All language subtitles for Secret.Nazi.Bases.S02E05.Fuelling.Evil.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-BurCyg_track3_[eng]

- [Narrator] In a remote
area in Western Poland,

the skeletal remains of
hundreds of strange structures

tell a story of a massive
clandestine project

undertaken by the Nazis.

- Hitler was testing
the world's response.

Could he push the envelope?

- [Narrator] Revolutionary top
secret research is being done

to secure a Nazi victory,
but danger lurks within.

- Any sort of spark could set
these things off to explode

in a catastrophic manner.

- [Narrator] This is
Hitler's secret asset.

- This site was crucial
to the Nazi warfare.

Why wasn't it leveled
to the ground?

[suspenseful music]

[doors locking]

[soft music]

- [Narrator] The bones
of old structures

in the remote region
of Politz, Poland

remain largely unexcavated.

Left abandoned at the
end of World War II,

nature has gained the upper
hand over the decaying relics

left behind by the Nazis.

- Walking around today,
it's a little bit creepy

because this site
is now abandoned

and the undergrowth
has grown around it.

To see these weird structures
poking up out into the sky,

It's like something
out of a sci-fi film.

- It looks like
post-apocalyptical.

You see those concrete
structures completely ruined

but absolutely huge.

- When you start to think about

what it would have looked
like when it was functioning,

this massive industrial complex,

almost like an industrial city,

you immediately ask yourself,
what on Earth went on here?

- [Narrator] Researchers
examining the relics

come across a few signature
Nazi concrete structures,

scattered amid the
other unknown buildings.

- It feels to me that this
is definitely some kind

of military installation, but
exactly what was going on here

isn't obvious at
all at first glance.

- [Narrator]
Whatever its purpose,

Hitler clearly wants
to keep it top secret.

- If I'm deciding where
to put these facilities

and putting them in as remote
of a location as I can,

hiding them as best I can

and really taking a lot of
steps to prevent sabotage.

- [Narrator] Watchtowers
are constructed

to warn of imminent
enemy attack,

and anti-aircraft
provides defense.

- When you see the
level of security,

the level of secrecy and the
amount of military presence,

you know something
was going on here

that was crucial
to the Nazi regime.

- [Narrator] This land
is now part of Poland,

but at the time of the
site's construction in 1937,

the Politz area is
in German territory.

- Why was this site built here?

It's very remote, but
it's also on a river.

- [Narrator] One of the longest

and most important
rivers in the region,

the Oder River has
historically offered

critical alternatives
to land routes

and rail lines in the area.

- There's always a benefit

to build any kind of structure
like this on a river.

That allows for the
transport of goods,

and that also allows you
to have a water supply

not only for the
people who work there,

but for the kind of
work that you're doing.

Also, this is a fairly
industrial part of Germany,

so it was accessible
relatively easily

by rail from Berlin
and elsewhere.

- [Narrator] In the midst of
an industrial boom in Germany,

construction begins
on the site in 1937

and continues over six years.

- Projects of this size
require a lot of planning,

but they also require
a lot of availability

of the materials
that are needed.

You need concrete,
you need aggregates,

you need water, you need power.

You need a lot of people.

That's challenging during a
time when there's a lot of other

concrete-hungry
structures being built.

- [Narrator] These
other structures include

massive defensive sites like
Festung and Pointe du Hoc,

as well as the
colossal Atlantic Wall.

- It would take an immense
amount of coordination

and communication to make
sure that all of these sites

that need all of these
resources are getting them.

- [Narrator] The 3,700 acre site

holds a number of buildings,
including a power station,

a freight station
and several bunkers.

- For me, the most fascinating
part of this facility

is the sprawling nature of it.

There are a lot of buildings
in this parcel of land.

- You've got this
massive variety

of different shapes
and sizes and designs

of concrete structures
dotted all around this site,

and some of them are
absolutely enormous

and others are a much
smaller and are very curious.

- [Narrator] The
structures are connected

by a series of canals
and elevated platforms.

The skeleton of this
elevated platform

is the only surviving
example of the seven

that existed during the war.

- They're interconnected and
they're working together.

You know there's likely
something important
happening there.

- [Narrator] The
majority of the buildings

decaying in the forest reveal
themselves to be non-military.

They appear to be
mostly factories

and other industrial structures.

- You've got these huge towers

and these giant
concrete cylinders

that seem like they were
there to store something.

The question is what?

It's possible that this could
be some kind of civilian site,

but then why the presence

of the Wehrmacht
and the Luftwaffe?

