Original subtitles

- [Narrator] In the small town of Kammienna Gora,

a network of secret Nazi tunnels is discovered.

- Why were such great lengths taken to guard this area

so heavily?

What was being developed here?

- [Narrator] Could these tunnels be a key component

of a last ditch plan of Hitler's

to reach his most distant enemy?

- Hitler had a fascination with the idea

of being able to set

New York City ablaze. Failure was not an option.

- The war they were reaching was a total war.

- [Narrator] Hitler pursues new experimental technology

to fulfill his twisted aim.

- Wars become so technologically advanced

that the supply chain is actually of strategic value.

- [Narrator] Could these tunnels

contain some of the Nazis most ambitious technology yet?

- Some local historians believe

that what's been found so far

is only the tip of the iceberg.

- What would a determined researcher find

if they dug deep enough? [intense music]

- [Narrator] Between 1939 and 1941,

Western Europe crumbles under Nazi occupation.

- The Nazis believed that they had a right of conquest.

The war they were raging was a total war.

- [Narrator] As the United Kingdom struggles

to defend itself against Germany's rapidly growing empire,

Hitler eyes a new enemy further abroad.

Beyond Britain lies another country upon which he plans to

unleash vengeance.

- Hitler's attitude towards the United States is one of

fascination and curiosity and of course,

fundamental hatred, on the other level,

even before the war starts. For him, the United States

is a a mongrel nation,

meaning that it's an immigrant population, it's mixed,

totally deluded, of course, and that madness.

- [Narrator] Hitler wants to see

the Empire State building burn.

He wants the world to know the true power

of the German threat.

But the fury of the Fuührer is far from being realized.

New technologies will need to be birthed

to make the journey.

Under the hills of Kammienna Gora,

engineers work to fulfill Hitler's twisted Nazi dreams.

- Why were such great lengths taken to guard this area

so heavily?

What was being developed here?

- [Narrator] 2017,

a declassified report appears in the CIA's digital archive,

dated March 31st, 1954.

The title, ammunition factory near Kammienna Gora.

Within it, the ammunition factory is described,

located in a network of tunnels

guarded by its own military detachment.

For local researchers, the document is a triumph.

Confirmation of what they already know,

under the hills of Kammienna Gora

and Jelenia Gora are a vast network

of forgotten tunnels and underground facilities.

- Some local historians believe

that what's been found so far

is only the tip of the iceberg,

and that these tunnels extend much further

than what's currently documented.

- [Narrator] With 11 kilometers of tunnels already known

and hundreds of kilometers more suspected,

what were the Nazis doing in these hills?

Were they hiding the technology that could have brought

not just Europe, but also North America to its knees?

- Hitler understood the value of symbols and striking back

at America would be a huge symbolic victory.

- [Narrator] When the Nazis rose to power in the 1930s,

they looked to American law for constant inspiration.

Since the end of the first World War,

the United States had become increasingly isolationist.

Racism,

antisemitism, and legislation enforcing segregation

and criminalization of interracial marriages is commonplace.

In 1924, the U.S. Congress passes new immigration laws.

These introduce a quota system by country of origin,

which overtly discriminates against Southern

and Eastern Europe where most Jewish Europeans live.

To the Nazis, America is a shining example

of a successful white supremacist regime.

- The German view of America is really difficult

to rationalize because on one hand, the Nazi regime,

including Hitler in particular,

looked to the United States as a model of imperial

or colonial practice.

The Nazis looked to the conquering of the American West

and the destruction of Native American people

by the United States government

throughout the course of the 19th century in their so-called

manifest destiny as a model for

what Germany was meant to do in the Soviet Union.

But on the other hand,

there is a sense of resentment toward the Americans

as being too soft, too immaterialistic,

too interested in personal comfort, in luxuries.

- [Narrator] Beginning in 1933,

stories of the Nazi's violent persecution of Jews in Germany

became front page news across the U.S.

Protests begin to erupt and Jewish organizations

start encouraging the boycott of German goods.

With the U.S.' increasingly liberal attitudes,

Hitler's and the Nazi's opinion shifts from admiration

to hatred.

In a chilling 1938 statement,

Reichskommissar of Aviation, Hermann Goöring

makes the German military's attitude crystal clear.

I completely lack the bomber's capable of roundtrip flights

to New York with a four and a half ton bomb load.

I would be extremely happy to possess such a bomber,

which would at last stuff the mouth of arrogance

across the sea.

