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00:00For over a hundred years, the Orient Express, the world's most iconic train, crossed Europe.
00:13If you were to be travelling on the Orient Express in its golden age,
00:17this is the kind of carriage you would be travelling on.
00:21Until it's withdrawn, the train tied Europe together.
00:25Prince Ferdinand was quoted in saying that the Orient Express is of vital interest to us.
00:32A service famed for its glamour and luxury.
00:35This space was for the creme de la creme, the best of the best.
00:39That became world famous.
00:42The Cold War made the Orient Express the hotbed of spice.
00:47And whose legacy is still felt.
00:50Let's say 150 years ago you came here with the Orient Express.
00:53You would have seen exactly the same mosque of today.
00:59In this series, we'll take a 2,000-mile journey across Europe.
01:05It's always a very exciting moment when we are doing a route for the first time.
01:11And follow a new luxury train as it retraces the fabled route.
01:16Exploring the history of a golden age of train travel along the way.
01:23In the golden age of rail, a single ticket on the Orient Express network
01:34took passengers from London all the way to Istanbul, the gateway to the east.
01:41Twentys' Vagon Lille, the company that ran the Orient Express,
01:45had a luxury train network that stretched across three continents.
01:49At the core of this network were their multiple Orient Express services.
01:57After crossing the channel, passengers from London would board an Orient Express train in Paris
02:02before travelling through southern Germany and Austria on their way towards Turkey.
02:07On this part of the legendary journey, luxury transformed...
02:17What you see here is the translation of the Orient Express idea into individual mobility.
02:27A unique artistic form...
02:29Here we store about six to seven hundred different puppets.
02:35And Hitler's dark obsession.
02:37It showed that the Nazi were able to run the Orient Express just as well as another country.
02:45From 1883 until 2007, the Orient Express left Paris daily, heading east.
02:57Although it's been years since the legendary train last left Paris,
03:01modern luxury trains still visit the city to follow in its footsteps.
03:05It's always a very exciting moment when we are doing a route for the first time.
03:15Dori Keres, the chief cabin attendant, is making the final preparations
03:19before the first passengers arrive aboard the Golden Eagle Danube Express.
03:24It's all about us striving for perfection, to give our guests a journey of a lifetime
03:33and for them to know that the moment they step on board,
03:37we'll do our best to attend to all their needs
03:39and they really don't have to worry about any of the details
03:42because everything is going to be taken care of.
03:46It's not really about getting from one city to another,
03:50but really enjoying the time in between, the time spent on board
03:54and just doing a journey in a very relaxed and also in a very stylish way
03:59and mingled with other guests.
04:01It's a great honour to be travelling at the footsteps of the Great Orient Express.
04:11The Gare de Lyon is one of Paris' most impressive stations.
04:16It opened in 1899 and became a symbol of early 20th century luxury.
04:21It's here where Europe's elite would board Le Train Bleu to the French Riviera,
04:27a sister service to the Orient Express.
04:32In 1901, a restaurant was opened above the station
04:36to cater to the great and the good before they boarded their luxury trains.
04:40Today, it's hosting the passengers waiting to board the Golden Eagle Danube Express's inaugural service
04:48from Paris to Istanbul.
04:52Back on the platform, the final preparations are complete.
04:57For Dori, this is the most exciting part of the journey.
05:00With all 64 passengers and 38 crew on board, it's time to depart.
05:08As the train begins its journey through France, it springs to life.
05:24In the kitchens, preparations begin for the first meal on board
05:27as the two dining carriages are prepared and guests settle into their cabins.
05:33For the next six days, this train is a luxury hotel on wheels.
05:41For Bill Tenner, this trip is a dream come true.
05:46We've always dreamed to go on the Orient Express
05:48and all the magical, historical, mythical characters and events that occurred on it.
05:56I think we all like the mystery, the romance, the excitement.
06:01When you travel on a train like this, what are you really doing?
06:04You're going back in history.
06:06You're living a life that's bygone,
06:08back into the days of Hercule Poirot and murder on the Orient Express.
06:14And so there's a certain magic, a certain comfort, a certain fantasy.
06:20Bill has high expectations for this luxurious journey.
06:23We came along with the expectations of sort of reliving, if you like, history
06:30and having a darn good look at a lot of nice geography
06:33but in a very relaxed and very convenient and comfortable way.