- In normal situations,
there's a difference

between a military site
and an industrial site

or commercial site.

But with Nazi Germany,
there is no difference.

Everything serves the
larger military purposes.

Everything was nationalized
for the Nazi war machine.

- [Narrator] A clue to
the purpose of this site

might lie in its
owner, IG Farben.

- IG Farben is the largest
chemical company in Germany

throughout the 1930s
and into the war.

It has many subsidiaries
that account

for a great part of the German
economy in a lot of ways.

It's certainly its
manufacturing base,

it employs a lot of people

and it had a very
significant influence

on the Nazi German
government, and vice versa.

- Now this was a company

involved in lots of different
projects with the Nazis,

and one of those
things was fuel.

- This facility has the look
of a conventional oil refinery,

lots of pipes, lots of
big towers, et cetera.

- [Narrator] The ground
is laced with tunnels

and secret passageways leading
to huge concrete cylinders,

some as large as 80
feet in diameter.

Researchers find rotting
remains of what would fit

the description of fuel tanks.

- I'm still in the dark

as to why they'd be
so heavily protected

and why you'd have
this element of secrecy

with tunnels leading
to and from them.

- [Narrator] This location
looks like it could simply be

a highly advanced oil refinery

to fuel Germany's
bustling, modern society.

- In 1930s, 1940s, you
needed to have oil.

That was the energy source

that not only drove
your vehicles,

but kept the economy moving.

- [Narrator] After suffering
from the loss of World War I

and the Depression,
by the late 1930s,

Germany is experiencing
an economic revival.

Factories are being built,

Public Works projects
are happening,

and automobiles are
becoming more common.

But even more critically,

under the gaze of Public Works,

Hitler has been secretly
remilitarizing the Reich.

- The Treaty of Versailles
that ended World War I

requires that Germany
demilitarize, de-industrialize

and pay war reparations.

This puts Nazi
Germany on its knees

in terms of a sense of pride,
as well as economically.

Hitler comes to power
in 1933 and immediately

begins violating the
Treaty of Versailles,

immediately begins
rearming and militarizing

the entire country to
the point where by 1939

when World War II starts,

the country is already in
a full militaristic mode.

Fuel was one of
the key ingredients

to the larger Nazi empire

and Hitler's continental
vision of conquests.

- But here's the problem.

Germany has no oil deposits.

- [Narrator] Hitler's plans
might be stopped in their tracks

by the Reich's dependence
on fuel imports.

- Germany was importing up
to two thirds of their oil

prior to the war.

Knowing that they were
likely to get into a war,

they needed to find a
creative way to make sure

that that supply was guaranteed.

- No matter what we're building,

we're limited by something.

We're limited by our budget

or we're limited
by the available
materials that we have,

and in this case, the
limitation is there's no fuel,

so let's do research to find
a way to substitute that fuel.

- [Narrator] And the solution
may be forming in Politz.

Boatloads of raw materials are
arriving, but it's not oil.

- The Germans may not
have a lot of oil,

but they do have another fuel
source in abundance, coal.

- [Narrator] But the
demands of Hitler's military

go way beyond the old technology
that coal could power.

- Coal is a hydrocarbon, just
like oil and natural gas,

except it's in a solid form.

It has lots of energy in it,
but it's not particularly

utilizable by
aircraft or vehicles.

- That is where we see IG Farben
come in and they say okay,

we think we can use
coal to make fuel,

and we have a pretty
good plan for that.

- [Narrator] German scientists

have been trying to turn
coal to gas for decades.

Documents show that
breakthroughs by
Friedrich Bergius

in the 1920s are the basis
for IG Farben's secret work,

but the site has been
stripped of its contents,

leaving researchers with few
clues to the actual process.

- It's only the
skeletons that exist,

so it's very difficult

to put the pieces of
this puzzle together,

but Germany is at the forefront

of science and
technology at the time,

and the Nazis are gonna take
full advantage of that fact.

- [Narrator] What is
the secret technology

that is fueling
Hitler's ambitions

and puzzling the
watching allies?

The Politz Hydroworks
in Western Poland

is now abandoned and overgrown,

disguising its original purpose.

- People here, they are
discovering the new facilities,

which were hidden by nature,

and they are trying
to put it on the map

to see how huge it was.

- The location was really
linked to the access

to coal reserves.

The complex was
designed to use coal,

which Germany had
an abundance of,

and turn it into
usable liquid fuel.

- There's a couple of processes

for converting coal into fuels.

