Original subtitles

[ dramatic music plays ]

narrator: A peculiar mix of structures left derelict

in a parisian park...

Auerbach: There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

It's all just smashed together in the same spot,

and that's part of the wonder and mystery of this place.

Narrator: ...A watery graveyard forgotten by time,

the silent protector of an english village...

This isn't just one old rowing boat tossed aside.

These things dominate the landscape.

Narrator: A network of structures

forged through deception on a grand scale...

Auerbach: Audacious doesn't cover it.

You had a team of 1,000 overseers watching,

and if they were caught breaking those rules,

it could have started another war.

Narrator: ...And a site on america's east coast

harboring vast secrets.

Bell: Inside, you're presented with this large, cavernous void,

and then, as you venture deeper, you see these rusting elements

that suggest that something hefty was being hoisted

or lifted up and down here.

♪

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

♪

♪

narrator: Paris, France -- the city of light.

Gay paris -- it's a proper metropolis,

a real melting pot for cultures around the world.

Mitchell: Liberty, equality, and brotherhood.

It's really a particular vision of human democracy,

of equality, that really resonates in France.

Narrator: But on the outskirts of the city

are a series of crumbling structures

that don't seem to belong anymore.

Mitchell: You have this park

that combines some features of seemingly far-away cultures.

There are facets of architecture

that look like they've been airlifted

from around the world -- vietnam, tonga, china.

There's a bridge there that looks vaguely japanese,

appropriately surrounded by bamboo.

Alone, each of these things are really beautiful,

but they're smashed together rather curiously.

Narrator: The items in this collection are relics of a past

that parisians would rather forget.

And among them all is a garden which has been left to overgrow.

You wonder when they're brought together what they mean,

what they were used for,

and why they were placed in juxtaposition.

[ down-tempo music plays ]

narrator: The story begins at the dawn of the 20th century

with the opening of a garden.

Catherine hodeir has studied the garden's dark secrets.

Auerbach: But this wasn't just an ordinary greenhouse

growing garden tomatoes.

This was an institution of scientific study.

And where are all these plants coming from?

The french colonies.

Narrator: In the 19th century, France had an empire

that stretched across 8% of the world's surface.

Mitchell: Alongside England and germany,

France has colonies that really are all over the globe.

You have french colonies in the caribbean,

you have a french colony in south america,

you have them in asia

and in africa -- north africa and west africa.

Narrator: The 19th and 20th centuries

were a time of rapid discovery.

And the major global powers competed

for scientific superiority.

Somara: History has these tipping points

where a new discovery is

made that changes everything. Things like, wheat,

potatoes, and cotton.

And so the french were really keen

to find something that would give them an edge.

Auerbach: So the work that these french experts were doing here

has real potential,

and any new commodities that they discover

can then be processed and redistributed across the empire.

But all that doesn't explain these buildings.

Narrator: For seven years, french botanists studied

the samples gathered from the colonies.

But by 1906, the garden was broke.

This garden needed some cash.

The ordinary french population just didn't seem that interested

in the work that was being done here,

even though it was very, very important work.

They needed to get the french people excited

about the colonies and their products again.

[ down-tempo music plays ]

[ birds chirping ]

narrator: To raise capital for the garden,

they decided to stage a grand exhibition,

and at its center were new buildings

inspired by the colonies.

Auerbach: Imagine a turn-of-the-century disneyland.

So you were going to see "the orient"

right next to "the african jungle,"

and it was a huge hit.

Thousands of visitors came.

And they even got the president of the french republic

to come and check it out.

[ dramatic music plays ]

the noise would have been incredible,

from music to squawking animals and the hubbub of people.

And there would have been a cocktail of rich odors,

from spices to camel excrement.

Mitchell: They brought in ten elephants, even,

that ended up escaping and going on a rampage.

That must have been quite the scene.

Auerbach: This was quite an exhibition.

The rarest treasures from the colonies were on display.

