Original subtitles

- [Narrator] In 2008, researchers in the Netherlands

began a painstaking excavation

on the outskirts of the Hague.

Over the next 10 years,

they slowly reveal a deeply disturbing sight,

a sunken city, all but swallowed by sand dunes,

sitting right below the Hague.

- The landscape is constantly changing.

The sand blows around.

Water comes and changes things.

Rain washes it away.

It is a really, really dynamic environment.

- [Narrator] After being lost for decades,

enormous buildings were slowly excavated

to reveal the full extent of the forgotten site.

- These enormous buildings that,

for decades had been lost to time,

are now being excavated,

and are re-emerging from the sands across the Hague.

But what were they for?

Were they part of something bigger?

Who was using them?

- [Narrator] Made up of concrete bunkers

lined in a maze of reinforced tunnels,

this enormous web of fortifications

was made to house thousands of men.

But just what are these mysterious structures?

[upbeat music]

After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939,

the Netherlands declared neutrality.

- In the First World War,

the Netherlands had managed a neutrality.

As the Second World War approached,

Dutch officials thought

that they may be able to do the same sort of thing,

but that is just not in the cards.

[upbeat music]

- In the spring, May, 1940,

the Germans go on the offensive in the West.

They take out Luxembourg, Belgium,

and they take out the Netherlands.

Even though all three of those nations

were neutral countries.

- Once the Germans control the Netherlands,

which they're able to achieve relatively quickly,

they effectively have easy access now

to the English Channel.

And then once France capitulates, later in June,

they have the whole coast.

- The idea was that,

if any kind of plans for the invasion of Britain

were to be executed,

this would have to be done using the European coastlines.

- It was never in doubt that the Netherlands,

from a German perspective, needed to be conquered.

And the Dutch population is

now subject to a pretty harsh occupation.

- [Narrator] The Nazi Army floods the streets of the Hague

taking control of the civilian population.

- When the Nazis invaded the Hague,

135,000 people were forced to leave their homes.

- [Narrator] Teams of engineers arrive,

and begin to take inventory

of the city and surrounding area.

What on Earth could the Nazis be planning?

- With the exception of the British Isles holding out

after the fall of France in June of 1940,

there would be no reason

that extensive fortifications of any nature

would need to be immediately built in Northwest Europe,

because who's going to threaten Northwest Europe?

In 1940, the big strategic question is

when the Germans are going to invade Great Britain,

not when the Allies are going to land in Northwest Europe.

That seems almost unthinkable in the dark days of 1940.

- [Narrator] March, 1942,

Hitler issues the famous Directive 40,

the construction of the Atlantic Wall.

- The Atlantic Wall was one of

the largest construction projects of the 20th century.

It extended for more than 5,000 kilometers

along the French, the Dutch,

the Danish, and the Norwegian coastlines.

- Directive 40 very clearly indicates

that the Allies are coming.

The only question is, where and when?

- [Narrator] To guard against an Ally assault,

Hitler wants to create a line of defenses,

fortifications to prevent the Allies

from gaining a foothold in Western Europe.

- The Atlantic Wall

was a series of walls, or of defensive fortifications.

It involved gun emplacements with massive cannons

designed to fire out into the sea,

bunkers to allow machine guns to shoot

at any troops that tried to land on the coast,

anti-aircraft emplacements

to shoot down enemy bombers and aircraft.

- It's incredibly ambitious.

The scale of the Atlantic Wall, it's just unbelievable.

- It's one of the largest things ever built.

It does two things.

One, it is going to be

an absolutely amazing, impressive array of defenses aimed at

the possibility of an Allied landing in Western Europe.

So, in that sense, the wall is a real thing.

It's a strategic, defensive position.

The other reason for building it is for propaganda value.

- With the idea of the Atlantic Wall,

it's a big symbol of the new German state.

It's a symbol of the strength.

It is a symbol of saying,

"We're here to stay on these borders."

And that as a propaganda tool,

provides almost immediate benefits.

- [Narrator] Hitler uses this symbol

to inspire confidence in the German Army,

and fear in the Allied forces.

- I imagine approaching it from sea,

you can see the beach,

and eventually see these looming structures

that carry such weight and presence.

That's a message.

They're sending that message

right away, as soon as possible.