One of those processes
is coal hydrogenation.

You're gonna get a
lot of heavy oil,

and heavy oil isn't really good.

You can put it into a
steam boiler and burn it,

but beyond that, you can't
use it in a diesel engine.

You certainly can't
use it in an aircraft,

so it's of limited use.

- [Narrator] IG Farben is
trying to improve this process

to create the types
of fuel needed

to power the German war machine,

and they've built
Hydroworks for that purpose.

With no site plans to go on,

modern researchers must
examine the skeletons

of the site's
abandoned buildings

to determine what part
each plays in the process.

- Sometimes buildings have
certain characteristics

that you can tell have a
particular intent behind them,

things like factories
and industrial buildings.

We want strong,
robust structures

with fairly large, open spaces
for pieces of equipment.

We want a fairly regular grid

so that we can support
heavy equipment.

We want lots of
columns and beams

to be a very beefy structure,

and we want it to be able to
be enclosed from the elements.

- One of the problems with
all of these processes,

they generate a lot of heat.

So you're gonna have to
build open, hollow structures

that kind of look
like office buildings

so that we have enough air
flow for heat dissipation

and so we're not
concentrating the fuel

to the level that we
could get an explosion,

but then still
trying to disguise it

as something other than
an industrial process.

- We know their end goal was
to create synthetic fuel.

Walking through these
buildings and looking at them,

it's hard to tell exactly
what they were for.

It really is a skeleton.

- [Narrator] This
oddly shaped ruin

is mostly hidden by the forest.

It resembles a smokestack,

but as there are no
buildings nearby,

researchers are initially
unable to determine its purpose.

What little documentation
researchers do have

shows that a few buildings
on the site use smokestacks.

Most notably, a power plant
on the other side of the site

once had two 390 foot stacks.

Only one section is visible
today, but during the war,

this structure covered
210,000 square feet,

the largest building
on the site.

- The nice thing about oil is
we can just pump it into tanks

and pump it into our system.

With coal, there's a lot
of ancillary equipment

outside of the chemical
process itself.

There's gonna be lots
of conveyors and hoppers

moving that coal
into the process.

- [Narrator] Coal from
the Silesia region

is brought to the
site by rail or boat,

then transported
by conveyor belt

to be used in the power plant.

- All of this equipment
needs power to function,

so you're gonna build
your own power plant

for dedicated service to this,

because you can't have
that power go out.

- [Narrator] This
coal-fired plant

generates 80 megawatts of power,

but this is not enough to
satisfy Hydroworks' needs.

Another 20 megawatts must be
provided from outside sources,

so in 1942, construction of
a second power plant begins

but is never completed.

But the lone smoke
stack in the forest

cannot be from this plant.

Documents are discovered

showing that this
building's two smokestacks

have both been destroyed, one
bombed by the allies in 1945

and the other destroyed
in the late 70s.

After some further
investigation,

the mystery stack is
discovered to be from the shale

and desulfurization plant on
the west side of the site.

While IG Farben is working on
creating fuel for the Reich,

German military leaders
are burning it up.

When World War II
begins in 1939,

the invasion of Poland
alone consumes 64%

of German oil reserves.

- Germany is critically
dependent on its ally Romania.

They produce 30% of
Germany's oil capacity,

but you're still
left with this idea

of where are we gonna
get more than that?

- [Narrator] Early in the war,

Germany is still getting
oil from its future enemies.

- It's only five or six
companies and countries

that control the vast majority
of the world's oil supply.

Between the Americans
and the Soviet Unions,

you're looking at most of it,

so the Americans supplied
quite a lot of Germany's oil.

At the beginning of the
war, America is neutral.

It's technically
allowed to do this,

but this is obviously more
problematic as it becomes clear

that they're going to
have to go into the war

on Britain side.

- There are neutrality acts,

but businesses find ways
to circumvent those laws.

- [Narrator] One of the
most challenging connections

between the US and Nazi Germany

includes the company
Standard Oil.

Standard continues to
supply Germany with oil

by using intermediaries
and indirect routes.

- Business is business.

That's what a hardened
capitalist would say.

- [Narrator] Some German leaders

are trying to solve the fuel
shortage problem in other ways.

- Industry was charged with
trying to come up with ways

to make Germany more fuel
efficient across the board.

- So rails, number
one efficient,

best way to move bulk goods.

The second best way
is via highways.

- Like the Autobahn.