- Hitler wanted to get back and there was very little

he could do to hit the United States directly.

- [Narrator] Before the Nazis ever set foot

in Kammienna Gora,

there was nothing nefarious about its industry.

- This area was the center of a textile industry,

which was very much so the heart and soul

of the local culture.

- [Narrator] But all this was about to change

with the arrival of a new, far deadlier kind of industry.

- It's pretty typical in the German wartime economy,

on top of bringing forced labor or foreign labor

into Germany to do manufacturing work

for the German occupation authorities

to take over manufacturing centers already existing

in occupied territories to produce all sorts of goods

for the military effort.

- [Narrator] The Arado company was one of the most important

suppliers of aircraft for the Luftwaffe

before and during World War II.

- The Arado company was just one

of several aircraft technology companies in Nazi Germany

that were working to supply the Luftwaffe with aircraft

and technologically advanced aircraft.

What's so interesting about the German aeronautical designs

is that these companies were always trying to push

the envelope.

They were always trying to develop new types of airplanes

with new engines that could fly further, faster,

and higher than they had before.

And Arado was one of the companies at the cutting edge

of those developments.

- [Narrator] Beginning in 1933,

the AR 66 became one of the top standard trainers

for Luftwaffe pilots.

It remained in operation well into the war,

eventually carrying attack missions

on Germany's Eastern front.

In the mid thirties,

Germany fully abandons the Treaty of Versailles

and begins re-arming. The AR 68 is one of the first fighters

to emerge, its successor,

The AR68E is the Luftwaffe's most widely used fighter

from 1937 to 1938,

after which it became a standard fighter trainer.

Despite supplying the German military

with some of its foundational aircraft designs,

Arado's owner Heinrich Lubbe was not a Nazi himself.

In 1936,

Lubbe was arrested and forced to sell the company

to the Nazi state.

- By nationalizing key industries,

they take over these kind of corporations and then direct

them so they become state-owned enterprises.

- See, the Nazis were totalitarians in the sense

that they wanted total control over every aspect of society.

And one of the ways through which they pursued

this total control was through the control over industry.

They did it in the usual Nazi way,

which is the gangster way,

by simply arresting the owner and transferring ownership

to the government.

- [Narrator] The war has not yet broken out.

The Nazi war economy is now in full swing.

- One of Germany's major advantages was their decisions

to start building up their war machine before war came.

And of course this is because they chose

when the second World War started,

and so they entered the war with something of a headstart

on new wartime technology

and it was up to the allies to catch up.

The Soviet Union had made major gains in the 1930s,

developing their industrial capacity,

but is still paled in comparison to what the Nazis

could leverage.

- [Narrator] With the approaching invasion of Poland,

the Luftwaffe kicks into high gear, giving rise to a new

generation of deadly Arado aircraft.

But as the war progresses,

new threats to the Nazis production facilities force Germany

to make drastic changes.

- When you're looking at these experimental aircraft workers

that's going on there,

it is very much part of the Hitler's dream

that science can save his regime.

- [Narrator] On the 7th of December, 1941,

Japan launches a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Japan is an ally to the Nazis,

Germany is under no obligation to declare war

on the United States,

but Hitler disregards this,

determined to beat President Roosevelt to the punch,

he declares war on the US on December 11th, 1941

with virtually no consultation.

Prior to American intervention,

Hitler repeatedly encourages Britain to surrender

to Nazi Germany, but as Britain repeatedly refuses

to negotiate,

it begins its own raids over occupied territory.

Hitler's anger takes hold.

In August, 1940,

off course German bombers fly over London,

accidentally bombing central areas for the first time,

the Royal Air Force or RAF responds with the first attacks

on Berlin.

[bomb exploding]

Enraged and hungry for revenge,

Hitler orders the systematic night bombing

of major British cities.

He's determined to terrorize the U.K. into submission.

This is the Blitz.

- To begin the war, that liftoff is huge.

It's much larger than the British

and the French forces combined and that has a lot to do

with the fact that the British are late to re-arm movement

that occurs in the end of the 1930s.

So they still have World War I vintage aircraft and service

and the Nazis have been, you know,

at first secretly and then quite openly producing

a lot of aircraft.

- [Narrator] The Blitz has a profound effect on the British,

but not in the way Hitler expects.

As the German military reigned hell on England

between September, 1940 and May, 1941,

Hitler has succeeded in making his enemy

even more determined to defeat the Third Reich.