There was nothing you couldn't see here,

including human beings.

[ down-tempo music plays ]

mongolians, chinese, africans -- they would have been presented

in what would have been considered

representative indigenous wear,

clothing that may or may not have had ceremonial purposes.

But they would be presented sort of as exotics in dress

and in speech and in behavior.

It was meant to be a cultural exchange,

but the exchange was in one direction,

with people who were on display being gawked at

almost like being in the zoo.

Narrator: The owners of the garden

hoped to make big money from their exhibits.

History had taught them that the human zoo could draw a crowd.

These type of colonial exhibitions,

or human zoos, if you will, were not limited to France.

You had similar examples in terms of England,

in terms of the united states.

Auerbach: London, berlin, even new york

put human beings on display.

High-minded scientists would come and perform

a systematic "study" of non-caucasian people

to try to classify the differences.

But the conclusions they came to --

today they would be considered extremely racist.

Narrator: To raise enough capital for the garden,

they needed the most eye-catching displays

from France's furthest colonies.

Auerbach: There were adventurers

who had traveled to the four corners of the french empire,

and they would offer to pay these people handsomely

if they would come to France

and talk to french people about their culture.

Somara: The recruiters offered things

like a percentage of ticket sales,

but that often never materialized.

Auerbach: And a vast majority of these people

didn't speak any french,

so they were completely at the whim

of the adventurers that had brought them there.

Narrator: The colonial exhibition of 1907

raised thousands of dollars for the garden,

ensuring its future.

But a global crisis less than 10 years later

would see the garden put to a different purpose.

[ down-tempo music plays ]

narrator: In paris, France,

a set of buildings where human beings were put on display

were about to be put to a different use

upon the outbreak of war.

Auerbach: France's colonial subjects

were recruited by the hundreds of thousands

to fight on the side of their own colonizers.

Somara: Buildings that used to be exhibition spaces

or ticket halls were now things like surgeries

for France's foreign and native soldiers.

They even built paris' first mosque

for muslim colonial troops.

Auerbach: And you'd think that this would be

some type of watershed moment --

now that these people had fought for France,

that they'd get recognition, if not as equals

then at least more respect than being put on display.

But you'd be wrong.

[ dramatic music plays ]

narrator: Over a decade after french

and colonial soldiers fought as brothers-in-arms,

France threw their biggest colonial exhibition ever.

For this 1931 exhibition, there are some

32 million tickets sold over six months.

There was even an entire nomadic tribe of people

from senegal,

and that's really quite remarkable

when you think about it as being as late as 1931.

You have to wonder how they were convinced

to participate.

Narrator: This would be the last time

this kind of display was seen in France.

The colonial exhibitions soon went out of fashion.

The park was again closed to the public

and the buildings left to rot in this quiet corner of paris.

[ down-tempo music plays ]

today, historians like catherine dedicate their work

to recording the history of the colonial era.

Auerbach: Although these exhibitions

and the legacies of colonialism has a very, very long afterlife,

but that idea somehow, that allure, that exoticism,

still persists.

And we should blame at least part of that

on the history of putting people on display.

[ dramatic music plays ]

narrator: Standing in the waters off the new jersey coastline

is sandy hook,

a sand bar littered with the remnants of war.

♪

wawro: Looking around sandy hook today,

it's like a kind of a yard sale of military technology.

Bell: Some look like very typical

cold war-era installations.

Others look as though they date back as far as the civil war.

The assortment of structures

and weapons on show here makes you wonder --

is this your typical military base

or something entirely different?

Narrator: The site's position

seems to offer the first clue as to its purpose.

This long, narrow peninsula points like a dagger

right at new york harbor,

and this hints at its strategic importance,

because any deep-draft vessel approaching new york harbor

is gonna have to swing right by this peninsula.

Narrator: Yet this wasn't a place with just one role to play

or one story to tell.

Nusbacher: I see construction from times

when america was just another colony,

parts that show america's rise to military superiority.