They're saying, "We're here.

We're not going anywhere.

You've gotta watch out."

- [Narrator] Hitler's orders to build these massive defenses

is a direct response to two ill-fated invasion attempts

in the previous two years.

- After the fall of France, Britain's the last man standing.

- [Narrator] On July 10th, 1940,

the Nazis begin the Battle of Britain.

- What the Battle of Britain is,

is a massive aerial campaign

led by the Luftwaffe under Hermann Goring.

And its intentions are to bomb the British into submission.

The problem in this planning is

that the British fight back extremely well.

They're unable to soften up the British defenses.

The British do not surrender.

And even more importantly, Hitler panics.

He loses patience,

and he loses confidence in the Luftwaffe.

And so he changes the game plan.

- In the summer of 1941,

Nazi forces turned east,

and attacked the Soviet Union

as part of Operation Barbarossa.

- By the winter of 1941-42, it looks like

the Germans are actually gonna be victorious...

[tanks traveling]

But then it all falls apart.

- [Narrator] The Red Army's retreat draws the Germans

into Russian cities,

forcing them to fight man to man,

and nullifying the German blitzkrieg tactic.

- It's clear that this campaign

is not going to be resolved anytime soon.

- [Narrator] Now with an enemy on both fronts,

Germany's defeat in the Soviet Union adds urgency

to the Atlantic Wall project.

A series of bunkers lies buried

in the sand outside the Hague.

Connected by a huge network of tunnels,

remnants of Nazi occupied Netherlands.

But why did the Nazis spend so much time and resources

building these huge fortifications?

Hitler felt that building a defensive wall

on the Western Front

would free up troops to send to the embattled East.

At the same time, making sure

that Germany wouldn't be hemmed in on both sides.

- If someone gave me this project,

to fortify that entire coast,

it's so overwhelming.

It's a massive area of land.

It's difficult to rain.

There's no access,

there's no existing infrastructure

to bring the materials in.

It's a huge, huge, huge undertaking.

You'd have to plan so much.

- [Narrator] The military installations at the Hague

are so crucial to the Nazi plan

that they draw extra attention

from the Nazi's top engineers.

- It was the organization

that taught the German government's engineering organization

that was responsible

for this massive building project of the Atlantic Wall.

- Really the best and the brightest

of engineers, architects, scientists

who developed all sorts of unique approaches

to the construction of bunkers,

and fortifications, gun placements.

- [Narrator] Designs for bunkers are drawn from a catalog,

which includes hundreds of approved bunker blueprints

that have proven effective in the past.

- This is no ad hoc construction project

made up on the spot.

This is the Regalbau design system.

And here at the Hague, and elsewhere in Nazi Europe,

the Germans had a very specific set of instructions,

almost a catalog that told them

how to go about building these types of fortifications.

- Some of the fighting positions are small,

just for a couple of soldiers.

And some of them are large enough

to house artillery that can fire all the way

across the English Channel to hit the Cliffs of Dover.

There is a broad range of types of positions,

but if there are,

standard patterns becomes a repetitive process.

- You've done structures like this before.

There's a standard to follow.

It's well-documented.

You just keep moving forward at a really aggressive pace.

- This was not just an average military contractor.

Fritz Freitag was a dedicated Nazi,

and he was a brilliant engineer,

and he also had the organizational skills

to realize what would be needed

for this kind of construction.

This guy could deliver exactly what was required,

two specifications.

In the case of the Hague, he used Dutch contract labor.

But in other parts of occupied Europe,

he was able to assemble all kinds of labor

to build these massive structures.

- The German labor situation is itself a labyrinth.

So, you have slave labor,

you have Jewish prisoners who were in concentration camps.

They're often marched to projects.

There's no irony that that a lot of the concentration camps

are near really important, economically viable situations.

So, most of these construction programs that we talk about,

including the wall,

involved slave labor.

The Hague in particular, there were contract laborers.

There were people who were locals who were forced into it.

They were compensated, but I'd be hesitant

to frame it in the sense that this is consensual,

because otherwise you get sent to a concentration camp,

or you're killed, or you're arrested and tortured.

These people have no choice,

but to work, and to do the bidding of the Nazis.

