Original subtitles

Narrator: A brutalist complex with a volatile past

Now lying forgotten in the woods.

The most fascinating structures are these round cylinders

With reinforced ribs on the outside.

This was highly specialized.

Narrator: Grand coastal defenses in ghana

That speak of a tortured history.

When you see the extent of these fortifications,

How many there are and how solidly they are constructed,

The first question that comes to your mind is,

"why here?

What was so valuable?"

Narrator: And a decaying giant that once promised

To kickstart serbia's industrial revolution.

It was supposed to symbolize a new future for the country,

A new hope for the people,

But this specific site would play a part

In the country's history that no one could have foreseen.

♪

Narrator: Decaying relics, ruins of lost worlds

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

Their secrets waiting to be revealed.

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

Captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

♪

Deep in the forests of western poland,

Hidden from view,

A peculiar group of buildings extend across a vast site.

♪

Barratt: To start off, you're just in the forest.

But you begin to realize that man has been here

And left quite a mark.

It begins with little things -- railway tracks,

Odd bits and pieces,

But then, gradually, it begins to reveal

More and more buildings.

They're everywhere.

So, the buildings you first come to just look like

Something out of a sci-fi movie.

They're these giant concrete structures

That seem to be on these legs

That could come alive at any time.

Barratt: Very, very well-constructed,

But when you look down from above,

They're absolutely open to the elements.

There's no roof.

It's clearly a very unique structure.

And then you turn a corner, and there's a different building,

More rectangular structure.

This is so abandoned, there's very little that can tell you

What the purpose of this was

Except that some kind of industrial enterprise was here,

But you can't tell what it was.

Narrator: Venturing deeper into the forest reveals more clues

But adds to the confusion surrounding the site's story.

There are these big open basins,

And they look corroded in some kind of way,

And there's channels leading from them,

So there was action not just above ground, but also below.

Narrator: While the original use of this place may be hidden,

One thing is clear.

This is a complex of buildings that shouldn't be in a forest.

This is an urban kind of complex.

There's something secretive and special

That's going on here,

And some people have put a lot of effort

To hide this very substantial complex away.

♪

Narrator: Radoslaw domke is a historian

From the nearby university of zielona gora.

Radoslaw has been researching the buildings here for years,

Trying to uncover the mysteries they hold

And what they were used for.

The distinctive design of this structure

Actually betrays the purpose of the site.

It was a vast explosives manufacturing enterprise,

And this feature was at the heart of the action.

These are not small silos.

The space is utterly vast,

Which is mind-boggling at the moment,

But it's even more mind-boggling

To think that this vast space was full of explosives.

Narrator: Beyond the silos,

Every feature and even the layout of the whole site

Took into account the very real possibility

Of an accident occurring in this line of work.

Obviously, making explosives is not without its dangers,

So it makes perfect sense

That you're going to locate a munitions factory

Far away from towns and villages,

But not only that,

You're going to put the separate elements of the factory

Far apart.

Barratt: The chemicals needed to make munitions

Are highly reactive.

They're designed to explode,

But, of course, in their raw state,

In their early state, they're really hard to control.

Moving this highly unstable material from place to place,

You want it to be as smooth as possible,

And the railway lines are the best way to do that.

Narrator: But a few key questions remain.

Who was manufacturing explosives on such a vast scale,

And why did they want to keep it so secret?

The origins of this place are cemented firmly

In some of europe's darkest days --

During the second world war.

Corum: Hitler had these very ambitious plans

To have this huge production of explosives

And huge production of munitions for the german reich.

Once the war begins

And the germans have seized poland,

Now they can actually create

This new system of industrial enterprises.

Narrator: This was one of his centerpieces --

The christianstadt dynamite factory.

It was originally owned by dag, a company that was founded

By the inventor of dynamite himself,

Alfred nobel.

It covers an area of over 1,000 football fields,

And it had its own power plant and railway system.

At its peak, it was producing 6,737 tons of explosives

Per month.

The things that they were making at this factory

Are mind-boggling.

There's evidence that they were making rdx,

Which is more explosive than tnt.

This baby goes boom,

And you have got so much of it being stored.