I see evidence of the moment

when the united states stopped being just another country

and became the military colossus it is.

Here it is, on this little sandy bit of ground.

[ birds chirping ]

[ down-tempo music plays ]

narrator: Towards the end of the peninsula,

an old lighthouse provides a commanding view

across this baffling complex and hints at its beginnings.

Wawro: The construction of this lighthouse

points to sandy hook's significance

in american history,

dating all the way back to the mid-1700s.

Narrator: Its need was driven by new york's merchant traffic.

This is a harbor that has been strategically important

to anyone trying to hold the north atlantic.

It was an important dutch, english, and american harbor.

And when you look at that lighthouse,

it shows how long people have needed to navigate safely

in and out of new york.

Narrator: Park ranger tom hoffman

knows the danger of these shores better than most.

Hoffman: Even on a clear day, sandy hook is so low and flat,

it blends in with the ocean water.

And imagine -- that's the daytime.

And at nighttime, you don't see anything.

The night they lighted it for the first time

was June 11, 1764,

and it's been standing here on this location ever since.

[ dramatic music plays ]

narrator: But these ruins show the treacherous coastline

wasn't the only danger here.

The story of war written across this place

actually began at the lighthouse,

when the british hoped to defend this vital navigational aid

during the american revolution.

Hoffman: The british dispatched two frigates

and anchored them right out here and had an armed guard here.

And sure enough, who shows up

but 200 american soldiers with two cannon.

In 1776, they're sneaking up the hook.

The commanding officer ordered the cannons

to fire at the lighthouse.

But as he put it in a report,

"we bombarded the tower for over an hour

but could make no impression."

narrator: Continuing to shine for centuries to come,

the lighthouse would oversee a dramatic transformation

of this land.

War would return to these shores,

but this time, americans would be the defenders,

not the attackers.

[ dramatic music plays ]

narrator: In 1874,

nearly a decade after the civil war ended,

thunderous shots rang out over sandy hook, new jersey,

fired from this now-silent platform.

With the country united and wary of external threats,

this empty landscape had become

the u.S. Army's first proving ground.

A proving ground is a place where you can take a new design

and where you can take samples

of all of your military production

and you can prove them.

Wawro: They would check to make sure that the rounds worked,

that the fuses worked,

the range accuracy, the detonation, the explosion.

They would test every aspect of the projectile

and the gun firing it.

And so you needed a place where you could fire freely

without risk to, you know, civilian life.

Narrator: Over the coming half-century,

hundreds of thousands of rounds would be fired

from the sandy hook proving ground,

and some of the largest, most ambitious weapons ever created

were tested here.

Yet, as some of the structures here testify,

this site was about more than simply testing weapons

or helping ships navigate these waters.

What if the fight came to sandy hook and america's own shores?

When you're talking about the two big stories of sandy hook,

one's the lighthouse,

and that will guide any ship from around the world

into new york harbor.

But in times of war, you have to have some kind of defense

to stop enemy warships from coming in.

Narrator: In the mid-1890s,

war with Spain appeared inevitable.

So more emphasis was put on nearby defensive structures,

like fort hancock.

The u.S. Did not have the capacity

at the end of the 19th century to build a big enough navy.

So instead of building a lot of ships,

the united states builds a lot of batteries of guns

to defend all of its major harbors.

What you had here were four 12-inch-caliber mortars.

And you can see their bases had been circular.

That's because a mortar fires projectiles high up

to come back down on your enemy's ships.

Narrator: As a proving ground for the military

and with access to the latest technology,

sandy hook was set as an example to follow.

Wawro: The decision is taken in the united states to protect

every valuable harbor

with these shore batteries and so breech loading 8-, 10-,

and 12-inch naval guns are delivered to forts like hancock

starting in 1895 to defend america's harbors.

Narrator: While the spanish never came within range,

other enemies would soon threaten these shores.

And while the u.S. Had always trailed the european powers

in military might,

here at fort hancock, that old dynamic was shifting.

