactly.

It's pretty mean.

[Josh] The whole book is traps.

Yes, that was the literature of the Nazis.

That's right.

[Josh] These documents are a one-stop shop for a Nazi soldier

to learn how to wreak havoc on the world.

But there's also another piece of paper here, a reminder of

the man who inspired all of this destruction.

-[Josh] And what is this stamp? -[Oliver] This is --

-[Josh] This cross? -[Oliver] "Im namen des fuhrers,"

it means "in name of the fuhrer,

Adolf Hitler,"

[speaking German] -- that's a part of an order.

Part of an order in the name of Hitler?

[Oliver] In the name of the fuhrer, yes, in the name of Hitler.

-And the writing here? -[Oliver] This is a delivery.

[Josh] A delivery? This is an order for something.

Who knows what this order contains?

[Josh] Could be weapons, could be aviation parts, right?

Could be anything.

And it's dated to February the 4th of 1945.

Sorry, wait, February of '45?

[Oliver] Yes, only two weeks before the Russians came here.

So this bunker was here right up until the very end.

This is right before the Soviets arrived,

and we're only months here away from the end of World War II.

-Exactly. -[Josh] We are, at this date,

in the turning of history here.

-[Oliver] I agree. -Right?

The world is about to be saved right here.

[Oliver] Yeah.

Amazing.

It's just unbelievable. This is a time capsule in here.

Let's keep looking around, see what else there is.

[Josh] The chamber is literally piled high with historic relics.

We continue sifting through the debris for materials

related to aviation.

OK, what's the word up here? Does it continue?

[Oliver] No, look at this. This is completely collapsed.

[Josh] You can see the ceiling broke open here, and there's just

a billion pounds of sand -- so, end of the line.

-Like, 1945. -[Josh] Yeah, major end of the line.

Lots of materials down here, but nothing aviation-related.

Nothing connected to the Amerikabomber.

-[Oliver] No. -But this is a big deal.

This is a part of the MRU tunnel network

we discovered for the very first time. -Yes.

It's huge. Amazing job.

-[Oliver] We did it. -Amazing.

Nice work. Awesome.

Before we head back to the surface, as many

photographs as we can take, and I want to do a 3D scan

of these chambers as well so we can document them.

-[Oliver] Let's do that. -Yeah.

This is history right here. Awesome work.

-[Oliver] Yes. Yeah. -Yeah.

-OK, let's do it. -[Oliver] OK.

[Josh] We have found a bunker that made be part of the secret

experimental facility that Pawel has been searching for

here in the MRUs.

It's crucial that we map every detail.

I image the entire chamber with a cutting-edge Leica laser scanner,

which uses bursts of light to measure every surface

in the room to within fractions of a millimeter.

The three-dimensional image this produces is historic.

It's the first survey of this previously lost section

of the MRU tunnels,

and the data will allow Pawel to continue to

search for what's beyond the collapsed section.

[suspenseful music plays]

However, before any of that work can begin, I get word that

newly discovered clues point to another site in Poland

as the incubator for the Amerikabomber.

To hear this breaking news firsthand, I get back

on the road and I drive 120 miles to the south.

Here in the eerie, fog-filled Owl Mountains near the border

of the Czech Republic, I arrive at a site that seems

appropriate to the task of finding a lost

aircraft factory.

OK, here we are.

Look at this place.

In this sprawling industrial complex, I'm reuniting with

a journalist who has spent her career uncovering

Nazi secrets, Joanna Lamparska. -It's been a long time, Josh.

-Great to see you, Joanna. -Great to see you.

Last time I saw you, we were exploring some

spooky, old monument.

Yeah, it was Totenburg Mausoleum on a dark hill.

-Do you remember? -Yes, very creepy.

[Josh] A few years ago, Joanna showed me around a monument

used for occult rituals by the Nazis.

We really need to stop meeting like this.

Help me understand this place. This is a car museum now?

Today, it's a car museum with vehicles from many periods of

time, many from World War II. -OK.

But during war, it was a huge factory, known as

a Krupp steelworks factory. -Krupp steelworks factory.

Yeah, it was known as a weapon forge of German Reich.

[Josh] Krupp steelworks manufactured panzer tanks for Nazi Germany,

as well as U-boats, battleships,

howitzers, and other armaments.

Hitler awarded Gustav Krupp the first War Service Cross

in 1940 for his contributions to the Nazi cause,

saying he wanted German soldiers to be as hard

as Krupp steel.

If any company would have had a hand in secret Nazi weapons,

this was it.