And, also, there's suspicion that they made nitroglycerin.

Now, nitroglycerin is one of the most

Explosive chemicals there is.

I've only ever seen it in tiny vials, let alone giant vats.

Narrator:The scale of the nazis' aims for this site

May have been frightening,

But there was an even darker side to this operation.

Making ammunitions is dangerous work,

So you would think the people making it

Would be highly trained professionals

With years of experience, right?

No.

Here, you've got forced labor,

So these are ordinary people, prisoners of war.

They were made to make these ammunitions

That were then potentially going to be used on their own people.

Narrator: For those forced to work here,

Life was close to unbearable.

If somebody tried to escape, if somebody tried any defiance,

They could be executed on the spot without any difficulty,

And you'd just simply get another slave laborer.

Narrator: The nazis designed and ran this facility

To be a super efficient manufacturing mega site,

But despite their ruthless approach,

There were some things the nazis couldn't control,

As was proven one early morning in 1944.

Barratt: Very little documentation about this site survives,

But one fact we do know was there was a massive explosion,

Which, given the war, makes you think about sabotage.

Narrator: So, just who was behind this plot,

And would it spell the end for the nazis' dynamite factory?

♪

♪

Narrator: Today, in western poland,

The strange concrete edifices of the nazis' dynamite factory

Stand silently amongst the trees,

But on one morning in 1944,

An explosion here sent shock waves

Tearing through the facility.

Barratt: It was before the workers started,

And it only hit some of the key buildings.

We may never know what actually happened here,

But with a forced workforce

And active polish resistance in the area --

If you put two and two together from that,

You get an inside job,

And that's what led to this act of sabotage,

These explosions

And bringing about a stop

To the manufacture of weapons here.

Narrator: Reports suggest that across 1944 and 1945,

Three separate and suspicious explosions here

Caused major damage to the site.

But when the war ended,

The nazis destroyed most of the documentation

Detailing both the events

And the true capabilities of this site.

The remaining items of value were looted by the russians,

And eventually, the buildings were left to be taken over

By the forest.

♪

Today, it is park land, open to the public,

But very few visitors know of the secrets

These buildings hold.

♪

Near the east coast of florida,

Beneath an innocuous-looking mound of earth,

Is a forgotten relic.

Just off a freeway and hidden amongst the trees,

You've got this sort of stepped white wall

Leading to just quite a plain white door.

You realize, maybe that door

Is hiding something quite intriguing.

You've got this thick concrete wall.

Then on top of this low, little hill,

You have these various ventilation shafts.

There's something under here,

Something that was important at one time,

But, today, there's no sign of what that was.

Narrator: Inside, the mystery deepens.

You go through the big steel doors.

You're met with a second security zone,

Like a decontamination chamber.

Whatever was in here, it certainly meant business.

One thing that's really striking here is,

The whole thing is built with these large steel beams.

They look strong enough to support

A skyscraper or a stadium,

And yet, all that's above this is just a grassy mound.

Narrator: The level of structural protection here, though,

Suggests this wasn't all about what was on the outside,

But what was once kept on the inside.

Just this vast, cavernous chamber

That echoes with every footfall

And clearly meant to house something really important.

Narrator: What was this place built to hide and from whom?

Located near to the kennedy space center,

This site dates to a time when the space race

Wasn't the only battle being fought

And the threat of mass annihilation back on earth

Was very real.

This bunker was built in 1967, the height of the cold war.

Florida might not seem like a military center,

But it was close to cuba, which is an area

That we always worried might have nuclear weapons,

And, of course, in the cuban missile crisis,

That was all about trying to get russia

To remove nuclear weapons from cuba.

What's interesting about this bunker is its orientation

'cause if you expand to look at the larger area,

You'll notice that the main entrance

And the exposed part of the bunker

Is facing away from the kennedy center.

Now, the reason for this is, if there was any attack,

The kennedy center is the most likely location,

So if you face away from it,

You're going to be better protected.

Narrator: The orientation of the site, however,

Was just the start.

The level of protection built into the fabric of this place

Was second to none.

Mark oxley is an expert on the history of the site.

So, this isn't your normal nuclear fallout bunker.

This is actually something a little bit different.