European gunmakers are developing artillery pieces

that can shoot smokeless powder, fire quickly, disappear.

And sandy hook is where the american versions of these guns

are being developed.

Here is where american technology is keeping up

thanks to u.S. Government research.

This is the very first

and only steam-powered disappearing gun battery.

So, you load the guns while inside,

then it lifted up through openings in the roof

to fire at enemy ships out in the ocean.

And, of course, once you fire, now you got to reload.

So the gun comes back down on the elevator,

and it's a disappearing gun.

Narrator: Within a few years of being completed, however,

this battery was already outdated.

The race to keep ahead, though, was still on.

In 1918, a u-boat reportedly fired 16 shots at fort hancock,

and the guns that stood here responded in kind.

The german submarines were a sign

that the times were a-changin'.

The two big threats to american ports in world war ii

were enemy bombers and enemy submarines.

And those big coastal gun emplacements

designed to defend american port facilities

were no longer as important.

Narrator: What remains is a legacy

of both the history of this site

and the route america took on its journey to the modern era.

Wawro: So walking around sandy hook today,

you're basically walking through the history of

american warfare.

Everything is on display here,

from the revolutionary war period to the cold war.

Narrator: Standing apart from the old concrete bunkers

of yesteryear

are remnants of the final chapter of this site's

life in service.

Hoffman: We're walking in the last defense system

used by the u.S. Army here at fort hancock,

the nike air defense radar site,

designed to shoot down russian bombers

if the cold war went hot.

Nusbacher: Once russians have atomic weapons,

then everyone in america instantly understands

that american cities are immensely vulnerable

to russian attack.

Narrator: After more then a century

defending new york from the sea,

attention now shifted to the skies

and the gravest threat the u.S. Ever faced.

[ dramatic music plays ]

narrator: For hundreds of years,

sandy hook's military installations

had helped protect the waters around new york.

By the 1950s, it was also defending the city from the air.

Bell: Nike batteries were part

of the u.S. Army air defense command.

These were placed strategically near cities across the country

to prevent the destruction of the centers

of america's great retaliatory and productive might.

Nusbacher: The nike positions around new york city

are designed to stop another pearl harbor-style sneak attack.

Hoffman: So, we just went under one of the platforms

that held the missile-tracking radar.

Because the missiles were a mile south of us,

and once you launched the missile,

the radar here guided the missile up to the target.

And then another radar, the target-tracking radar,

was tracking the target and through a computer system

brought the two together and guaranteed a hit.

[ dramatic music plays ]

narrator: Yet, like all the weapons

and defense systems on show here,

its life-span was short.

In 1974, with the nike missile program outdated,

the last of the equipment and military personnel

left the peninsula.

Left to the elements on this windswept coastline,

what remains here paints a picture

not just of the story of this site

but of the birth and history of a nation.

Wawro: All of these artifacts taken together

reflect america's rise to world power,

from this vulnerable colony of the british empire

to a nation that then projects power

and then has the latest cutting-edge technology

to defend the free world against a communist threat.

It's all right here on sandy hook.

[ dramatic music plays ]

narrator: Southern England, in a village called purton --

here lies a mighty river and beside it a fleet of the dead.

Somara: They certainly look like boats,

but they appear to be made of stone.

Can you make boats of stone? Are they statues?

Narrator: These marine monoliths stand half submerged

in britain's longest river, the river severn.

Some of these boats, you can only see the very tip

of their rotting bow just poking out from the ground.

Narrator: These rotting remains draw a line

one and a half miles along the shoreline.

There are so many of them,

but they definitely all seem to have been there for a while.

It's almost as if they've been put here for a purpose,

as if it's been designed.

But yet they're completely enveloped by the land.

Narrator: Beside the mighty river

is a much calmer body of water.

Both connect the small village of purton

to the rest of England.

Somara: You have a major river right next to the canal.

I mean, talk about belt and braces.