- [Narrator] The Nazis viewed the Dutch as close kin.

And as such, the Netherlands construction was carried out

by Dutch companies with a well-paid workforce.

Trucks brimming with laborers arrive

to help build the massive fortifications,

bringing men from occupied France and Belgium

to join the existing Dutch crew.

The men are a broad mix of tradesmen,

including electricians, carpenters, and masons.

- The network outside the Hague is

basically a city buried in the sand.

It's of massive proportion and grandiose Nazi project.

- When you change your mode of going

from aboveground to underground,

your conditions are wildly different.

As you excavate, the soil is sometimes self-supporting,

but when you think about tunneling, tunneling in sand,

there's nothing there.

There's no structure.

The soil can't support itself at all.

And so, you have to install temporary structure

that actually holds things up

before you get your full structure in place.

You're building up a masonry arch.

An arch is a structural element that can support loads,

but if you're missing that piece,

that sort of keystone that holds everything together,

it's just going to collapse.

It's the completeness of the structure

that's able to carry that load.

So, there's a lot of staging involved,

a lot of thought and planning.

And the effort behind that must have been horrendous really.

- 35,000 tons of concrete go

into the building of this project,

along with thousands of tons

of steel and wood designed

to reinforce the entire fortification.

- Constant delivery,

constant building form work, constant pouring,

constant stripping of that form work moving forward.

It is just an endless operation.

- This was a tremendous building project that required space

and it required building materials.

And so, the Nazis destroyed 3,000 houses,

and they took apart 2,500 other homes

to use the material and resources

from those building projects to build their fortifications.

- There's structures that exist.

They're built, there are people living in them, using them,

and you need a line of sight.

And you come in, and you level those buildings,

and you're so dialed in on your focus, what you need to do,

that that's not even a thought.

You just decimated a community, and built what you needed

to achieve your means of military force.

It's ruthless really.

- The result of this building project is

to leave 65,000 residents displaced.

- [Narrator] Shifting sands on the beaches of the Hague

reveal skeletons of World War II.

Teams of engineers, skilled contractors, and laborers

worked furiously to construct these fortifications

in anticipation of an Allied invasion into Western Europe.

The bunkers are primarily designed

to shield German artillery from Allied air raids,

complete with medical rooms,

and radar detection facilities.

But the structures are also residential buildings,

dormitories, kitchens, communal dining areas,

and even saunas are included in the designs

to make life for those stationed in the Hague

as comfortable as possible.

- Think about trying to live in these spaces.

They're made out of concrete.

Concrete has a particular field.

They're not spacious.

You don't have windows.

They are damp.

Your tunnels are quite narrow.

You're worried about being bombarded.

The sounds would echo through.

Everything about it is not inviting.

- [Narrator] To an attacking force,

the labyrinth of corridors can be disorienting.

- I would think that the zig-zagging nature of the tunnels

is a defensive mechanism.

It's slowing people down.

It's potentially creating pinch points

where you can manage that threat.

Think about throwing a grenade in there.

You're not likely to reach your intended target.

It's going to ricochet off the walls,

and get stuck right in the entrance there.

It's a control mechanism for any sort of attack.

- In the event that there's heavy fighting,

reinforcements moving up to the front need to know

what's situated where,

where certain types of ammunition need to be carried.

For efficient delivery of supplies and material,

one needs an address that they're heading to.

- These tunnels house thousands of German forces,

and it's clear from the markings

of the wall on these tunnels

that this was an extremely well-organized

and well-appointed system for these troops.

- [Narrator] PAK for anti-tank guns, K for coast,

and FLUW for aircraft spotters.

At its peak, 5,000 German officers lived in these bunkers,

and depended on these pointers

to safely and efficiently navigate the complex.

- An ants nest.

All of this activity and buzz hidden underneath these things

connected that there's just so much happening

that you don't even see.

How do we even begin to attack this station?

- [Narrator] For months,

the Nazis had been planning and carrying out construction

on a network of tunnels in the Hague

in anticipation of an Allied attack.

But one of the Nazi;s VIPs

is about to arrive on site to inspect the construction.

- Erwin Rommel is the most important general in 1943-44,

and he now pays a great deal of attention

to the Atlantic Wall.