When America joins the war,

the British have access to a whole new wealth of resources.

Armed with formidable heavy bombers like the B17,

dubbed the Flying Fortress,

U.K. and U.S. forces are more confident than ever

about facing the Luftwaffe head-on.

In early 1942,

The allies eased their restrictions on air raids

over Germany as they target major industrial centers

across the country.

Within a year, this focus narrows even further.

The top priority is now the systematic targeting

and destruction of the German aircraft industry

at all costs.

- The Americans,

once they came into the Air War against Germany in earnest

in 1942 and 1943

contended that it wasn't necessary to bomb

the entire German industrial base into submission.

But that instead,

if bombing was continually directed

toward one pressure point, one vital supply artery,

that everything else is going to fall apart.

- Ball bearings are small, metal spheres that are used in

almost all of the Nazis war machines, whether it's fighters,

bombers, tanks, or other guns.

Ball bearings are just a crucial ingredient

to any of these moving vehicles or weapons.

And so the allies figured if they could reduce

the production of ball bearings,

they could throw a wrench into Nazi war production.

- The conventional ball bearing basically comprises

two concentric circles and in between the two circles

are a series of small steel balls that allow the outer ring

to glide around the inner ring.

And then the inner ring has some kind of shaft

going through it.

That could be like an axle on a truck or a drive shaft

on an engine.

And the bearing is the surface on which that axle or shaft

can turn without overheating and coming apart.

- These seemingly insignificant ball bearings

were so important to the German aviation industry

and to the Luftwaffe,

that they used 2.4 million of these ball bearings

in a month.

It's hard to wrap one's head around these numbers

because they're so large that to actually sit down

and think that

these were produced goods which had to be transported,

packed, transported, and stored, it simply boggles the mind.

- [Narrator] Albert Speer,

the minister of armaments and war production

for Nazi Germany,

has made it protocol to keep reserve supplies

of the Luftwaffe's most precious engineering component,

the ball bearing.

- Albert Speer is the leader

of the Nazi building enterprise.

He's the man thinking about planning and how to build

all of the infrastructure industry

and these massive buildings that the Nazis need

to support their large war machine.

- [Narrator] But without that one small piece of metal,

the Luftwaffe collapses entirely.

- The reliance on this one piece,

this tiny piece that fits together is so perfectly

in a greater system that can cripple you.

- Wars become so technologically advanced

that the supply chain is actually of strategic value.

- August 17th, 1943,

315 allied heavy bombers take off on a split mission

bound for Germany and a Messerschmitt factory in Regensburg.

But the real target is Schweinfurt. The seat of German

ball-bearing production. Operation: Point Blank.

- They just can't destroy entire cities,

that's not gonna change anything.

They have to find a kind of strategic weak point

in the supply chain where even if the other parts

of the chain are working,

the entire system doesn't work without

that one piece, the target,

it's no longer let's put a thousand planes over Dresden

and burn Dresden down to the ground

and incinerate half the population.

How's that gonna help us win the war?

But if we knock out the ball-bearing plants,

everything we can stop.

- The Schweinfurt bombing is important

'cause the allies use it in one of the first examples

of a staged bombing.

So they're gonna fly from bases in the United Kingdom,

they're gonna hit the targets and then they're gonna fly

onwards to North Africa, so this is

a big gamble on their part.

- So the Allied bombers are these large lumbering aircraft.

They're carrying tons of bombs that they're going to drop

on Nazi Germany.

These bombers have some guns,

some machine guns that are designed to protect the bomber,

but they're still extremely vulnerable.

They're vulnerable to Nazi interceptors

that are really designed to go up and shoot down bombers.

And so one way of protecting bombers is to send them

on missions with a fighter escort.

So this means that bombers are protected

by allied fighter planes.

The problem unfortunately is that the bombers can actually

fly farther than the fighters.

And so a bomber squadron is only going to have

fighter escort protection for a certain distance.

This means that for part of that time,

they're gonna be vulnerable and there'll be no fighters

to protect them.

- [Narrator] Suffering heavy losses,

the bombers reached their target,

the Schweinfurt factory and release their payloads.

- The bombers struck the factory and they were able

to inflict some damage on the factory,

but not really enough to put it out of production.

And at the same time, they suffered incredible losses.

This was just too costly a mission for the allies to run

without fighter cover.