Now they were efficient because
they'd shorten the distances

between major cities,

they'd allow for
better fuel efficiency

of the vehicles
traveling along them

because of the quality
of the roadways.

- The smoother the road,
the more efficient it is.

There's less friction

because they have less
distresses in them.

- And they connected the whole
country through this network

of what were the very
first super highways.

This was integral
to the Nazi plans.

- The Autobahn is not only
for commercial purposes,

but it also helps militarily.

One of the challenges
historically

is how do you mobilize your
army from point A to point B?

And if you have a dirt
road and it rains,

that road is washed out.

If it's the middle of
winter and it's frozen,

that road is impassable.

How does the Polish
army resupply and
move thousands of men

to the front to stop this
Nazi blitzkrieg in 1939?

The answer is they don't,

because they don't
have the road system.

- [Narrator] Despite
the progress made

with the construction
of the Autobahn,

Germany still faces
dwindling oil supplies

as the war continues.

Nazi scientists racing
to find the solution

make a promising discovery.

- When there's a
breakthrough technology,

it changes the way we
do almost everything.

- [Narrator] But will
this new technology

lead them down a path
fraught with danger?

At Politz Hydroworks,

researchers are trying
to develop a process

to increase Germany's
fuel supply,

and with Germany at war, the
need is greater than ever.

- How would they get the fuel
to power up their war machine

when they're so heavily
dependent on coal?

- It would be
really advantageous

for the Germans to come
up with a methodology

to convert their
vast coal resources

into a liquid fuel source that
could be used in automobiles,

aircraft, tanks, et cetera.

- Germany is forced
to import its oil

via tankers arriving by
sea, but here's the problem.

When the second
world war breaks out,

the allies put in a blockade
to stop those tankers arriving.

Now Hitler really has a
challenge on his hands.

- [Narrator] The naval
blockade is announced

the day after war is declared
and is not only blocking fuel,

but food and other
materials Hitler needs

to feed the war machine
and German citizens.

Germany engages with
a terrifying destroyer

of U-boat operations, and the
Battle of the Atlantic rages.

- The big convoys that
were crossing the Atlantic,

the U-boats targeted them

in the hopes that they could
put a dent in Britain's ability

to get the raw materials that
it needed to fight the war.

- Britain is critically
dependent upon its empire,

its men, its equipment,
its food, its clothing,

its everything you
could possibly imagine.

- [Narrator] Germany needs
to win this war fast,

and the solution is a new
form of battle, blitzkrieg.

- Blitzkrieg was like nothing

the world had ever seen before.

It literally tore up
the playbook of battle

as everybody understood it,

which was based
on static defense

and not very rapid movement
of troops in any one time.

- This type of warfare
was all about moving

a huge volume of
troops and weaponry

in a coordinated
fashion, and at pace.

We're talking planes,
trucks, tanks.

- This strategy was in part
designed to address the problem

of Germany's limited resources,

and obviously if you
can win the war quickly

then you won't have a problem.

It's when the war
becomes drawn out,

then you're in the problem.

- The irony of this is
that because the Germans

were moving so far
forward so fast,

it burns literally thousands
and thousands of tons of fuel.

- [Narrator] A key element

to this new style
of warfare is tanks.

While tanks were
used in World War I,

Nazi tanks are a new
terror on the battlefield.

- There were many battles
where it would take somewhere

from three to five
American Sherman tanks

to neutralize one Nazi tank,

so that was Nazi
Germany's big asset.

These tanks were massive.

They had guns on them the
size of a telephone pole,

several inches thick of armor,

and while that might
have made it impervious

to allied tank assaults,
it meant that they got

not miles to the gallon,
but gallons to the mile.

- Take a Panzer II tank.

It's got a capacity of
about 45 gallons of fuel

that it can take on board,
and depending on terrain,

that would get it
maybe 80 miles.

But this was blitzkrieg,
moving en mass,

so now we're talking maybe
2,000 of these tanks.

That's around 100,000
gallons of fuel

to move less than 100 miles.

- We had to move not only
the tanks and men forward,

but they were followed by trucks

and all the logistical
necessities of resupply,

warm weather clothing,
ammunition, and
fuel, fuel, fuel.

- [Narrator] Nazi tanks
roll across Western Europe,

invading Norway,
Belgium and France.

By the middle of 1940,
the German Reich stretches

from the Atlantic coast
to Eastern Poland.

In addition to land vehicles,

over 1,000 U-boats
lurk in enemy waters

throughout the
course of the war.

U-boats have a limited
range and must be refueled

by special U-boats
called milk cows,

making them priority
targets for allied attack.