Was this building the whole factory?

No, it was a huge complex.

Some buildings still exist, some are gone, but the whole

extent of the factory is still a mystery.

But I found this 1944 floor plan of this specific

factory building. -Wow, are these workstations?

Yeah, it specifies what was produced on each table.

Look what I found.

This is Krupp factory

production card. -[Josh] Production card.

OK, so this is things being made here.

-Yeah. -[Josh] Uh-huh.

-Take a look at this. -[Josh] F-32...

Stahlholmgurte.

Yeah, it means Messerschmitt wing spars.

Wing spars for a Messerschmitt.

So, Messerschmitt was making, like, jet airplanes, yes?

-Yeah. -I saw an engine from a Messerschmitt.

-[Joanna] In Czocha Castle. -[Josh] Yes, back at Czocha Castle, exactly.

So, they're building parts of those planes here.

Yes, and we believe that Germans could have been making

Messerschmitt 264 in this factory.

This plane was the closest Hitler got to

a functional Amerikabomber.

[Josh] The ME 264 was powered by four BMW 801G radial engines.

It was designed to carry a 6,600-pound bomb load,

almost 9,000 miles, more than enough for a round-trip

to America from Nazi Germany.

It even boasted first-class features like bunk beds and a galley,

so the Nazis could blow up the Big Apple in comfort.

And unlike other hypothetical designs for the Amerikabomber,

this one was different.

It actually made it off the assembly line.

Hitler himself demanded the fastest possible production

of ME 264s.

How many of the Messerschmitt 264s were made?

Three prototypes, we know of, but we believe they were

destroyed during the war.

-We believe. -Exactly.

-They could be out there still. -Yeah.

But nothing was ever found.

There's no blueprints or aircraft parts

ever recovered. -Not yet.

But the owner of this property just found something

which could rewrite history -- come with me.

I'm all ears.

[dramatic orchestral music plays]

[Josh] We head outside, crossing the factory grounds,

which once contained buildings used to keep the Nazi

war machine equipped and deadly.

At the edge of the property, Joanna introduces me to

the current owner, Krzysztof Mezyk.

Nice to meet you, sir.

So, how long have you owned this place?

We bought the place two years ago.

[Josh] Two years ago. Big property.

-Yes. -So tell me what you found here.

We were cleaning this area and we find that

concrete elements. -Oh, all of this.

-Yes. -[Josh] So all this concrete we see here, this is

from the original factory? -[Kryzysztof] Yes.

OK, so we can see these big pads up here and all sorts of like

pipes and steel. So something was here.

-Yes. -OK.

And so, what do we think was here?

We think people were working here underground.

Underground. So why do we think that?

[Josh] Like the MRU tunnels, the Nazis built

many factories underground to avoid bombing

and Allied aerial reconnaissance.

There projects were dependent on slave labor

from nearby concentration camps.

Anna, a prisoner taken from the Warsaw Ghetto, was forced

to build special Messerschmitt parts in an underground section

of this facility.

The trouble is, there is no record of

any subterranean factory here.

But Anna later described its location

to her granddaughter, who drew this map,

the only evidence of a top-secret location.

And let me show you what we find.

OK, yeah, sure. What did you find?

[suspenseful music plays]

Oh, my god. It's a tunnel.

You found a tunnel. Unbelievable.

Look at this.

[Josh] This was just buried under the ground here.

-Exactly, we had no idea it was here. -Incredible.

[Josh] Journalist Joanna Lamparska has uncovered eyewitness testimony

from a factory worker that suggests a top-secret

underground facility was used to build a long-range bomber

that might have turned the tide of World War II.

And the current property owner has just found

a possible entrance. -How far back does it go?

-Around 40 meters, I think. -40 meters?

-Can we go in? -Yeah.

Let's go in. Come on.

We don helmets and enter as the first visitors

since the Third Reich was a going concern.

Look at this place. This is crazy.

All brick-lined.

This is a proper tunnel.

Oh, and then what is this?

So we've got another tunnel here that goes to the left,

but it's all bricked up.

-This is incredible. -It's crazy.

I wonder what is behind this wall.

[Josh] Absolutely.

And then we've got some evidence of other construction

in here -- this metal up here.

-[Joanna] I think it's for lighting. -[Josh] Right.

[Josh] There must have been lighting in here.

So this is a place people were going back and forth.

So the question is, why? What were they doing down here?

Let's see where this goes.

[suspenseful music plays]

OK, so...

underneath this sketchy ceiling here.

And then, where does this go? Let's see.