And after a second raid in which the bombers were able to

inflict more damage on the ball bearing factory,

they were actually able to drop enough bombs that the Nazis

could make fewer ball bearings.

And this actually had significant knock on effects

in Nazi war production.

This put a choke hold on supply lines for all sorts

of other Nazi vehicles,

and it was the vulnerability of these factories,

as demonstrated by these bomber raids that played a role

in causing the Nazis to think they needed to move

their bases out of the line of fire of bombers.

- [Narrator] Albert Speer is horrified and knows that

within four to six weeks,

the reserve supply will have dwindled

and Germans will be living hand to mouth for ball bearings.

After the successful bombing of the Schweinfurt ball bearing

manufacturing plant,

Germany faces a supply chain crunch,

threatening their wartime industrial output.

- It took considerable analysis and intelligence to kind of

narrow down that if the industry at Schweinfurt

was destroyed,

if the ball bearing manufacturers were removed

from the picture, the German Air Force

would be in serious jeopardy.

It was absolutely necessary vital for the Germans to find

a substitute for what was lost at Schweinfurt.

- [Narrator] After the bombings at Schweinfurt,

Speer must figure out how to keep German planes

in the air and he must do it fast.

He knows that rebuilding the plants will once again

make them a target.

Germany simply cannot risk another bombing.

The Nazis need to find new ways

to protect their manufacturing capabilities.

- At this point in the war when there's a lot of air raids

and bombings going on,

not only is it something that affects factories

and infrastructure that are trying to produce materials,

whether it's ball bearings or airplanes,

but what also happens is that it reduces worker efficiency.

If you're there and you're concerned about all these things

happening about potentially being bombed,

it's not exactly the best work environment.

So if you really want that productivity to stay up,

what you need to do is provide a space

that people feel safe in.

- When the Nazis realized that the allies had figured out

that the top of the line factories would be

an excellent target for aerial bombardment

and that this kind of aerial bombardment would cripple

a German armament production,

the Nazis came up with a strategy of dispersal.

This was initially with the case with the ME262,

the fighter jet,

which had its parts manufactured in all kinds of places,

in houses, in forests, in tents,

all kinds of imaginable places throughout Germany.

And then this, in the later years,

this principle was applied and manufacturing was similarly

delegated and dispersed.

- Germany in its effort to avoid the invasion

of allied forces to stay out of their reach,

they started moving their production,

moving their infrastructure eastward.

They took over existing facilities in these countries

that they had already seized, so in Poland,

they took over existing textile factories and they would

actually retool the footprint of that factory and create

and establish their own facilities

for their own war production.

- [Narrator] Important Arado facilities

and the engineering design HQ

formerly located in Berlin are relocated to Kammienna Gora

in a vast underground tunnel network dug by slave laborers.

Relics underground tell of Germany's response

to the strategic bombing of industry.

- It's an interesting area because it's remote

and not easily accessible to the average person,

but it's still able to connect by rail lines

to other important locations.

There are textile productions in other manufacturing

in the general area,

so it's not close to major cities or in a major city,

but still able to connect with those other parts

of the Nazi empire.

- In the darkened caverns under the mountains,

Germany keeps the wheels of industry moving,

producing all important Luftwaffe planes.

The ramp up of allied aggression against Germany

infuriates Hitler.

He and Goring are more desperate than ever

to get their hands on a design for a super weapon

that will finally be able to decimate the United States.

- Energy and resources being deployed and finding

a technological solution to the stalemate that the German

expansion has hit.

And so how do we get back to the initiative

and now we're on the defensive and now, God dammit,

we might even lose the war.

It's not gonna be our infantry or our armor or artillery

that is gonna now suddenly turn things around.

So secretly, some super weapon that skips three generations.

You know, let's go to jet power.

Let's go to rocket power, ballistic missiles, rocketry.

Hitler is part of that mindset, the scientific solution,

the, you know, miracle solution.

But what are miracles but science we understand.

[upbeat music]

- [Narrator] On the 12th of May, 1942,

top military brass deliver one of Nazi Germany's

most ambitious plans yet to Hermann Goering,

outlined in a 33 page document.

This newest proposal contains a detailed,

top secret strategy.

The America Bomber program is officially launched.

The program identifies specific air bases

in the Azores islands of Portugal as the best place

from which to launch an offensive.

During this period,

Portugal maintains a neutral position in Europe,

but the Nazis are unfazed and are determined to carry out

their plans.