The refueling process
often takes hours,

putting both boats at risk.

- Think of the logistics
for these U-boats

that are literally
around the world.

I mean, they're operating off
the coast of the Americas.

They're operating off
the coast of Africa.

They're operating throughout
the Mediterranean.

They're in the Baltic.

How do you put fuel everywhere?

- [Narrator] A breakthrough
is desperately needed,

and at Hydroworks, it's
a race against time

to make the fuel from
Germany's abundant coal supply

efficient and fast,

and the first step takes
place in the coal mill.

Coal from the conveyor belt

is dropped through openings
at the top of the building

into silos, then funneled
onto another belt

that transports
it to the crusher.

- You originally
start with rocks,

and you need to crush those
down into smaller rocks,

and that can happen
through crushers

or some sort of grinding, and
as you progress through this,

you're ending up with
smaller and smaller particles

and you eventually
get into milling,

which is like a very
large rock tumbler.

Inside of this mill, which
is a spinning barrel,

you might have large
cannonballs, essentially,

of metal or long rods of steel.

The particles get introduced
to these small pieces of rock

with a liquid of some form
which creates a slurry,

a mixture of solids and liquids,

and then this whole thing
starts to tumble around

to grind and smash all of
those particles even smaller

so that you end up
with granular pieces,

like maybe the size
of a sugar grain.

- [Narrator] At 114 feet,
this building is currently

the tallest object of
the Hydroworks ruins.

It was once thought to
be a distillation tower,

but researchers now believe
it's another coal mill.

Just as progress is being made

and increasing the
Reich's fuel supply,

the Battle of Britain
begins in July of 1940

with a focus on air warfare.

- When we get on to air warfare,

we're talking about
fuel consumption

on a whole new level.

In World War I, we saw the
very beginnings of planes,

but they were very lightweight

and their capabilities
were fairly limited.

But now the Nazis had plans
to unleash hell in the skies

with their high-performance
fighter jets

and long range,
big, heavy bombers.

For example, the
Messerschmitt 109 fighter

would use up to
100 gallons of fuel

to give it a range
of just 400 miles,

and the Luftwaffe had over
30,000 of these planes.

I mean, the amount of fuel
consumed is unfathomable.

- The Battle of Britain was an
enormous drain on the Nazis.

Not only did they lose a lot
of pilots and a lot of planes

and they failed to bomb
Britain into submission,

but they spent so much
fuel, so much resources,

so much money on that failure
that truly the Nazi air force,

the Luftwaffe, never fully
recovers after the failures

in the Battle of Britain.

- There's countless stories
of Nazi military commanders

begging for fuel, stealing fuel,

doing anything they
can get for fuel.

- There are times
when the Luftwaffe

can't even get up in the air

because they don't have
fuel for the planes,

which leaves the skies
wide open for the allies.

- [Narrator] Germany is about
to open up a second front

by attacking the Soviet Union,

and at Hydroworks, a
breakthrough technology

might just be Hitler's answer.

IG Farben scientists
have improved

the coal hydrogenation method

to make more than
just heavy fuel.

Powder coal created in the
mill is dried with hot gases

before it moves on to the
next stage in the process.

- The powders, they're
mixed with heavy oil

that's been recycled from
the end of this process.

Now that mixture then
goes through a series

of chemical processes

that both add and extract
different elements,

and it's all done
at high pressure and
at high temperature.

- [Narrator] This
technological breakthrough

is a game changer
for Nazi Germany.

- And the output
from this process

is a mixture of different fuels,

so you've got very heavy oils,

which are those recycled back
into the start of the process.

You've got middle oils,
gases and synthetic gasoline,

and it's that fuel
that the Nazis used

to power their
tanks, their ships,

their planes, their submarines.

- [Narrator] The synthetic
fuel solves the Nazi problem

until Hitler opens a new front.

- Destroying the Soviet Union
was fundamental to his agenda,

but it came with enormous risks.

- [Narrator] What is the
secret the Nazis are guarding

so carefully at
facilities like this one?

By mid 1940, the Nazis'
sweep across Western Europe

has depleted their oil reserves

and cut off their
supply of imports.

- Every time that you send
out large squadrons of bombers

destined for the UK, you're
burning fuel that you need,

just exacerbating that
critical dependency.

- [Narrator] But researchers
at the top secret

Politz Hydroworks in
what is now Poland

have created a method to
turn coal into liquid fuel

to alleviate the shortage.