It was hardened to such a degree

That the outside walls are 18 inches thick,

But some of the interior walls go as thick as 48 inches.

The foundation was also 9 feet thick.

Narrator: But this wasn't built to protect high-ranking officials.

The heavy use of metal in the structure gives this away.

This was designed for something else.

But what you'll notice is right up here.

This was actually one of at&t's

And the department of defense's communications bunkers.

The goal of this bunker was to keep the hardened communications

Of both the at&t long-distance long lines

As well as the military's autovon network

Secure in case of nuclear war.

Narrator: In the aftermath of a nuclear attack, it was predicted

That citizens would swamp the telephone exchange

As they tried to reach loved ones,

But the military would need guaranteed open lines

To coordinate their response.

This was where the autovon network

And its priority status would come in.

The autovon network ran parallel

To the normal communications network.

This was a way for the defense department

And the executive branch

To maintain communication between key defense agencies

And key military assets during a crisis.

Narrator: This bunker was one small piece

Of a much larger puzzle.

So, there are these bunkers scattered around

The united states from coast to coast,

And they're all, like, 75, 100 miles apart

In this intricate web around the country.

Meigs: At&t actually built three different kinds of bunkers.

One type was full of communications equipment.

Another type had power-generating equipment,

And the third type had microwave equipment.

A microwave link

Can send telephone data across the open air

Without having to be connected by wires,

So you can imagine how that could be very valuable

In the aftermath of a war.

Narrator: A nuclear explosion

Would create an incredibly destructive force

Sweeping over the land.

However, the explosive blast

Wasn't the real danger for a place like this.

That would have been the ensuing electromagnetic pulse

That would have wiped out electrical equipment

For miles around.

So, how was this place built to endure that storm,

And how would the site's operators survive down here

In the aftermath?

♪

Narrator: Near the kennedy space center in florida

Is a nuclear bunker that once held vital equipment

For keeping military lines of communication

Open in the event of an attack,

But to do this, it had to be able to endure

The effects of an electromagnetic pulse.

Meigs: Being inside the structure

Is kind of like being inside of a steel cage,

And that's important because one of the risks of a nuclear war

Is that when a nuclear weapon goes off in the atmosphere,

It sends out this bolt of electricity

That could destroy electronics for hundreds of miles away,

So if you want to protect your sensitive electrical equipment,

You want to put it inside a cage of metal, a faraday cage,

And that's exactly what they did here.

Scott: A faraday cage --

It can be something as simple as chicken wire.

It's just a metal mesh, and what it does is,

It basically neutralizes electrical charges,

So, inside of the bunker,

You'll have your people or any equipment,

And all of that is protected from anything else

That would be going on outside.

Narrator: While shielding the equipment was the purpose of this site,

It would all be for nothing

If there was no one left to operate it,

So these bunkers were designed to be habitable

Even in the event of a nuclear attack.

There were large cans of powdered butter, powdered eggs,

Spaghetti, meat sauce -- I mean, all kinds of things,

And those were meant to sustain five people,

Five workers within this facility, for 30 days, 24/7.

Narrator: If an attack happened, they would go into lockdown

Until they were notified it was safe to go outside.

♪

So, this is one of the radiation detectors.

Basically, these are planted all around the facility,

Both on top of the facility and below the facility.

They were meant to detect gamma radiation,

So in case of a nuclear strike or nuclear event in the area,

This would basically send a signal

To the remote monitoring station

And automatically close all the blast doors in the facility

And turn the carbon air filtration systems on

To ensure that the air quality

Was preserved inside the facility.

Narrator: Once the blast doors were down,

Access in and out of the facility

Was strictly controlled.

So, if you had entered after a radioactive event,

There would be these massive lead-lined doors

Blocking your entrance into the facility,

So, what you'd have to do is,

You would be in your decontamination suit,

And you'd be entering

What is known as the decontamination shower.

This is where you would rinse off

All of the radioactive particles that were on you

So that you wouldn't be traipsing them

Into the main clean environment.

That was critical

To ensure that everybody who was inside stayed alive.

Meigs: Imagine the job that these people were asked to do.

You go, and you live in this bunker.