He has to view the wall,

make decisions about what's needed to get it ready

for what will eventually be an Allied assault,

and then, to explain to the boss how doable that is.

And none of that is a very nice scenario,

if you're Erwin Rommel.

- [Narrator] Upon his arrival,

Rommel begins to reinforce the wall.

- When he takes over the defenses of Western Europe,

he understands one truth pretty quickly,

which is that they are inadequate for the Allied invasion.

- Rommel proceeds to make the landing

certainly as difficult as possible.

- [Narrator] He floods huge parts of sea land,

the westernmost province of the Netherlands,

forcing 60,000 sea landers to evacuate.

This is to ensure

that Allied paragliders drowned before reaching land.

Rommel also orders millions of landmines

to be planted along the beaches.

These are intended to work hand in hand

with the existing tank traps and ditches

to slow the enemy advance once on shore.

- It's a lot of effort

to control the beachfront, control that landing zone.

They were willing

to really throw any resource at it to make it happen.

- [Narrator] As well as anticipating a naval assault,

Rommel knows to expect attacks from the air.

His time fighting the British in North Africa

has given him first-hand experience

of the Allied's superior aircraft.

This leads to his most famous innovation.

- You have land that's open, that's inviting

for an aerial assault, for parachuters, for anything.

How do you protect that?

You need to take away the opportunity to land.

So, why don't you create a forest?

- Famously, thousands of wooden poles

that become nicknamed Rommel's asparagus,

are set up in kind of like a grid,

and they're tied with barbed wire.

This, of course, makes it very difficult

for troops landing to get up on the beach.

- It's pretty economical.

It's sustainable, right?

You find a tree nearby, you strip it,

you bury it, and you create this hazard.

It's not steel, it's not concrete.

It's easy to get there.

It's pretty effective.

- Initially, the Atlantic Wall was built

to deter an attack from British and American forces

across the English Channel.

But as the war continued,

Hitler believed that the Atlantic Wall would be a weapon,

a tool to defeat American and British forces.

And he came to wish for an Anglo-American invasion,

believing that he'd be able to destroy it

against the strength of the Atlantic Wall.

[upbeat music]

- [Narrator] The Atlantic Wall fortifications

located in the Hague are formidable.

Bunkers connected with a series of tunnels

intertwined their way across the landscape.

But it's not just a defensive structure.

The Hague's position vis-a-vis the United Kingdom,

makes it the perfect location

to launch an offensive against the Allied Army.

And the Nazis have a terrifying,

new development in store for Britain.

[upbeat music]

On the morning of September 8th, 1944,

the remaining residents of the Hague hear a strange rumble.

[rocket flying]

Though they're used to the noise

of wartime bombings and artillery fire,

this sound is different.

It was the sound of a new terror,

one the world had not witnessed yet,

streaking across the skies

over the English Channel towards London.

- They were weapons designed

with psychology in mind to terrify people.

The British, of course, called them buzz bombs,

because of the telltale noise that they made.

And they represent the cutting edge of Nazi technology.

- The V-2 was a remarkably advanced weapon.

In fact, it was the first guided ballistic missile.

And due to the Netherlands' proximity to the United Kingdom,

the Nazis used the Netherlands as a launching site

to send these V-2 missiles into England.

- [Narrator] The V-2 includes an onboard analog computer,

gyroscopes to determine its course,

and rudders to adjust its trajectory in the air.

- By virtue of their speed,

they're essentially impossible to stop.

- They were very fast, they were high flying,

they were unmanned.

These ones had a range of 200 miles,

so they could easily make it, and knock out parts of London.

They're better, faster, more explosives.

- By 1944, the Germans don't have the capacity

to mount bombing rigs anymore.

And increasingly, the Germans are suffering,

not only from shortage of aircraft,

but from a desperate shortage of trained crews.

They just haven't got time anymore.

So, potentially weapons like the V-2

could supplant the bombers.

- [Narrator] The V-2 launch sites at the Hague

are mobile pads capable of being removed

as quickly as they appear

to conceal their location from Allied aircraft.

- These mobile launch sites

were a logistical and engineering challenge

that required a huge amount of expertise,

a huge amount of manpower, and specialist equipment.

The rocket itself would be brought in by rail,

the explosive warheads would be brought in by trucks,

and then they'd be stored temporarily

before coming together to be assembled.