Production begins in 1940,
and over the next few years,

this facility produces 15%

of Germany's synthetic
fuel supply, 557,000 tons.

Researchers excavating
the site find occasional

unexplained oil
leaks on the ground.

- Nobody know what is
the source of this oil.

Maybe pipes.

Down here there is still
here some heated storage,

underground storage, where
there's some oil still inside.

- [Narrator] Before it's
transported across the Reich,

the processed fuel is
stored in dozens of huge

concrete reinforced tanks
located throughout the site.

This group of 16 tanks holds
what is called middle oil,

used to make diesel
fuel and gas oil.

21 smaller tanks
nearby hold light oil,

which can be used to make
gasoline and jet fuel.

- This is a volatile liquid.

There is potential
danger for fires,

for bombing, for explosions.

You have to be very careful
working around these materials.

If there is vapor or anything
that could be ignitable,

any sort of spark could set
these things off to explode

in a catastrophic manner.

- [Narrator] Air shafts
and underground tunnels

run between the tanks
to provide ventilation

and may be used as conduits
to help protect fuel pipes.

12 coal hydrogenation plants

were built throughout the Reich,

along with nine plants
using another method,

the Fischer-Tropsch process.

In total, they produced
over 5 million tons of fuel

per year, providing for
57% of German consumption.

- The Germans were
able to turn this idea

of creating synthetic
fuel into reality,

and they 10-X the
production of it

in the space of four years,
producing 10 times more fuel.

It's really quite remarkable.

- [Narrator] The Nazis
make extreme efforts

to protect this site in
both secrecy and defenses

in the event of its
discovery by the allies.

Meanwhile, Hitler knows
Germany will need to find

the rest of his
military's fuel elsewhere.

The Nazis are able to acquire
a small amount of fuel

from their invasion of Norway,

but Hitler has his sight
set on a greater source,

and in early 1941 sends
General Erwin Rommel

to North Africa to
help Italy capture

British-owned oil
fields in the region.

- The campaign in North Africa

is a really important
campaign in the war.

Churchill was very intent on
sending armies to North Africa

to protect the oil
fields in and around Iraq

and keep them out
of German hands.

- Rommel was making
serious grounds in Africa,

but his 1,000 mile supply chain
is causing him big problems.

His strategy is to
push through to Cairo

and capture the oil
reserves of Africa.

If he can get there, it
could change the war.

- [Narrator] Already
stretched thin in the west,

in 1941 the Nazis add
a new front to the war.

- Arguably the turning
point of the entire war

was Hitler's foolish invasion
of the Soviet Union in 1941,

Operation Barbarossa,

a landmass the size
of the Soviet Union,

and Hitler thinks
he can seize it.

- Quite a few people in his
high command said not now.

You could maybe do it later,

but let's get rid of
the British first.

Hitler widely disregards it.

He disregarded most
military advice.

For all of us now,
thank goodness he did,

because it's what ultimately
dooms Nazi Germany.

- The Soviets are
essentially sitting on

the largest oil reserve in
the world in and around Baku,

so the hope is that if
the Germans can take over

enough land in the east,
that they will capture

enough of that oil

that they will never
have oil problems again,

but they actually make
their own problem worse

by invading the Soviet Union.

The sheer distances
that are being covered

dramatically exacerbated their
problems in fuel consumption

and also cut them off from
a country that had in fact

been a supplier of their
oil up until that point.

- [Narrator] German
synthetic sites

are providing 57%
of the Reich's fuel,

but they must increase
their level of production

to meet the country's needs.

With Germany fighting
on multiple fronts

and stretched across continents,

Hydroworks is a critical
target for the allies,

but that's not the
site's only problem.

- We don't even need
the allies to bomb us.

Our building's gonna
blow up on its own.

- [Narrator] How can the
researchers at Hydroworks

protect themselves from
the dangers within?

During World War II
at Politz Hydroworks

in what is now Poland, thousands
of tons of synthetic fuel

are being pumped out to
power the Nazi war machine.

- If this facility and
others like it are lost,

it's going to have a big
impact on their war effort,

so they're gonna do everything
they can to disguise it,

everything they can
do to protect it,

to make sure it's
not easily bombed

or identified by the allies.

- [Narrator] But allied bombs

are not the only
danger for Hydroworks.

- This process is
very energy intensive,

so we need to provide
heat to break down

those hydrocarbon molecules,
we need to provide pressure,

and we need to also have
a source of hydrogen,

so we have to have
some chemical reaction

that's giving us
hydrogen as well,

and hydrogen gas is quite
dangerous, very explosive.