06:37And I think just to travel across Europe by train is quite unique.
06:41When you fly, you see nothing.
06:43Here, not only do you see things, you're embedded in them.
06:46At the heart of the train is its bar car, named Balaton.
06:55It's here guests sit, relax and enjoy a tipple or two.
07:00From its very first journey, the Orient Express was known for its champagne.
07:05In the 1950s, the company had 18,000 bottles in their stores,
07:11ready to be loaded onto the trains.
07:15It was served ice cold to passengers as views of the region's vineyards rolled by.
07:22It's a tradition that this luxury train proudly continues.
07:26During its golden era, it took the Orient Express almost eight hours
07:34to reach its first border crossing.
07:37Just outside Strasbourg, it switched engines and continued into Germany.
07:43One of its first stops was Pforzheim.
07:48Over 250 years ago, a Frenchman set up a pocket watch factory here.
07:56By 1913, more than half its residents worked in the city's jewellery
08:00and watchmaking industries.
08:03It soon became known as Goldstadt, or the Golden City,
08:07with the Orient Express connecting the merchants to wealthy clientele.
08:13Even today, around 75% of Germany's jewellery is made here.
08:18One of its most influential designers is Victor Meyer.
08:21Victor Meyer was my great-grandfather,
08:27and he was a typical son of Pforzheim in the late 19th century.
08:31He was trained as a goldsmith at the world-famous Pforzheim Jewellery School,
08:36and after that, he spent four or five years in Vienna
08:40learning more about jewellery-making.
08:43Today, Dr Marcus Moyer is carrying on the family business,
08:47one that, from the very beginning, relied on the Orient Express.
08:55You cannot just sell from a catalogue.
08:58You have to meet your customers to understand what they really need.
09:02But also, it was important to see the trends in real life.
09:08The Orient Express helped make Art Nouveau,
09:11with its flowing lines and natural motifs,
09:14fashionable in the late 19th century.
09:16It was an aesthetic that Victor Meyer embraced wholeheartedly.
09:21You arrived in Paris at 7 o'clock in the morning.
09:25You spent the day getting inspired,
09:27and then in the evening you travelled home on the Orient Express,
09:30back to Pforzheim.
09:34By the 1920s, Pforzheim was one of the largest jewellery manufacturers in the world,
09:40employing more than 30,000 people.
09:42Today, in one of their workshops,
09:46Victor Meyer is making the company's iconic signet rings.
09:51Signet rings go back to the Roman times,
09:54and also in the 19th century they were very popular.
09:57So, when riding the Orient Express,
10:00you would have seen many signet rings.
10:02I can show you here our engraver.
10:06You see, it's now engraving a pattern of leaves of a signet ring.
10:11That's a work that takes hours,
10:13but that's the beauty of the pieces,
10:15that they're really intricate.
10:20And of course, for signet rings,
10:22you have to engrave a coat of arms,
10:24either in stone or in gold.
10:27And it's a technique that was used predominantly in the 19th century.
10:32After the engraving, the last step of production
10:38is giving it a beautiful shine and polish.
10:41So, what we see here, the stone has already been set,
10:44and the surface of the gold is full of scratches and little indentations,
10:48and she's now cleaning the surface.
10:50So, here, she's spending a lot of time
10:54to make sure that it has a smooth surface.
10:58It's like a surgery.
11:00If you use too much pressure, you destroy the shape.
11:04Markus is proud to keep alive traditional techniques.
11:08Engraving a gemstone or engraving metal
11:11is something that is almost lost.
11:14We think there's not more than 30 people
11:16who can still engrave a stone like that in Germany.
11:19It's an almost died-out art.
11:27The client that buys our product today
11:30is probably a similar personality
11:32than the customer who was using the Orient Express in the 19th century.
11:37Because they loved design, they loved elegance,
11:41they loved style,
11:42and it's really a heritage that we are very proud of.
11:49After stopping in Forzheim,
12:02the train pushed onwards heading for the industrial city of Stuttgart.
12:06Stuttgart's setting in the Necker Valley
12:11posed serious challenges for railway engineers.
12:15For over 100 years, the city's station has been a terminus,
12:19as the geography prevented a through-line.