Why would you need both?

[ down-tempo music plays ]

narrator: Nearly 50 years ago, a young boy and his family

came to a riverbank in southern England.

When I came here as a child, this was a great place to play.

Narrator: Paul barnett and his father

found strange shapes sticking out of the mud.

But they had no idea what they were.

Barnett: My father being an ex-sailor,

he had his own curious sort of observations

as to what this may be, and he just naturally assumed

it was just a great and easy place to get rid of vessels.

We didn't know. We really didn't know.

Narrator: The secrets of the site and its boats made of stone

would remain buried

until paul returned to solve the mystery 20 years later.

Well, the first thing that I chose to do

was to carry out a research project at the local archive.

The information held therein was very sparse.

I was absolutely astounded by the lack of information.

Selwood: These things dominate the landscape.

You would have thought

that if they had been put here for a reason

that there would be an official record.

Narrator: Yet the archives were empty.

Paul's investigation had hit a wall.

But a clue would be found in the river severn's storied past.

Although it may not look it,

this is an immensely dangerous area.

Barnett: Nobody would venture out into the river severn.

It's incredibly treacherous.

The tide itself actually runs in at about 13 knots.

Narrator: The river severn is deadly.

But next door is a more placid body of water.

Selwood: Directly next door to this powerful river is a canal.

Two hundred years ago, canals like these

were the main ways of moving freight around britain.

And people came to rely on these.

These canals were the arteries for moving goods around britain,

including here at purton.

Narrator: The sharpness canal opened in 1827.

The people of purton were now connected

to the rest of England.

But less than 100 years later,

the canal's existence was under threat.

The canal, a major piece of infrastructure for trade,

is protected from this very dangerous river

by a very narrow mound of dirt.

Narrator: That mound, in some places just 20 feet thick,

is all that keeps these two bodies of water separate.

Barnett: With the full force of the river coming in,

it was hitting the bank.

And as a result of which it was now prone to erosion,

which was happening almost on a daily basis.

Selwood: The riverbank literally holds back the tide.

Without it, the river would consume the canal.

Narrator: For nearly a century, the canal and the riverbank

coexisted in harmony.

But in 1909, that harmony was shattered.

[ dramatic music plays ]

somara: A massive storm hit the southwest of England.

And the river severn began to overflow

and spill over into the canal.

Barnett: The full force of that storm came into the bank.

Approximately 60 meters of it was removed.

One hit, and it was swept away by the river severn

and its fast-flowing waters.

Selwood: Tons and tons of dirt and silt

were carried away downstream.

Narrator: Nearly 200 feet of the bank was eroded away.

The canal was now in real danger of breaching.

Something had to be done.

Narrator: The storm almost obliterated the riverbank,

but a fleet made of stone was about to change it forever.

[ dramatic music plays ]

narrator: In southern England, the village of purton

was under threat from a failing riverbank.

They had no money for big restoration projects.

This was a very small part of britain

that had very limited means and very little time.

But the chief engineer for the canal had a radical plan.

The engineer for the dock company made a request --

are there any barges that could be brought to this point,

run out to the foreshore, and add their strength

in order to protect that waterway?

Bell: For the plan to work, they needed a whole fleet of boats.

So they asked the locals to volunteer their old tugs,

and they rallied to the cause.

Narrator: In total, 15 wooden vessels were brought to purton.

This was actually one of the first vessels --

in actual fact, the first vessel to be beached here.

Twenty minutes before high tide, the vessel,

with a full head of steam, would come thundering into the bank.

Selwood: The plan was to then drill holes in them

to let water in.

This would allow silt and mud from upstream to come down,

then fill into the boats and around the boats

and effectively rebuild the riverbank.

Narrator: The barges were beached onto the riverbank,

protecting the canal from the severn.

They became known as the purton hulks.

It appeared the canal had been saved.

But the celebrations were short-lived.

The one thing about wood is that it rots.