Now, all they need is a bomber powerful enough to make

the daunting return journey across the Atlantic.

- This is a great irony of the war because you have Germany

going to war without a really capable long range

four engine bomber,

which other air forces like the U.S. Army Air Force

have the B17 and the Royal Air Force ultimately has the

Avro Lancaster.

It's ironic that the Germans at the very 11th hour

are trying to build this sort of super bomber,

which is capable of crossing the ocean and bombing New York.

I mean, it's clearly another expression of wishful thinking.

- [Narrator] For German aircraft manufacturers,

the America Bomber program represents a massive opportunity.

Not only would the winning design gain the approval

of the furor and Reich's Marshal Goring,

it would also represent an enormous scientific leap

in aviation technology.

In order for New York City to be bombed,

the craft's combat radius would need to be

11,680 kilometers.

Germany's most powerful bomber,

the Messerschmitt ME 261

has a range of just 11,025 kilometers.

The race is on between Nazi Germany's aircraft companies

and the competition is fierce.

Three of the Reich's major aircraft designers

submit contenders for the bombing of the United States.

These are the Messerschmitt ME 264,

the Focke-Wulf TA-400,

and the Junkers JU-390.

But one more manufacturer stands out from the crowd.

By 1942,

Arado has secured a legacy as one of Nazi Germany's

top aircraft manufacturers.

Despite many of their designs being passed over

in favor of Heinkel and Junkers models,

the Arado company continues to innovate and look for

opportunities to impress Nazi officials

from their brand new,

top secret manufacturing facilities in the hills

of Kammienna Gora

- How do you establish a war machine long-term?

Well, in Germany's mind,

they felt that building not only out but under

would be sustainable long-term.

- The Nazis were on the lookout for places where they could

have armament factories, have armament research undertaken,

places where ammunition could be stored,

and caves are a natural site

which is suited because of its

defensive capability.

Like cave is basically a covered structure.

It cannot be easily seen, it can be easily camouflaged,

and it is two varying extents safe from aerial bombard.

- Mining is a science in some ways,

but there are lots of unpredictable conditions in rock.

It can encounter different types of rock

really close together that you weren't expecting.

You can find fissures,

you can find pockets of unstable soil, things can give away

in a second. You really have no idea what's going to happen,

and it can be very, very dangerous.

- [Narrator] For the Nazis in 1943,

there was absolutely no time to waste.

To facilitate the digging and populate

the relocated industries,

the Nazis build a sub camp

of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp.

During the war, around 1600 men,

mostly Poles are imprisoned here and used as forced labor.

A second forced labor camp is built for Jews.

- The Nazi war machine basically mobilized first,

the German worker to work for the Nazi war goals.

But as the war expanded and as territories were occupied,

the Nazis knew that this was not gonna be adequate.

So they forced workers from occupied territories.

They were opening kind of branches of concentration camps

near work sites in order to ensure

that there was labor supply, this was brutal tankless work,

and many people lost their lives in this process.

- Through history,

when people have used slave labor to do things,

what you're really doing is you've completely

controlled individuals. Over time,

people get into a state that's called learned helplessness.

You have no more hope and anything you thought you could do

or try to do,

you have learned over time only makes things worse

for yourself, there's no saving yourself.

There's no way out.

- According to records,

these tunnels are intended to be air raid shelters,

but several ominous clues point to something

far more nefarious.

- These are not garden variety air raid shelters, I mean,

it can seem like a legitimate excuse

for construction activity to be building air raid shelters

in these areas to protect the civilian population.

But this was something else.

These spaces which were tunneled into the mountains

were big enough for trucks to drive through.

- If that's an air raid shelter,

you really don't need a ton of excessive space.

It's just a temporary thing.

It's for protection really.

It needs to be reasonably robust,

but not more than the requirements of that space

that you require for each individual.

You know, make it bigger.

- [Narrator] These deep caverns will soon be home

to one of the most

advanced innovations in Nazi aviation history.

This is the new home of the Arado company.

- By moving manufacturing underground,

not only would the Nazis be preserving the secrecy

surrounding the research and development,

they'd also be creating a safe space far away

from the threat of any allied bombing from above.

- [Narrator] Less than 40 kilometers from Kammienna Gora,

the site of massive underground factories lies something

quite different.

Miles of underground tunnels that vary greatly

from the tunnels at Kammienna Gora.