12:23Meaning Orient Express passengers would have changed locomotives here,
12:27then reversed out the way they came.
12:33The city's steep hills have inspired unique engineering solutions.
12:38Stuttgart's trams, for example,
12:40are powered through every wheel to climb the slope.
12:42For the steepest hills, an ingenious rack railway was built.
12:49Affectionately known as the Zeka,
12:52cogs under the trains connect with racks on the track
12:55to pull the trains upwards.
12:58While the trams are a recent addition,
13:01there's still a railway that would feel familiar
13:03to passengers on the Orient Express.
13:05Since 1929, the Stuttgart cable car
13:12has carried people from the city
13:14to the forest cemetery above.
13:18The original carriages are still in use today.
13:22Handcrafted from teak and adorned with brass and enamel,
13:26passengers are transported back to the golden age of railways.
13:29Deep underground is still the original machinery from the 1920s.
13:39Every 20 minutes, it springs to life,
13:42pulling a 550-metre cable which connects to the two cars.
13:47This unique train is still part of Stuttgart's public transport network
13:52and offers a glimpse of the 1920s glamour of the Orient Express.
13:59Founded around 950 A.D.,
14:11by the late 19th century, Stuttgart was thriving.
14:14The city industrialised and became a manufacturing hub.
14:17In the 1880s, it became central
14:20to a revolutionary new form of transport,
14:23the brainchild of engineer Carl Benz.
14:27Marcus Breitschwert is head of Mercedes-Benz Heritage.
14:36And its museum is home to over 160 vehicles,
14:40from the earliest models to the most covetable.
14:44It all started with this.
14:47Okay, so what you see here is basically the first patented car in the world,
14:55invented in 1886 by Carl Benz.
15:00It's a four-stroke engine with a flying wheel here,
15:04with a flat belt, wheels, which then transfer the power straight here down.
15:11And here you have the chains, which give the car the power to drive.
15:16Two passengers can sit here.
15:18A little bit of a, let's say, delicate steering.
15:23And here the handbrake, there is only one gear forward and no reverse.
15:31It went up to 15 kilometres an hour,
15:34which doesn't sound very impressive,
15:37but it was by far faster than any pedestrian could go.
15:43And so big step forward in the history of mankind's mobility.
15:49For decades, inventors had been trying to create a vehicle
15:56driven by a combustion engine.
15:59Other inventors got close,
16:01but Carl Benz was the first to design, build and test one,
16:06supported by his wife, Bertha.
16:09She was wealthy.
16:11He could invest a lot of money into founding his own company.
16:15Without his wife, Carl Benz, as gifted, talented and dedicated he was,
16:21he never would have made it.
16:23She basically did the most important marketing stint in the history of the car,
16:32as she decided to take her two sons and to travel from Mannheim,
16:39where they lived, to the city of Pforzheim, which is a hundred kilometres.
16:45And afterwards, it was quite clear, this machine doesn't kill anybody
16:51and can be manoeuvred by a woman and her sons.
17:00As luxury cars were developed in Stuttgart,
17:04inspiration was taken from the Orient Express.
17:07So when the Orient Express would stop at Stuttgart on a regular base,
17:15people in this area were absolutely thrilled about it.
17:20It was also a measurement how luxury, driven by style,
17:27could be translated into the new product of luxury cars.
17:32By the 1930s, Mercedes-Benz cars had become faster
17:38and more technologically advanced.
17:41A world apart from the genteel charm of a journey on the Orient Express.
17:47But the two had more in common than you might think.
17:50This now is in the 1930s, the ultimate luxury at that time,
17:59very much inspired by the Pullman cars.
18:05Pullman railway cars were invented by American George Pullman in 1859.
18:11A concept so successful, it inspired the Orient Express.
18:15Mercedes-Benz customers expected their cars to offer the same level of exclusivity and comfort.
18:24Drive was really to match and to even outdo the luxury of those cars.
18:31This one is a masterpiece of what has been possible at that time.
18:39You have an advanced suspension compared to anything else.
18:43Very long wheelbase.
18:45As you see, it's a wide vehicle with a wide stance.
18:48It has a very strong engine for the time.
18:52The top speed is around 100 miles an hour, roughly.
18:56This 770 Grand Mercedes was built for Emperor Hirohito of Japan.
19:04And it comes with some unique features.