And they'd be assembled by expert technical crews

who would need specialist equipment

like mobile cranes and command vehicles

to lift the rocket up into its vertical position.

And even when the rocket was in that vertical position,

it could still take an hour and a half

before it was ready to be fired.

- [Narrator] Between September of 1944 and March of 1945,

more than 1,000 A-4 and V-2 rocket launches

are staged in and around the city.

- V-1 and V-2s had been used already,

and launched from various sites in occupied Europe.

But now the V-2s will be launched from the Hague

to rain down on England.

[rocket flying]

[upbeat music]

- While the Atlantic Wall claims numerous sites

along the Nazi occupied coast,

the sheer scale of the defensive and offensive operations

at the Hague is set apart.

Underground bunker networks even carve their way

beyond the city limits

to the nearby seaside town of Scheveningen.

[upbeat music]

Here sits an imposing command bunker

built to house Waffen-SS officers.

The Waffen-SS are a paramilitary branch

of Hitler's special police, Schutzstaffel.

This bunker is an example of the Regalbau 622,

a strength class B bunker,

designed and built to house up to 20 men.

It includes two sleeping chambers,

a combined guard room and shooting range, and a gas lock.

It's highly unusual

for so many Waffen-SS members to be stationed here.

The base is so close to the coast,

it would usually have been

left to the Kriegsmarine, the German Navy.

This increase in combat officers

combined with the enormous size of the base,

begs the question,

what else are the Nazis protecting here?

Hidden a short distance away under the guise of a farmhouse,

a new and mysterious structure begs investigation.

- It just looks like a kind of big, ugly farmhouse.

When you start to get closer,

there's weird things about it.

It just starts to seem,

well, there's something else under here.

This is different.

This isn't how we would build a farmhouse.

- It was made to look like your average barn

with walls painted with a brick pattern,

and the roof disguised to look like average roof tiles.

- [Narrator] In the gardens around the building,

tobruks are discovered,

clearly meant to defend the structure.

- As you're walking through this,

you're seeing huge concrete beams.

It's not just carrying its own weight

and the expected forces on it from the environment.

It's meant to withstand blasts.

It's a fully concrete structure all the way to the roof.

This isn't how we would build a farmhouse.

These angles, these ideas, it just doesn't feel quite right.

It makes no sense.

It is way over-designed.

It's incredibly heavy-handed,

so you'd know that it's anticipated to be for shelling.

It's part of the war.

They built it in a way to withstand forces

that were above and beyond any design constraints

that we would typically design to today.

- This had a four meter thick roof

and two meter thick walls.

In the very center of this enormous bunker

was what's become known as a concrete shoebox,

49 meters long, 17 meters wide, and 15 meters high.

- [Narrator] Beneath this giant structure,

lie two massive diesel generators

capable of powering the entire facility.

- This bespoke construction was

actually a collection of fortifications that were enormous,

far bigger than any of the standardized bunker designs

in dimensions in the area.

- [Narrator] Known as the Clingendael Bunker,

the structure alone cost

over 2 million guilders to construct,

a fortune at that time.

This massive bunker is

made up of a collection of fortifications

known as Stutzpunktgruppe.

This group includes

a command bunker, a troop bunker, latrine bunker,

all connected by underground tunnels, and escape routes.

- It doesn't look like all the other bunkers.

It's a little fancy.

It's different.

The design is different.

The aesthetic is a bit different.

And it's heavily fortified as well.

- [Narrator] Two anti-aircraft emplacements

are perched upon the roof, disguised as chimneys.

Accessible by ladder from the interior,

these perches give a 360 degree view of the entire estate

and a clear view of the skies in every direction.

- From the outside,

the bunker was protected

by its own anti-tank ditch that surrounded it.

- [Narrator] Despite its heavy defenses

and formidable fire power,

contained within the command bunker

are opulent quarters for its chief resident.

Spacious bathing facilities, and a large bathroom area.

Private offices,

including radar detection and radio communication devices.

Rounding out the amenities located here

is a large double-kitchen.

- Why is it that way?

Is it for someone?

Is it for something?

What was the main purpose of this bunker?

Because it's not just a bunker.