You're waiting for a nuclear war

You desperately hope would never happen.

If it did happen, you would have to wonder,

Was your family and everyone you know wiped out?

Meanwhile, you've got this difficult task to perform,

And they were expected to stay on that station

And run these communications

For up to a month after any potential conflict.

Narrator: Fortunately for the men inside,

They never faced such a situation,

And in 1979, with a new and improved system

Being rolled out across the country,

The military abandoned these bunkers for good.

Today, a new use has been found for this bomb-proof bunker.

Mark is calling it back into action.

Oxley: Well, everything today is internet-based.

The internet of things is everywhere.

Everybody relies on their cell phones heavily, gps navigation.

It has to be processed where there's a lot of power

And a lot of processors,

And that would happen in a data center like this one.

Narrator: Now cleared out, this bunker is being prepped

For that next stage of its life

As a place to securely store row upon row of servers,

And with hacking, climate change,

Or even nuclear conflict

All potential challenges in the future,

Old or new, it's not the only one of its kind

Being made ready.

This cold war relic is now being imitated

All around the world among america's peer adversaries

In order to secure their data

From anything that might bring down

A vitally important network

And compromise the security of the state.

♪

Narrator: Along the stunning coastline of ghana

Are a number of striking buildings

That dominate their surroundings.

♪

Bell: There are these enormous white buildings

Set high above the coastline.

They're almost like palaces

With elaborate staircases, plazas, and archways.

They're hugely impressive.

Auerbach: As you go up the coast,

You see there is more than one of these

Rising from the cliff faces.

Some of them are just rubble now,

But others are in pretty good shape.

They were built to last.

When you get closer to the buildings,

It's clear that these buildings

Were built for defensive purposes,

But it's not only how they're positioned.

It's the canons.

It's the firepower.

Narrator: But behind the imposing walls

Are scenes that paint a confusing picture.

Auerbach: The deeper one goes into the building,

The more one finds

There's a whole hidden world right under the surface.

Bell: The darkness is all-consuming.

The air is thick and heavy.

Damp and decay is all around.

Shackles rattle on the walls,

And thick, steel doors cover tiny enclaves.

Auerbach: It's such an odd place.

The contrast is so enormous between the floors above ground,

The opulence of them, the sense of space and light,

The beautiful views of the shore and the ocean,

And then underground, it's a veritable dungeon.

Narrator: What were these places designed for,

And what secrets do these dark cells contain?

♪

♪

Narrator: In the 15th century,

European seafaring traders arrived on the shores of ghana,

A step that would forever alter the course of history

In western africa.

These white forts are the legacy of that distant first landing.

Bell: The first colonizers were the portuguese --

Southwestern europeans with the knowledge,

The experience, and the national purpose

To embark on the enterprise

Of developing oceanic trade routes

With africa and asia.

They come to find raw materials,

But what they stumbled upon was beyond their wildest dreams.

Auerbach: The akan peoples of the coast

Had access to considerable supplies of gold,

And they were willing to trade it to europeans for base metals,

Textiles, and other manufactured goods.

Narrator: The coast became so valuable that the portuguese

Referred to it simply as mina, the mine.

The english more poetically later named it the gold coast.

Mitchell: The portuguese were willing to do

Whatever they could to defend the gold,

So they did whatever it took,

Including building these fortifications.

Narrator: These are ghana's coastal forts, a string of imposing defenses

Built by powerful european empires.

Alex kingsley okpei is a local historian here.

These forts were built to be intimidating.

Four outer towers formed the batteries.

Canons stretched all along the front,

And huge, towering walls rose up from the rocks below.

It would have been a huge undertaking,

But it was essential to keep other european powers away

And ensure that the local people only sold their gold

To agents of the portuguese crown.

Auerbach: These forts accomplished

Exactly what they were designed to.

We know from records that, up to 1550,

The portuguese were getting

Up to 12,400 ounces of gold annually,

Which was a sizable proportion of gold

Coming into europe at the time.

Narrator: But soon, other european powers

Would try to muscle in on the act.

The portuguese had something

That many others desperately wanted a part of.

The netherlands, Spain, England, France --

They all coveted the wealth

That was pouring out of the gold coast,

And they were willing to fight tooth and nail

To get their hands on their share of it.