Barnett: What was happening was the timber loaders were rotting.

And as a result, once again the canal was in danger.

Bell: So wooden boats rot and metal boats rust.

Fortunately, history provided the answer.

Narrator: In the years after world war I,

the price of timber and iron rose sharply.

It became too expensive to make riverboats.

So boatmakers turned to an unlikely material.

The concrete boats could be made really fast and really cheap,

but apparently they were a nightmare to drive.

Narrator: Old concrete barges were the solution

to protecting the riverbank permanently.

In the 1960s, eight were brought to purton,

the final purton hulks.

Sixty years later, the bank's thickness has doubled.

The canal was saved.

Barnett: Knowing how you can work with the sea,

you can't work against her,

absolutely astounded by the real seamanship

that would have taken to get these vessels in here.

And yet they continue to do the job that they were put here

to do, to protect the bank,

to protect canal, and to allow

the river severn to continue flowing gently by.

Narrator: The purton hulks,

silent guardians of wood and stone.

Bell: For the last 60 years, they've been there,

protecting the canal from the powerful river severn,

a testament to engineering by the seat of your pants.

[ dramatic music plays ]

narrator: In a remote region of western poland

is an engineering giant hidden in plain sight.

[ music continues ]

auerbach: When you approach this site,

it really doesn't look like much.

And then, as you get closer,

you see that there are pillboxes dotted around the landscape.

Selwood: Once you've spotted one, you then see another.

And as your eye carries on,

you realize this line goes on almost forever.

This is a really major piece of engineering.

Wawro: It reminds me of the maginot line in France.

But we're not in France, so it couldn't be that.

Narrator: These pillboxes draw an outline

of a fortress buried underground.

There is an immense network of tunnels

that seems to go on just forever.

And in one of them, there's a railway line.

Auerbach: People worked here, and then they left.

But they left some clues as to what they were doing down there.

A room with a sign above it that says "maschinenraum" --

"machine room."

selwood: This is a place where clearly

an immense engineering effort went in

but ultimately it came to naught.

Narrator: Almost 22 miles of tunnels

are buried in the polish countryside.

But a clue on the surface will unlock the mystery of the site

and unravel a tissue of lies.

Auerbach: There's this one aboveground feature --

this odd bridge.

That's the key to understanding the structure.

Narrator: A mammoth engineering project

spanning nearly 40 miles.

Why was it put here?

And what secrets are buried beneath the surface?

Buried in the polish countryside is a wartime secret.

Auerbach: Most of this site is underground --

these miles and miles of tunnel, the train tracks.

But the clue to what the site is about

is right here in this one aboveground part of it --

the bridge, a bridge with an odd hinge on it.

[ down-tempo music plays ]

narrator: Historian and architect robert jurga

has spent his career

exploring one of poland's most overlooked historical sites.

Jurga: [ speaking polish ]

interpreter: The plan of this bridge

is still protected by the patent that's kept in berlin.

The level of security was so high

that the operators consisted

of a specially trained group of soldiers.

Narrator: Swing bridges are common on major rivers

to let large ships pass through.

But the water here is practically a trickle.

Auerbach: The swing bridge is here

because this entire set of fortifications

is actually illegal.

[ mid-tempo music plays ]

narrator: The story begins after the end of the first world war,

when this part of poland belonged to germany.

Think back to what happened to germany

at the end of world war I.

They were defeated by a big allied coalition.

They were disarmed. They lost territory.

They lost citizens to the treaty of versailles.

Auerbach: The treaty was punishing to germany.

They had to give up their entire empire,

they had to allow the allies

to occupy part of their industrial heartland,

and they also had to limit their army to 100,000 men.

Narrator: Germany was also forbidden

from building any new fortifications along its border,

leaving the country virtually defenseless.

Selwood: The germans felt a great sense of vulnerability

about their border because after world war I,

they were a universally loathed nation.

But they had enemies on their right.

There was poland,

and behind poland, of course, the soviet union.