19:07This one is armoured and very solid.
19:13What you can see also here on the crescent theme,
19:15the flower here, which is the emperor's specific flower.
19:20And if you look here into the inside, that was the ultimate luxury.
19:27And you have a window inside, which you can move up.
19:31And also you have here the special seat for a direct adjunct to the monarch.
19:39Now, what you see here is the driver had a ladder seat and the passenger was sitting on the finest fabric available.
19:51Nowadays, the ladder is more expensive than fabric.
19:55Those days, it was the other way around.
19:57And you couldn't get anything more expensive and more advanced than this car.
20:04What you see here is basically the translation of the Orient Express idea into individual mobility, individual use.
20:16Mercedes-Benz continues to innovate in Stuttgart.
20:24Today, new battery technology is being developed that aims to end the era of fossil fuel-powered cars.
20:31Fourteen hours after leaving Paris, having travelled almost 1,000 kilometres through France and Germany,
20:44the Orient Express approached Munich.
20:50The city was a railway hub where routes across Europe converged.
20:56It was a key stop for the Orient Express.
20:58But not just for its passengers, the Orient Express was obsessed with making sure that everything was perfect at all times.
21:07To maintain the train's high standards, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits opened workshops all over Europe.
21:16One of the largest was here, in Munich.
21:21For decades, it's been shut off to the public.
21:24But there are still some who remember it as it was.
21:28Wow.
21:34Andreas Braun knew this place during its final years of operation in the 1970s.
21:42It's very fine to see it again.
21:47This is the first time he's been back in 25 years.
21:50Although it's now used for storage, the building is much as Andreas remembers it.
22:10I think the building is original and we see it here.
22:17The parts are from the architecture of this time, 1910 to 1920.
22:24If an Orient Express carriage developed a fault, it will be brought here.
22:31The wagons come in here and we had a platform for the parts of the cars that were cleaned and then there, they will be checked.
22:44Every carriage underwent a thorough inspection.
22:48Wheels, axles, suspension and brakes were carefully checked for signs of wear.
22:53Even the woodwork, upholstery and wiring were examined.
22:58The beds, toilets, washrooms, electric and so on is most in a bad condition and so you have to renew it.
23:09The windows came out and normally, for a big repair, all metal parts will be sandblasted and then fresh coated.
23:24The workshop opened in 1913 and is just one of four on a site that covered 60,000 square meters and employed over 560 workers.
23:34The big windows and arched roofs may be impressive, but they made the workshop bitterly cold in the winter.
24:04Here is one of the old heating engines, oil burned.
24:10These boilers gave the warm hole here inside.
24:14I remember very cold winters here, yeah.
24:17The workers, they need about 18, 20, 21 centigrade inside for working because you have to do with little screws and so on.
24:27It took six to eight weeks to fully repair and refurbish a carriage and get it back up to the Orient Express's exacting standard.
24:40The workshop closed in 2000, but it's found a new life with members of the local community.
24:46Meaning that where once Orient Express's carriages were serviced, now cars are being rebuilt.
25:05Munich has long been considered one of Germany's most beautiful cities.
25:09It's ancient streets were transformed from 1876 when the first tramway was installed.
25:17The railways were central to Munich, with the Orient Express the jewel in its crown.
25:23But in the 1920s, Munich was home to a man who hated the Orient Express.
25:28So we are now in the area of Munich, where the Nazi party had organised all the most important administrative offices.
25:45One of the most important buildings used to be the so-called Führerbau.
25:51That was the office of Adolf Hitler.
25:53And here around us, in all the buildings, we had the administrative offices of the Nazis.
26:10As the Orient Express was at its most popular in the 1920s, Hitler's rise to power began here, as he attempted to overthrow the German government.
26:20With about 2,000 members of the Nazi party, he will go from one of the most important breweries of that time, intending a military coup inside the city.
26:37The plotters hoped to march on Berlin, but they only made it as far as Munich's city centre, where there was a gun battle with the police.
26:4516 Nazis were killed.
26:50Hitler was arrested and condemned to five years of prison.
26:57During this time, he was able to write the book Mein Kampf.
27:02Whilst writing Mein Kampf, Hitler came to see Germany's defeat in World War I as a national humiliation that needed re-addressing.