Bell: By the 17th century,

The portuguese couldn't fight them off anymore,

And their domination came to an end.

With the market now open to all,

Different nations built their own forts

And battled to protect trade in their area.

In total, there were around 40 forts along this coastline,

Owned by different nations.

They stretched for more than 300 miles.

Narrator: The trade these forts were protecting

Was also now changing,

As across the world,

The market for a new commodity was beginning to boom.

It came from the lush tropical islands of the caribbean.

Sugar was hugely desirable and fetched a very high price.

Europeans couldn't get enough of it.

The problem was that it was very difficult to produce.

You needed a very large, very dependable labor force,

And the caribbean americas

Just didn't have that anymore.

You had an indigenous population

That had been decimated by disease,

So they weren't available for this type of labor,

And even the poorest europeans were unwilling

To brave the expensive passage

And the terrible living and working conditions

For the meager salary

That working on a sugar plantation would fetch.

Narrator: However, in the eyes of the european powers,

That labor force could be found in ghana

And the countries beside it.

The trade in gold was now making way for the trade in people.

♪

A grave use now awaited the old forts,

And soon, even more of these castles would line the coast.

♪

Narrator: On the coast of ghana

Sit the old european-built forts,

But while gold was the initial focus here,

The booming sugar trade of the 17th century

Meant the demand was now for slaves.

Europeans are able to come in

And exploit instability in africa

And getting slave labor that would be sent to the americas.

Narrator: At the heart of this new trade were the forts.

Bell: The conditions were horrific,

And a large percentage of the slaves died

Before they even got on a boat.

Narrator: The men and women were kept separately,

But the treatment of the women was no better.

In fact, for some, it was even worse.

Narrator: Cape coast castle, like many of the other forts,

Was an environment of extreme contrasts.

A few yards, a few meters away from these cavernous dungeons

Are airy, light rooms with parquet floors,

Elaborate furnishings, and scenic vistas

That the people involved,

Who would profit off of the slave trade,

Where they lived.

Bell: It is horrendous to think

That they just went about their normal

Day-to-day lives

Completely detached from the unfathomable human suffering

They were consciously inflicting just meters away.

Narrator: Over a period of about 300 years,

An estimated 12 1/2 million africans

Were shipped to the new world.

This was the scene of one of the worst institutions

In human history, if not the absolute worst.

The cruelty is almost unimaginable,

And it continued all the way up until 1814 --

Not that long ago, really.

Narrator: While the slave trade ended during the 19th century,

Only during the decline of the british empire

In the 20th century

Were these forts and the land they stood on

Finally handed back to the local people.

For years, the castles' employment in slavery

Was taboo in ghana,

But now residents are showing more interest in the history,

With ghanaians making up 70 percent of tourist numbers

At the forts.

It really is a heritage site of its own in terms of its meaning,

Its significance.

These forts -- they're so important

Because people need to know what happened,

And they stand as stark reminders

Of how human beings can treat other human beings.

♪

Narrator: In belgrade, the capital of serbia,

Is a damaged structure that once marked the birth

Of a new age in the country's history.

♪

This place looks like it's been to hell and back,

Like it's been torn up from the inside out.

Nature is gradually consuming this place.

Birds are nesting in it.

Trees are growing out of the walls,

And the earth is swallowing the place up.

It's clearly got a story to tell,

But that story has become buried under years of waste.

There's even a boat lost under a sea of trash.

There are other buildings around here, too.

The place clearly isn't alone,

And there's tracks linking it to these other structures,

So we're looking at just one small part

Of a very vast industrial edifice.

Narrator: In its prime, this site

Was a monument to a bright future,

But this level of destruction tells a different story.

And the place has clearly been through the wars.

You can tell that immense change took place here.

The thing about this place is, it was supposed to symbolize

A new future for the country, a new hope for the people,

But what unfolded here was, in fact,

A disastrous setback and a devastating tragedy.

Narrator: Buried amongst the rubble and waste here

Are the origins of a groundbreaking moment

In the modern history of serbia.

Serbia had been under the rule of the ottoman empire

Since the 15th century, and in 1878,

It finally got its independence.