- [Narrator] The Nazis were nothing, if not consistent.

And fortifications had strict standards for a reason.

Why then is this bunker unique?

The only one of its kind, made at a tremendous cost.

- I don't think this is

just for a bunch of soldiers potentially,

or it'd be really, really important soldiers

or very paranoid ones.

- [Narrator] Why is this the only bunker of its kind?

- In this defensive system, the Hague,

there is one special bunker there,

kind of the governor's bunker.

- [Narrator] This bunker is ordered,

especially by its chief resident,

Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart.

Reichskommissars or commissioners of the empire

are responsible for the ruthless interpretation

of the Nazi regime

with an eye for instilling long-term Nazi ideals

in occupied territories.

In short, these governors

are seen as one of the key elements

in Nazi world domination.

And Seyss-Inquart desperately wants

his bunker to reflect his status.

- Seyss-Inquart was a big, Austrian Nazi

who facilitated Germany's takeover of Austria.

So, his reward for that

was the governorship of the Netherlands.

- [Narrator] As the largest structure

on the whole Dutch-Atlantic Wall,

Seyss-Inquart's bunker is a contentious undertaking,

and is strongly opposed

by the minister of armaments and war production.

- Albert Speer assumes the job from Todt

in 1942 after Todt's death.

- When it came to allocating resources

as armaments minister,

it's not surprising then, that Schubert would be

against investing time, and effort, and material

into what I understand to be

a relatively ostentatious structure

that ultimately served no functional military purpose.

- And so, he builds this extra, opulent bunker.

He's not only saying, "I'm better,

and I feel I deserve this."

He's also then saying,

"I am higher in the hierarchy than you are,

because I have something more ostentatious than you do."

- That speaks fundamentally

to this avaricious and competitive nature of the Nazis,

that, "I'm bigger than you are.

I'm more important than you are.

And my status has to be evidenced by a giant bunker."

And I think Rommel knows that.

My understanding is,

when he takes over all defensive planning for the wall,

he's the first to point out

that there are some really ridiculous things,

not the least of which is Seyss-Inquart's bunker.

[upbeat music]

- [Narrator] Commander Erwin Rommel has taken charge

of the defenses on the Western Front

with remarkable progress

on the Atlantic Wall and the Hague in particular.

Massive bunkers line the coast,

interconnected with a series of tunnels.

He's ordered troops

to bury millions of landmines in the sand.

Forests of posts linked by barbed wire,

known as Rommelspargel or Rommel's asparagus.

But careless spending of time and resources

is causing Nazi tensions to rise.

The looming threat of an Allied invasion

is causing constant disagreements

among the German high command.

- The question is,

how best to defend Western Europe,

given the limited resources available to the Germans?

We have Rommel who is arguing

that the Germans need to put their fortifications

as far forward as possible,

because he believes

that if the Allies are able

to establish a foothold or a bridgehead,

that it will be difficult to undo that.

But by the same token,

it may not take fully into account the extent of coastline

that has to be protected and the costs involved.

And that's where other viewpoints comes into play.

- [Narrator] The fortifications in the Hague

and along the Atlantic Wall

are not supported unanimously by high command.

The Nazi commander-in-chief, Gerd von Rundstedt,

believes that moving the equipment inland

will give the Germans a better chance

at counterattacking the coming Allied invasion.

- Not all of the Nazi generals attached

the same importance to the wall as Hitler,

but ultimately it was Hitler's view that held sway.

- The moment that Hitler and senior leadership

who aren't well-versed in military strategies

start to intervene in the war,

military leaders deeply resented.

- Historians often describe

the Nazi system and the Nazi party

as chaotic authoritarianism.

It's built on conflict.

Dog versus dog.

Dog eats dog.

Hitler encourages that.

He often gives people ranks and appointments

in the same sphere, so that they conflict with each other.

Lines of authority are constantly crossing.

- If your course of action

was not sitting well with the Fuhrer,

then you had a serious problem.

This inflexibility in the face

of a dynamic, changing situation

was the Achilles' heel for the Nazis.

- [Narrator] Compounding the issue

of ineffective leadership,

the pioneering advances in German weaponry

is also beginning to show its cracks.

Nazi plans to use the Hague

as a launch point for German V-2s begin to crumble

under the pressures of war, and technological failure.