- [Narrator] To
understand the sheer power

of the devastation that
could be unleashed,

one simply needs to look at
the East Ohio gas explosion

in Cleveland in 1944.

A vapor leak from a seam in
the side of a storage tank

mixed with sewage and
air in a catch basin.

It ignited, creating
a massive explosion.

130 people were killed,

and one square mile of
the area was flattened.

Debris was scattered for miles,

including a manhole cover
found several miles away.

The facility at
Hydroworks is much bigger.

The Nazis also
have to stay secure

from multiple
espionage attempts.

- The allies can't only rely on

the possibility of
reconnaissance photographs

to map some of these sites.

They're very dependent
on people on the inside

giving away the game.

You have quite a
number of members

of the Polish Underground
risking their lives daily

to pass information
to the allies.

- [Narrator] Polish intelligence
begins to infiltrate

Politz Hydroworks soon
after they discover

the Peenemunde
rocket site nearby.

Polish workers and railway men

supply intelligence
to the allies.

One of these spies even manages
to infiltrate the facility

using the false identity of
an organization tote officer.

- The Nazis had this fixation
on security and secrecy,

but they were ultimately
quite vulnerable.

- [Narrator] To address
concerns about security,

the site contained
several large bunkers,

as well as a number of
small one-person shelters.

Fences and guards
surround critical areas

to discourage
spying and sabotage.

The site's watchtower
is five stories high

with five foot thick walls,
three foot thick floors

and an 11 foot thick
pyramid-shaped bomb-proof roof.

Besides machine gun
positions at the top,

guards are also able to throw
grenades from the openings.

From this tower,
guards had a good view

of the nearby oil storage tanks

and could coordinate
firefighting efforts

in the event of a fire.

The tower is never completed,

but it's believed that
a nearby embankment

is meant to be extended
to surround the towers

so that only the combat
positions on the top floor

will be exposed.

Is the high security
an indication

that something other than
fuel is being developed here?

- The Nazis were
obsessed with secrecy.

The big security fences,

extensive network of secretive
tunnels across the site.

This site is important
to the Nazis,

and they were prepared to
defend it at all costs.

- [Narrator] Despite the
Nazi's efforts to hide it,

Hydroworks is discovered
by the allies in late 1940.

- One of the first
things the allies did

in terms of their
bombing campaign

was they targeted
fuels facilities.

- [Narrator] The site
is bombed three times,

but the raids are inaccurate
and largely ineffective.

- The precision of these
bombers wasn't very good.

If there were a lot of defenses

and a lot of German fighters
came out to fight them,

often they would
just drop their loads

and try to get out of there
as quickly as they could.

- [Narrator] Lacking the
vital intelligence required

for more precise bombing,

the allies divert
their resources to
more viable targets.

- We have a limited
number of bombers.

We have a limited
number of bombs.

We have an almost
infinite number of targets

stretched across the
entire continent.

- The bombing priorities went
to precisely military targets

that were immediately
threatening you,

because you're sending
off boys to their deaths

and losing equipment
in the process.

- A lot of these planes
had a limited range,

so the deeper you went
into German territory,

the more precarious
it was for the planes

to make it back safely.

- [Narrator] But in
the spring of 1944,

Hydroworks becomes
a target again.

- Polish railroad
workers spotted in 1940

a huge amount of cisterns,

and they established
some observation points.

They could collect
data by graphing areas,

some compressor
rooms, power station.

- [Narrator] The
spy who previously
infiltrates Hydroworks

is able to make a detailed
map of the infrastructure

in a scale of one to 25,000.

This is smuggled to Britain
to be used as a guide

for potential air raids.

Armed with Polish intelligence,

the allies plan their
return to Hydroworks

in preparation for the June
6th invasion of Normandy,

better known as D-Day.

- The D-Day invasions would
mark the beginning of the end

with the allies gaining
a toe hole in Europe.

- [Narrator] With
D-Day imminent,

they conduct a large-scale
bombing campaign,

targeting Nazi petroleum
and lubricant facilities

in hopes of reducing
Germany's ability

to fend off the
allied onslaught.

- If you look at
reconnaissance photos,

you can see that there's
thick plumes of smoke

leaking from the site
after the bombing.

The allies must have been
absolutely delighted.

They'd hit something that was
important, and it was burning.

- [Narrator] But the remains
today tell a confusing story.

It's not as destroyed
as one would expect.