Narrator: With limited defenses, the german capital

was vulnerable to invasion from the east.

Its biggest weakness was a stretch of land

sandwiched between two rivers.

This region was flat and had no natural barriers.

It was a highway that led straight to berlin.

If the poles or the soviets wanted to invade germany,

that was a perfect route 'cause it gave them

a direct path to berlin, the capital.

This was a huge hole in germany's defenses,

and they wanted to plug it.

Narrator: But with the treaty making new defenses illegal,

the german government concocted a ruse.

[ dramatic music plays ]

narrator: In a former german territory

is a border wall that began with a devious ploy.

Auerbach: The rules of the treaty of versailles

limited germany's spending on the military

and on fortifications.

But it didn't say anything about water management.

So they brought in engineers

and dug up hundreds and hundreds of tons of earth,

redirected rivers,

and essentially created a new natural barrier.

Jurga: [ speaking polish ]

interpreter: The main tool against the tanks was water.

Many tactical canals were built,

and they became the main barrier against the enemy's tanks.

On those channels, they built a line of tactical bridges.

[ dramatic music plays ]

narrator: A series of bridges across an artificial waterway,

each with a mechanism to stop an enemy advance.

Interpreter: Those bridges were closed

in case of the arrival of the enemy

and in normal times were used by the civilians.

Narrator: Over five years, a line is drawn

between the warta and oder rivers.

This is the beginning of the ostwall.

"audacious" doesn't cover it.

You had a team of 1,000 overseers

watching to make sure germany adhered to the rules.

And if they were caught breaking those rules,

it could have started another war.

Narrator: An emboldened german government

adds tunnels and bunkers, making the ostwall

a state-of-the-art battle fortress.

Descending beneath the surface, we find mile upon

mile of concrete tunnels,

linking together these forts that are -- you could

barely glimpse above ground.

There's even a small light railway

installed in some of these tunnels.

Jurga: [ speaking polish ]

interpreter: The main road is 12 kilometers long,

and the whole system, with corridors leading to

the bunkers is more than 32 kilometers long.

It was too big a distance for the soldiers to March.

That's why they used train tracks like this

for transportation.

Narrator: The ability to move almost 20 miles

unseen by the enemy

would give the germans

a huge tactical advantage.

So the men can race between

the various positions to meet various different threats.

Narrator: The ostwall was designed to accommodate

thousands of soldiers.

Jurga: [ speaking polish ]

interpreter: We are currently 16 meters below

the surface in the underground system.

This is the dormitory.

They attached bunks to these brackets here.

Three soldiers would sleep on one side

and two on the other side.

They didn't share bunks.

When they were down here,

they probably listened to the radio, played cards,

drank wine, and read the newspapers.

There were propaganda banners hanging on the walls there.

Narrator: To begin with,

they lived in relative comfort.

Jurga: [ speaking polish ]

interpreter: Under normal circumstances,

when the bunker was working properly,

electric heating was supplied from the machine room.

This washroom was for all the soldiers from

the two bunkers in this part of the underground system.

Both those fighting and the spare units used

this washroom.

In total, about 60 to 70 people had to use

this small washroom.

Narrator: In 1938, germany's fuhrer came to inspect,

and he was not happy.

When hitler visits the ostwall in 1938,

he is definitely underwhelmed.

Hitler is somebody who wants to see, you know,

parades of panzers in the street,

flyovers by luftwaffe bombers, dive bombers,

and fighter planes, goosestepping infantry.

He does not want to see these subterranean fortresses

with just a little machine-gun turret

poking out of the pine trees.

He calls it a worthless set of mousetraps,

and he's also very upset that most

of the soldiers are going to be underground.

Narrator: The ostwall failed its inspection,

and its construction is put on hold.

The following year,

hitler marched the troops past the wall and into poland.

[ gunfire ]

once germany had conquered poland,

this fortification lay in the middle

of german-controlled territory, so it was militarily useless.