- The technology behind the V-2 rocket was groundbreaking,

but it was also in its infancy.

And this became obvious as more rockets were launched,

many missing their major city targets,

some not even making it to England,

and crashing into the North Sea.

Over 1,000 rockets were launched from the Hague.

87 of them failed completely.

- [Narrator] To make matters worse,

many of the rockets are in poor condition.

The parts are relatively delicate,

and their prolonged time in transit,

and days spent in field stores mean

that vital components often corrode.

- Despite the engineers being there,

trying to assemble these mobile launch pads for the rockets,

things would just not work.

- [Narrator] Although many thousands

of Allied civilians died at the hands of V-2 rockets,

it's estimated 20,000 force laborers died

while constructing the missiles themselves,

meaning that these weapons cost the Nazis more

than they ever gained.

- And so, the V-2 pressed into service very early,

made a dramatic appearance in the war,

but it never fully lived up to its true potential

as this new wonder weapon.

- [Narrator] A series of mounting defeats

on the Eastern Front,

and dwindling fuel and other resources,

put the Germans on the defensive.

And yet, work continues on the Atlantic Wall.

German officials know the project is

too ambitious as a late stage defensive strategy,

but Hitler refuses to abandon his idea.

Against formal advice,

he insists on pursuing its construction.

Why was Hitler so stubbornly set

in his vision of the Atlantic Wall?

Did it represent something for him

beyond its functional purpose?

- When generals and others are suggesting

that it should be canceled,

part of the decision making that's going through there is,

"If we stop it, we're admitting failure."

And it's gonna go from a positive morale boost

to a negative morale boost

as news of giving up on the Atlantic Wall would get spread.

So, even if it's not completed,

as long as it's continuing, it's not a failure.

- [Narrator] As the war progresses,

and stresses on the Nazis increase,

the Dutch too begin

to change their relationship with the Germans,

and the resistance grows.

The increasingly unrealistic demands

pushed construction crews to a breaking point.

- In the Netherlands,

they are working with contract laborers

who went discontented,

make it clear that they're discontent.

There's only so much force which could be used.

- If you are on that workforce,

and you're not keen on contributing to these builds,

you need to put more water in that mix,

you could miss some bags of cement.

In an operation that's moving so rapidly

and at such a big scale,

you're gonna miss things.

- [Narrator] Even Erwin Rommel's expert strategizing

can't get the Atlantic Wall back on track.

He misses his May 1st, 1944 deadline.

Even though much of the work is complete,

the coast has been heavily fortified

with miles of Rommel's asparagus,

millions of landmines buried in the sand,

510 reinforced concrete bunkers

connected by a series of passageways.

Thousands of troops are stationed in the Hague

with months of supplies,

waiting in anticipation of an Allied invasion.

[upbeat music]

On June 6th, 1944,

the Allied armies begin the D-Day invasion.

The greatest defense project in European history

would be at the heart of the Nazis' downfall.

- In the initial hours of June 6th, 1944,

Hitler thought that Normandy was the diversion.

- The Atlantic Wall defenses placed heavy emphasis

on fortifying the Belgian and Dutch coasts,

including in the vicinity of the Hague.

And the German high command, but Hitler in particular,

were so thoroughly convinced

that this was where the main Allied effort would come

that even after Allied forces landed

in Normandy on the 6th of June,

Hitler wasn't convinced that this was the real invasion,

but rather that it was a faint,

because he couldn't figure,

why would the Allies go all the way to Normandy?

It's much further from the bases

where the invasion forces were marshaling in England.

It's further from Berlin,

compared to landing sites in the low countries.

It's a cul-de-sac, it's a peninsula.

It didn't seem to be a rational choice for landing sites.

- The question on the battlefield often is

massing your force at the weakest point somewhere,

not spreading your lines too thin.

And this was enormous force that was going

to punch through those fortifications at any cost.

- What happens at Normandy is

that the German defenses are there,

but they're not at their optimum size.

And they're largely caught off guard.

- Even as the battle of Normandy

was hanging in the balance,

and ultimately the war on the Western Front,

the German high command maintains powerful forces,

the German 15th Army,

in the low countries

waiting for a second cross-channel assault that never comes.