They had effectively been a slave state

Under the ottoman empire,

And now, suddenly, the shackles had been thrown off,

And the country had the opportunity

To make some progress.

Narrator: Structures like this were the result --

An example of what was to come.

Auerbach: At the time that serbia gained its independence,

Everything was relatively small-scale.

This wasn't a heavily urbanized country.

It wasn't in any way an industrialized country.

Narrator: But under the rule of the new king of serbia,

Investment was allowed in from abroad,

For the king had grand designs on the future of his country.

Auerbach: This building was going to be a central part

Of making that huge jump

From agricultural nation to an industrial nation.

Narrator: This was the belgrade sugar refinery.

There was sugar beet being produced,

And they saw an opportunity.

This could be exploited

And used to fuel their industrial revolution.

Narrator: For local expert ljubisa ristic,

This meant the beginning of a new belgrade.

You can just imagine what it was like back then --

The din of the machines working,

The employees hustling through, going about their business.

For those involved, this must have felt really exciting.

Narrator: The ambition was to attract

Vast numbers of workers to this site

To kick-start growth in the city,

But straight from the off, troubles lay ahead.

Financial concerns, however,

Wouldn't be the end of the troubles here,

As a push for workers' rights would soon turn into a dramatic

And bloody confrontation outside of the gates.

♪

Narrator: At the start of the 20th century,

In the city of belgrade in serbia,

The creation of new industrial sites like this

Were testing the limits of the old social order.

Tensions were beginning to mount,

And violence was on the horizon.

Sellwood: The amount of change that industrialization caused

Was enormous,

But it was also the speed of that change.

One day, it wasn't here,

And you've got a largely agricultural society

And economy,

And the next day, you've got full-scale industry.

You're now working according to the clock

And according to the demands of whoever is running the factory,

And not everyone is going to take to that very easily

And with good reason.

All across the balkans,

The changes that accompanied industrialization

Were accelerating the demand for workers' rights.

Belgrade is going to see this earliest and heaviest

'cause it's the first place in the country

To witness heavy industrialization,

And the struggle that's fought here is going to symbolize

The struggle that will soon consume the whole country.

Wherever there are differences,

Wherever there are people making more than others,

There will be tensions, and this was no exception.

Narrator: In February 1907, the situation of the workers

Finally became too desperate to ignore.

The records aren't exactly clear, but basically,

The german owners failed to comply or reneged on agreements

Relating to working conditions and rates of pay.

So a group of workers went to the factory management

To issue them a warning --

"honor your agreement, or we'll strike."

Unfortunately, this push for rights or pay

Soon turned into a tragedy.

Narrator: The dividing lines were drawn.

The owners wouldn't back down

And neither would almost 400 workers

Who opted to strike.

Following 18 days of stalemate, on March 14th,

The standoff had finally reached breaking point

Outside the facility.

Picketers were soon arming themselves

With metal bars, iron spikes.

Some even had knives or handguns.

We've all seen pictures, television

Showing what happens in events like these.

There are crowds on both sides.

Emotions are high.

There's a lot of yelling, a lot of shouting.

Violence is sometimes inevitable in these circumstances.

Narrator: To make matters worse, the workers weren't alone here.

Four workers were killed in the violence.

The factory owners were eventually forced to agree

To improve conditions,

But in the coming months,

It became apparent they wouldn't keep their word.

The strike ended in defeat,

But it set an important precedent.

We can see it as the beginning

Of the true socialist movement in serbia,

And the battle fought there is going to be continued on

For decades to come across the country.

The refinery survived the first encounter unscathed

And was back in use straightaway,

But just down the line

Was world war I and world war ii,

Then soviet rule.

This country was in for a tough time in the 20th century.

Narrator: Repaired, modified, and rebuilt over the years,

As wars and occupation brought destruction

And defined the experience of this country,

The sugar refinery finally closed its doors in 1983.

While appearing to have barely survived

Those desperate years,

In fact, the refinery has since had a colorful second life

As an arts and theater venue,

Something ljubisa has played a central role in.

Narrator: This building, which marks a key moment

In serbia's social history,

Now has a bright future to look forward to.