In Jelenia Gora,

hastily built tunnels are carved out of sandstone,

strange rooms with boilers and water systems hint at

preparations for a life temporarily lived underground.

- The proportions of the underground facilities here

are strange.

They don't match the catalog of building plans that we see

applied elsewhere in Europe,

and we don't know why the size was different here.

- The rock where these tunnels were built was so soft that

instead of using explosives to excavate them out,

the prisoners of war forced to work on these projects,

drilled multiple holes in the rock face,

and then just collapsed their way through.

- The tunnels,

which were built for the purpose of housing factories,

housing,

manufacturing sort of workshops or something like that,

were, of course more purposefully made.

They are much more built up,

including train stations inside the tunnel system,

which in itself boggles the mind.

And on the other hand that the later tunnels seem to be

hastily collapsed.

It seems as if the effort there was to conceal something.

- We don't know if this was simply a bombing shelter,

an area designed for storage,

or whether it was the expansion

of the manufacturing facilities that was being developed

in the region.

- [Narrator] The tunnels continue well beyond

what could be needed to shelter the Germans

from overhead bombings, in fact,

some tunnels are caved in.

- One has to wonder what it is that they were

in such a hurry to hide.

- [Narrator] It is here.

The Arado company would push the limits of engineering

with its newest aircraft.

- One of the places where the Arado company

is really pushing the envelope is in the development

of their AR 234.

This is the first turbo jet powered aircraft in history.

The turbo jet is going to allow this airplane to fly

further, faster, and higher than other airplanes.

It's all part of the bid of the Germans to develop weapons

that will give them dominance of the skies.

- It can be used as a fighter,

but it also at a capacity to bomb.

So clearly the Germans are, you know,

trying to cover as much ground as possible

in the manufacture of airplanes.

- [Narrator] The German Luftwaffe has plans to produce

500 of these per month,

some of which would've been under the hills of the area.

- The 234 flew faster than the P51 Mustang,

the American Fighter of fame by about a hundred miles,

which is huge, that's a, you know,

from a scientific and technological perspective,

that's a really big advance.

So these are impressive German technological devices.

- [Narrator] The Arado Company's success with the designs

of the AR 234

proves they are the cutting edge of aviation design.

Who better to outline Hitler's ultimate revenge plan?

Deep in the secret tunnels of Kammienna Gora,

laid plans for an aircraft powerful enough to see

through Hitler's dream of America in ashes.

- One of Arado's proposed aircraft was the Arado E 555.

Now, this was to be a long range strategic bomber

that would be powered by six jet engines,

capable of producing 34.3 kilonewtons of thrust.

But why was this proposed plane so important to the Nazis?

- The America Bomber was this fascinating initiative

in which

Hitler and the Nazis were trying to develop aircraft

that would allow them to directly target the United States.

Hitler had a fascination with the idea of being able to set

New York City ablaze.

- Why would Germany invest so much time and effort

into new technologies like a jet powered aircraft

at such a late stage during the war?

I believe it was because Hitler had this mandate,

and that was this world domination, to take over,

to have industry at his disposal,

to have people at his disposal and his delusional vision.

This is what he saw for himself and what he saw

for the world and he was not gonna stop.

And I believe that that's why right until the end

of the war, he was continuing to try to better himself

and better Germany and to better his grip on the world.

- There is a belief engendered by Hitler himself

and his top lieutenants that Germany would win the war.

And based on that assumption,

continuing with these projects made sense.

Failure was not an option.

- [Narrator] Under the hills of Kammienna Gora,

engineers develop advanced new aircraft.

Are they also developing the machine

that would bomb America?

Could the Arado E 555 be the plane to do it?

- These technological developments did serve

a double function.

On the one hand, they allowed Germans, the German military,

Hitler, and his leadership to be proud of what Germany

could accomplish with its scientific endeavors,

developing these new and terrifying weapons.

It suggested to Germans that German was the strongest power,

the rightful power in Europe and perhaps in the whole world.

At the same time, they did have a practical effect.

While many of these plans never came to fruition,

some of these wonder weapons,

these terror weapons would come into practice

and would be used by the Nazis against their enemies.

And so they did have a real practical effect on the war.

- [Narrator] But with resources dwindling in Germany.

One question remains,

will the Arado E 555 ever get off the ground?

- If you were a scientist who could develop a wonder weapon

that actually worked,

you became instantly famous and instantly powerful

and instantly a success in Germany.