-[Josh] So it goes back further. -Can you see where it goes?

[Josh] It looks like another bricked-up wall behind it.

So it must have gone somewhere, and then it's been bricked up.

It's getting more interesting every minute.

-[Josh] Yeah. -[Joanna] OK.

[Josh] This is what? This is metal?

-Piece of metal. -[Joanna] What did you find?

[Josh] I don't know, it's metal.

-Oh, it's writing! -[Joanna] Wow.

[Josh] Look at that!

-[Josh] Stelle? -[Joanna] Stelle.

Stelle. So, Stelle means what?

-A closed zone. -A closed zone.

OK, so this is the end of a word.

-[Joanna] Yeah. -So what might have gone in front of this?

I believe it could be baustelle.

[Josh] Baustelle, which means what?

-A building place. -Like a factory?

-[Joanna] Yeah. -OK.

So this sign, undoubtedly, this must have hung down here

somewhere, right? So this is directing people to

some sort of stelle, some sort of closed-off space.

The records did not show any underground facilities here

at the Krupps factory, but clearly there is.

-We're in it. -Absolutely, this is it.

So we have the evidence all around us that there is

some sort of underground tunnel system here.

Now the question is, what does it mean?

What was it for?

So let's try and figure that out.

Kryzysztof, this definitely goes deeper, but it's a dead end here,

so we're gonna come back to you.

-[Kryzysztof] OK, we can go in. -OK, let's do it.

[Josh] We reconvene in the main passage and assess

how to get past the blockage.

I mean, I think we'd have a very hard time digging

through this, so how do we get to the rest of the tunnel?

From above?

-Yes. -OK.

How are we gonna get there from above?

Oh, you've got a koparka?

-Yes. -How do you know this word, "koparka"?

-It's Polish. -Because I love a koparka.

Let's get a koparka.

-[dramatic music plays] -[motor rumbling]

[Josh] Unleash the koparka.

OK, this ought to do the trick.

For those of you who are new around here, a koparka is

an excavator, and this one is going to dig into this tunnel

from above, attempting to bypass the collapse by finding

a new way for us to safely enter.

We gouge a few holes into the earth, but all we find is

dirt and debris, until...

-[Josh] Whoa. -[Joanna] Whoa.

Something there?

-[Joanna] Oh, my. -Oh, there's an opening!

Oh, my word! Look at this!

Hey! Nice work!

Oh, my God, look at that.

-[indistinct] -A flashlight, a flashlight.

[suspenseful music plays]

Oh, it goes down. It goes way down underground.

OK, we got an entrance here.

Let's open this up, see what else is there.

[suspenseful music plays]

[Josh] The dig team draws straws to choose who goes first.

Excavator Jacek Lokaj wins, so he loses.

-OK, you're gonna go in first? -Yeah.

God bless you. Here we go.

[laughter]

[Josh] He shimmies his way down into the tunnel, followed closely

by another team member.

OK, so how far back does it go?

[speaking foreign language] 10 meters.

-10 meters, it goes back 30 feet? -Yeah.

OK, I'm coming down.

[Josh] I'll be damned if I'm gonna let these guys go into

a death trap tunnel without me, so I join in.

OK, coming in.

[grunting] OK.

Boy, that's tight.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.

Here we go. Oh, look at this place.

Wow -- so you can see

there's a pipe at the end, and it looks like

you can see where a pipe was in the dirt there as well,

in the mud -- but no door.

So this looks like maybe more of a utility tunnel.

[Josh] I see, so maybe like a water pump down here.

But where does that pipe go?

Yeah, that is the mystery.

All right, guys, nice work.

OK, back to the surface.

OK -- [heavy breathing]

I got to get a new job.

[grunting] OK.

That was fun.

[laughter]

OK, we got to keep searching. Here we go.

[suspenseful music plays]

[Josh] We found more tunnel all right, but not like where

we were before -- this is a service tunnel.

We continue digging to see if we can find out

what it serviced.

The excavator, though, comes up with something that may be

even better.

[indistinct speaking]

What's that? Oh, metal.

Hold on, hold on. Stop, stop, stop.

-Is it aluminum? -It looks like.

It is, yeah?

[Joanna] Aluminum. Wow.

-Oh, my god. -Oh, wow.

[cheerful music plays]

[Josh] Searching for the Amerikabomber is hungry work,

and there's no better place to recharge than here,

at the world's only potato vending machine.

Yep, this is real.

That's because potatoes are the starchy staple of so many

Polish favorites, like potato pancakes, potato soup,

potato pierogies, potato toothpaste.