After a decade of pouring so much effort and money

into this line, it was left as a lame duck.

Wawro: This speaks to hitler's conception of warfare.

The german army had to be on the move.

It had to be attacking, and that

it was not going to sit passively behind fortifications.

Narrator: With the ostwall canceled,

the tunnels were left empty until the fuhrer found a new use

for his empty underground bunker.

After hitler stopped construction on the ostwall,

it was largely unused.

But when the allies begin their strategic bombing of germany,

it finds a new purpose.

They move machinery down here to build aircraft engines.

Jurga: [ speaking polish ]

interpreter: When the factories were up and running,

the train track was constantly used,

but not to transport ammunition

or soldiers -- it only transported parts of

aircraft engines.

Narrator: With most able-bodied soldiers

fighting on the frontlines,

only a small regiment was left to defend the wall.

Auerbach: Regular troops weren't stationed there.

You just had militia,

which were mostly poorly trained hitler youth

and men too old to be sent to the frontlines.

Selwood: Conditions were dreadful.

It was dank. It was dark.

It was underfunded. There were no resources.

The people who were here really had been forgotten about.

Remember the frontline was hundreds of miles away --

until everything changed.

[ mid-tempo music plays ]

narrator: By the end of 1944,

the germans were being pushed back,

and the soviets were creeping closer to berlin.

The forgotten ostwall was about to join the war.

Auerbach: So hitler was not, by any

stretch of the imagination, a military genius,

and he insisted on this tactic of no retreat.

And what happens is hundreds of thousands of german troops

are surrounded and captured by the red army until

one of the last things in between the soviet war machine

and berlin is this one bit of fortification.

Narrator: Reinforcements were rushed in to defend the wall,

but they were poorly trained and ill-equipped.

Jurga: [ speaking polish ]

interpreter: The volkssturm soldiers who were

sent here didn't have enough weapons.

When they arrived at the train station,

they were given two or three guns for the entire group.

When they asked where the weapons were,

they were told that they would find them inside the bunkers,

but there were none.

The ostwall was seriously under supplied,

and one general, kuchler,

even refused to call it the east wall, because he didn't

think it had any real strategic value.

Narrator: And yet the ostwall and those defending it

it were about to be put to the test.

Jurga: [ speaking polish ]

interpreter: Enemy was approaching from that side --

approaching slowly.

Firstly, he had to overpass the antitank barrier on the road.

So these hitler youth and these old guys in the militia,

they stand no chance against the soviet army.

But that doesn't stop 'em.

They put up resistance, and they were determined

to defend the border and defend this fortification.

Selwood: The soviet attack here was relentless.

You can still see the hundreds of

bullet holes and impact marks from artillery.

For those inside manning the line,

it would have been utterly terrifying.

Narrator: In just days, the wall was breached

and the red army rolled towards berlin.

The ostwall had failed.

The slightly pathetic thing about the line, really,

is that after so much deviousness, so much planning,

so much hopes for it, when the time actually came,

they weren't prepared to put the manpower

or the resources into using it,

and the lame duck became a damp squib.

Jurga: [ speaking polish ]

interpreter: Had this fortification been completed

the way it was designed, most likely it would have been

very precious to the german army.

Unfortunately for them, they completed it only to 30%.

And without antitank weaponry,

the soldiers didn't have a chance

against the power of the soviet army.

When the war ended and the treaties are signed,

the borders are redrawn.

And this area ends up inside poland,

the very nation it was built to keep out.

Now the cavernous ostwall lies empty,

and anything valuable that remained inside has long since

been stripped away.

Jurga: [ speaking polish ]

interpreter: The russian army sent special trophy battalions

who were not only interested in gold,

silver, or museum artifacts but also in machinery,

and tools.

All of it was taken outside,

packed inside the wagons, and sent to the east.

Narrator: Rumors speak of nazi treasures

still hidden in the walls,

but all that fills the dark corridors today are some

35,000 protected bats.