- This site was crucial
to the Nazi warfare,

so why wasn't it
completely destroyed?

Why wasn't it leveled
to the ground?

- [Narrator] A critical
synthetic fuel site

is targeted for allied
bombing as D-Day looms,

but years later, as
investigators try to put

the pieces of the
puzzle together,

it's clear the site isn't
destroyed as intended.

- If you see the aerial
photographs from that time,

you will see many holes from
the bombs all around the area

and very few inside the targets.

- One wonders why it was spared

more of the aggressive bombing
that we now in retrospect

say it should have gone through.

- [Narrator] Perhaps
post-war events

can shed some light
on this question.

In 1945, the allies
seize IG Farben holdings

with the intention of
splitting the conglomerate up,

and documents reveal
that allied commander

General Eisenhower
wants Hydroworks and
similar facilities

to be destroyed, but these
plans are eventually abandoned.

- There are voices
in the United States.

Certainly executives on
Standard Oil and other companies

were encouraging them to
go easier on IG Farben

and some of the German
manufacturers of war,

in part to substantiate German
economic recovery post-war,

and also with this idea of
potentially building an ally

against the Soviet Union.

- [Narrator] This
move is the latest

in a series of shady dealings

between these companies
during the war.

- In 1927, Standard
Oil and IG Farben

had come up with an
agreement that IG Farben

would share information

about the production
of synthetic oils

and the US would
not pursue the study

of synthetic rubber making.

There was a lot of
concern in the US

that in making this kind of
a deal, it may have impeded

American ability to use rubber
in their own war efforts.

- Throughout history,
there's always been

a difficult relationship
between business

and human conflict, but it
is quite chilling to think

that there were American
companies that had dealings

with businesses
working with the Nazis.

The question is, was the
American government aware

of these shady dealings between
IG Farben and Standard Oil?

- The American
government knew more

than we often like to admit.

Throughout the 30s, Hitler was
testing the world's response.

Could he push the envelope?

How much further could he go

without an aggressive
response from the world?

Even as Hitler
turned the heat up,

it was still business as usual.

- IG Farben benefited
enormously financially

from its relationship
with the Nazis.

The ways in which
it was embedded

in the worst crimes
of the Nazi regime

are intricate and
deep and multifaceted,

but very few executives

faced any kind of
reckoning after the war.

- [Narrator] It is possible
that companies like Standard Oil

had their eyes on the scientific
secrets of this facility

and others like it, but in
the aftermath of the war,

Poland is annexed by the Soviets

and those secrets are hidden
behind the iron curtain

for decades.

- When Germany invaded Russia,

Stalin made this crazy order

to move one of his production
facilities back to the east,

probably saved Russia.

And now as the Russian
units move forward,

they're able to do
exactly the same thing.

They strip the entire
production facility

and take it all back.

- [Narrator] Many of the
details of these events

are buried in lost
or hidden documents,

but there are hopes that
more will be declassified.

- The Nazis were meticulous
to the point of being obsessed

with documenting
virtually everything.

They filmed, they wrote it down.

However, there are gaps
in our information.

- Soviet seized a huge amount
of Third Reich documents.

Maybe half of them
are still in Moscow,

they are still secret,

and the access to them
is highly limited.

- [Narrator] The
Russians also bring

hundreds of Nazi scientists
back to the Soviet Union,

and the Americans do the same.

- We needed to grab the
paperwork, the scientists

and the technology and bring
it back to the United States.

Is that a reason
why the facility was
not fully destroyed?

Possibly part of it.

- Protecting architects
of war like IG Farben

or the rocket scientists,
they saw purpose to it

that would now serve their
interests moving forward

in a very tumultuous
and uncertain world.

- [Narrator] Nazi technology
makes a major contribution

to the cold war and scientific
advancement on both sides.

- The United States and the west

was able to make great leaps
forward in rocket technology.

The advent of
helicopters, jet engines,

as well as synthetic fuel.

- [Narrator] In
oil-rich America,

the process is used to create
higher quality fuel from oil,

but it's considered
impractical to use on coal.

- The raw product used to
produce this much fuel,

that's a staggering amount.

Three parts coal, you
get one part fuel.

That's not a great ratio.

- It's not a good business.

For the war proposes
it was great,

but at a peace time
it would be crazy.

- It's alarming to think
of what might have happened

if Germany had made
advances on synthetic fuels

at the beginning of the war.

If they would have had then
a virtually unlimited supply

of new technologies and oil,

it could have been a
game changer in the war.

[ominous music]