I don't know. It goes in everything here.

And it's so simple.

You just put your coins in the slot.

[coins clattering]

Choose your shelf. Oh, I don't know.

One potato, two potato, three potato, four.

Here we go.

The door opens, and you help yourself to a generous serving

of spuds -- look at that.

Unbelievable.

I'll tell you one thing, this machine is

pretty a-peeling [appealing]. What?

Don't be mad. Tater's gonna tate [hate], am I right?

Tater's gonna tate [hate].

Anybody know how to make vodka?

-This is aluminum. -[Joanna] Yes, it is.

-Could this be from an aircraft? -[Kryzysztof] Yeah.

-Aircraft aluminum. -Aircraft aluminum.

-[Kryzysztof] You see the paint? -[Josh] Oh, there's paint on it.

-Green paint. -[Kryzysztof] And that's riveted.

And that's riveted! There's a rivet mark there, there, there, there.

So this is riveted aluminum skin.

This looks like it's from a plane.

In Poland, above a reported secret underground factory,

we've just discovered evidence that suggests this site was

used to develop the Nazi Wonder Weapon known as

the Amerikabomber.

Is there more?

Oh!

Oh, my word.

Aluminum was very rare during the war.

[Josh] This looks very much like it's from an airplane.

I mean, let's take stock of where we are here, right?

We're at this factory where we know they were producing

aircraft parts.

Yes, something underground.

And we have this testimony from Anna.

-Anna. -[Josh] Right.

Who says she worked underground --

And now we know from this tunnel and from what we're

digging up here, there was a subterranean complex here.

-[Josh] For sure. -Yeah, we are sure that something was here.

-[Josh] Yes. -Yeah, something special.

And it's definitely associated with aviation.

No question.

The main building.

[Josh] Right.

Exactly, and we know that in the main facility,

they were building those Messerschmitt spars.

So this must have been something else,

something more top secret.

And so, could this be from a prototype?

Could this be from the Amerikabomber Project?

Like, this is aircraft aluminum in a secret facility.

[Josh] Hopefully.

-Yeah. -We should keep digging around here, see if we can find

more of this aluminum, yeah? -[Kryzysztof] Yes.

Maybe we can put a plane back together, yeah?

-[Kryzysztof] OK. -[Josh] Amazing.

Amazing. Amazing work, guys.

-[Joanna] Thank you. -[Josh] Thank you so much.

Amazing.

Great job. Unbelievable.

That's awesome.

[Josh] The discovery of aircraft aluminum

in the ruined tunnels here is a bombshell.

It almost certainly confirms the account that Joanna found,

which said experimental planes were being built here.

[reporter] War against Germany is won.

[Josh] History, they say, is written by the victors.

And, in this case, thank God that those victors

were the Allies.

It's not hard to imagine what the world would have looked like

had the Nazis been victorious in World War II.

It likely would have looked like Poland in 1943.

The fear, the burned cities, the camps.

This was the Reich's eventual vision for America, if only

it could reach us.

The Nazis, blessedly, ran out of time.

They were stopped before they could finish their Wonder Weapons,

the Amerikabomber or the Atomic Bomb that would

surely have followed.

Exactly how close we came to living the vision outlined

in Albert Speer's diaries, I'm certain that we will one

day learn, as dedicated researchers in Poland

dig through eight decades of rubble...

Oh, my god, it's broken. You can get through.

...to claw the truth out of the Earth itself.

The Nazis didn't get their Amerikabomber,

but today their ideological heirs are rising from the ashes of history.

And so, like our greatest generation, we are now called

to resist a new wave of extremists, or else the future

will surely be written by them.

[Josh] Thirteen brand-new epic adventures spanning five continents.

Whoo-hoo!

[Josh] It can only be "Expedition Unknown."

Come on! Look at that!

[Josh] From a hunt for man-eating lions on the African savanna...

Oh, lion! Oh, there's two!

...to the discovery of a lost plane from a World War II hero.

We got it! Yes!

[Josh] A real-life Spanish galleon that inspired "The Goonies."

I think I have a match.

[Josh] And a search for a gold rush fortune with a gold rush

expert, Parker Schnabel. -Oh, look!

The student has become the teacher!

Are you kidding me?

[Josh] Then, in the expedition of a lifetime, I'm going deep

inside the Great Pyramid of Giza to finally reveal

the truth behind one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

On an all new season...

Yow!

...of "Expedition Unknown."

Hang on! Ha ha! Whoo!