- [Narrator] With forces spread out along the Atlantic Wall,

and thousands awaiting imminent invasion in the Hague,

the Atlantic Wall installations in Northern France

fall to landing forces.

- The Allies get aground, which wasn't supposed to happen.

So, all these fortifications, all these things

that were supposed to stop them in the water failed.

And now they've got a leak.

And now the Allies are

pouring hundreds of thousands of men in armor,

and there's no stopping them.

- [Narrator] As the Allies advance beyond the wall,

the German Army and civilians are shocked by the news.

- As a German citizen,

to see this wall crumble would be pretty shocking,

because you've been fed this narrative, this idea

that you have this massive Atlantic Wall,

these concrete walls, these bunkers that are impenetrable,

that are incredibly powerful, that are domineering.

To have the Allies past them,

that would probably be pretty scary,

and would shake the foundation in the the belief somehow.

- This becomes in a really obvious sense

a monument of futility.

They're building monuments

as the Allies are amassing a huge army, and coming for you.

And don't forget the Russians who are coming the other way.

There again speaks to this disconnect

that the Germans were building, and creating,

and tunneling, and digging right to the very end,

even though their fate was sealed.

- The full scope of what's going on

would only be known to the higher echelons,

rather than the common troop that's on the ground.

It's easier to fight in a losing battle,

if you think your country is doing well overall.

It's easier to stop fighting,

if you think you're losing everywhere.

- [Narrator] But for those stationed in the Hague,

news of the invasion in Normandy

must have come as an incredible shock.

Though thousands of troops,

the Waffen-SS and Nazi high command await an invasion here.

Hitler's fortified city never sees action or completion.

- This was a massive enterprise,

and the Nazis poured millions of tons of concrete

into this project.

And yet it never fully lived up to what Hitler wanted to be.

He had hoped to have 15,000 bunkers stretched

across this wall.

The Germans only ended up building 6,000.

And so, the wall,

while it was formidable, was never truly finished.

And it's clear that Hitler stacked

far too much value on this wall

as a defensive fortification.

- So, they only got a fraction of the work actually done.

And it's staggering to think about that,

because these structures are incredibly imposing.

They're huge, the networks, the tunnels,

the trenches, the bunkers, everything.

The scale is significant.

It's really, really big.

And to know that that was only a fraction

of the work that they were gonna do,

but that wasn't even as big as Hitler wanted it,

man, that's wild.

- [Narrator] In the end,

the chronic lack of labor and raw materials,

as well as disagreements between Nazi leaders means

that the Atlantic Wall never reaches its full potential.

- Often, we find that Hitler, in his decision making,

was prone towards the fantastic,

rather than towards what's really achievable.

So, it does not surprise me at all

that the Atlantic Wall failed

ultimately to do what it was supposed to do.

- It's so big, and it's so imperfect along the way

that it is indefensible.

- The building of 6,000 bunkers,

and the parts of the Atlantic Wall that were built

were significant defensive fortifications.

But for the Atlantic Wall to be truly effective,

to truly be a wall

against which invasion would be impossible,

would've required Hitler's full dream

of 15,000 bunkers being built.

And this was simply far too much,

far too much for even this Nazi empire

harnessing its engineers and forced labor.

Too much to accomplish in any reasonable amount of time.

And so, a half-built Atlantic Wall was

perhaps as good as no Atlantic Wall at all.

- [Narrator] Placing all his bets on the Hague,

and refusing to change course

cost the Nazis dearly in Northern France.

In the meantime, convoluted command structures,

diminishing supplies, and inferior aircrafts

all work to undermine the Nazis' grip on Western Europe.

Now, these deserted structures at the Hague

stand as a testament

to Nazi dysfunction and ultimate collapse.

To this day, millions of tons of concrete

litter the European coastline.

These ghostly structures tell of a Nazi promise unfulfilled

of a world in which Hitler plans to conquer Britain,

and successfully staves off Allied attack.

Imagine if the strategy had worked.

Imagine if the Allies' attack landed in the Hague,

and broke against these fortifications.

- It could potentially be devastating.

It might not have gotten by it.

It might not have had that weakness

that we were able to exploit.

And even though it was a severe fight,

still, it could have been worse.

We could have not made it.

[upbeat music]