All of that is, of course predicated on one thing,

which is a fundamental belief,

ideological belief in what the Nazis were doing.

- [Narrator] Hitler's thirst for revenge

fuels every decision he makes during the war.

His hatred of Britain and to determination to destroy the UK

are the driving force between two major wonder weapons,

the V1 and V2 missiles.

The success of the V1 and V2 drive Hitler to invest

even more into developing new technology

to defeat his enemies.

By the end of 1944,

the Nazis are fiercely chasing new wonder weapons.

Hitler's willingness to invest in untested

miracle technology knows no bounds.

This is the Nazi's central flaw,

betting on one hypothetical weapon as opposed to investing

in tried and true conventional equipment.

- You know, to me,

these scientists or corporate interests that keep building

towards the end of the war demonstrate the same sort of

futility and therefore the same madness, right?

This madness that descends on Germany in the third Reich.

[audience cheering]

- [Narrator] The Nazis have fallen into the trap

of believing that raw science

will somehow be able to counteract Germany's

increasingly dire standing in the war.

As the war enters its final year,

the Reich is quickly crumbling

and the allies are closing in.

While the plan to build a Nazi super bomber capable of

devastating the Eastern United States

is theoretically possible,

the Nazis face increasing pressure from the allies

that ultimately leads the mission to build

the America bombers to a dead end.

By 1945,

allied bombing raids had rapidly decreased

Germany's industrial output.

Officially,

plans are scrapped for the America bomber prototypes

after December 22nd, 1944 on order from the Reich Ministry.

- Could remnants of the legendary E 555 possibly still be

lurking somewhere in the darkness amongst this

underground labyrinth.

- [Narrator] As Red Army troops marched

towards Kammienna Gora

in May of 1945, the surrounding area is hurriedly evacuated.

The factory facilities are cleared out in an effort to

prevent incoming forces

from retrieving sensitive information.

- While the Nazis are in retreat,

they take a number of steps,

both to cover their tracks in a sense,

but also to deny their facilities to the oncoming

Soviet red army.

So we see that the Nazis burn records,

but they also collapse entrances to their tunnels,

to factories in a bid to make sure that those resources

aren't used against them,

that the facilities they've built to defend themselves

and to protect their production isn't instead used

by their enemy.

- [Narrator] Hitler's underestimation

of two of his greatest enemies,

the U.S. and the USSR has finally cost him his empire.

- At a time where the allies have virtually

complete air superiority, jet bomber, or no jet bomber,

it's not going to be able to operate effectively

because it would be so vulnerable

to the overwhelming superiority in aircraft

that the allies have at that stage of the war.

And furthermore,

having just a hundred or even a few hundred of these

aircraft,

it's difficult to see what difference they could have made

under those particular circumstances.

If such aircraft had been available earlier in the war,

perhaps they could have had an influence.

If the Germans had had a decent four engine bomber

in quantity earlier in the war,

maybe the Blitz would've come out with different results.

But by this stage, it's really an example of too little,

too late.

- [Narrator] The story of Arado

and of ball-bearing manufacturing in the Silesian Mountains

of Kammienna and Jelenia Gora is just a drop in the bucket

of all that existed here.

- The scale of German manufacturing in the armament industry

was such that we can not have a very clear idea of what else

was going on in this region, when we look at the numbers,

the quantities involved with the ball bearing manufacturer,

we can only imagine what other industries which also

serviced the war were involved in this region.

- [Narrator] To this day,

it is known that there are four tunnel systems

in Kammienna Gora alone; Gora Zamkowa, Gora Szubianka,

Gora Widok, and Gora Parakowa

the modern day Arado museum.

But for hundreds of kilometers,

researchers have found artificial hills, cleared expanses

and deep shafts hidden among the trees,

suggesting something larger underneath.

To this day,

we still can't be sure what the Nazis built here

or how close they came to achieving their goal

of developing a bomber powerful enough

to reach the United States.

Had the experts in these underground laboratories

had more time and enough resources,

could this region and have held the key

to the Nazis victory?

Were the Nazis really afraid of the air raid attacks

that never came?

Were they merely relocating the war machine far out of range

of allied bombers,

or were they continuing cutting edge research here,

hoping to deploy futuristic aircraft to rain down death

and destruction on America?

- For every site, which is discovered,

even if it has been strategically collapsed,

there's a lot of information to be gained from it.

What would a determined researcher find

if they dug deep enough.

[intense music]