27:14His anger centred on Germany's surrender in 1918, which was signed in a carriage owned by the company that ran the Orient Express.
27:23They chose a coach belonging to one of the famous trains, the Société des Wagons-Lits, in France.
27:34And this wagon was actually the mobile office of the Maréchal Foch.
27:41Ferdinand Foch was the commander-in-chief of the Allied armies, who negotiated the armistice.
27:47It was a symbol for the capsulation of Germany after the First World War.
27:56And so France was one of the countries that forced Germany to sign.
28:02During his rise to power, Hitler came to see this coach as a symbol of Germany's humiliation.
28:10When France was defeated by Germany in 1940, it was firmly on Hitler's mind.
28:15So the coach was, from the beginning on, for Hitler, such a strong symbol to show France that Nazi Germany was able to find his strength again and to use those symbols against France.
28:35The railway carriage was taken back to the same forest in northern France, where, in a reversal of history, the French were forced to sign a humiliating surrender.
28:51Hitler was able to transform a symbol of defeat to a symbol of triumph.
28:58Even then, Hitler's hatred of the Orient Express was not satiated.
29:06He tore up all the country's contracts with the famous train.
29:10It was not able to travel through Germany and Austria.
29:14And the normal way would have been from Paris to Istanbul, but we had a big gap in the middle of it, so it could not run anymore.
29:22Determined to show that the Orient Express wasn't special, Hitler seized the Orient Express carriages in Germany and established his own Nazi-run alternative.
29:32And the carriages that were inside Germany were only used for the most important Nazi members of the party and used as a kind of privilege for them.
29:46It was just a propaganda coup.
29:49And it showed, actually, that the Nazis were able to run the Orient Express just as well as another country.
29:58The Nazi-run train became a target for the French resistance, often with help from Orient Express staff, who knew the carriages well.
30:12Seven conductors were executed for their part in the resistance.
30:17Many others were sent to concentration camps.
30:28It wasn't just Orient Express conductors who stood up to Hitler.
30:33As the war dragged on, resistance to the Nazis reached Munich too, sparked by young soldiers shaken by the atrocities they had witnessed on the Eastern Front.
30:44They realised what the Nazi regime is doing there, and they start to fight against this politic, trying to motivate the Munich population to criticise the Nazi regime.
30:58And they started to fight against this revolution.
31:00Called the White Rose, the resistance movement was founded by students at Munich University and included medical student Hans Scholl.
31:10Hans Scholl has a sister. She was called Sophie Scholl.
31:14And as she entered into the movement, she's only 19 years old, a very young woman, very deeply convinced that what they are doing is the right thing.
31:25The students wrote a series of pamphlets denouncing Nazi war crimes, which they distributed here in the university.
31:34But they were aware that they were being watched.
31:38Really scared of what is going to happen.
31:41They are absolutely conscient of the danger they are in.
31:45Sophie Scholl will take the last pamphlet she has in her bag,
31:48and she will throw them from the balcony into the courtyard of the university.
31:55And this is the proof that we needed to arrest her and the two other members.
32:04They will get brought to the Gestapo.
32:07There they will be tortured and found guilty.
32:1248 hours later, they will be guillotined.
32:16The group's final pamphlet was smuggled out of Germany after their death,
32:25and later dropped by the Allies across the nation to change public perception of Nazism.
32:32So this is the little memorial of the White Roses.
32:37This little memorial shows, although Munich was the capital of the Nazi party,
32:47not everybody agreed with the dictator.
32:50After the war, Waggon-Li began reclaiming their lost trains,
33:01which had been turned into military outposts, even brothels.
33:05Many were simply abandoned.
33:09On 27th September 1945, just four months after VE Day,
33:15the first Orient Express left Paris for Athens.
33:20It wasn't luxurious, but it signalled the rebirth of the legendary network.
33:25The Golden Eagle Danube Express, a modern luxury train,
33:38is en route to Istanbul,
33:40following in the footsteps of the Orient Express in its heyday.
33:44Every morning, as the sun rises, passengers head to breakfast.
33:52On the Orient Express, guests had a choice of omelettes, grilled fish, toast,
33:57and pastries, all made to order.
34:00But as the guests ate, the cabin attendants sprang into action.
34:04I've seen the guests going away to have some breakfast,
34:09so the room is probably empty, but one never knows, so we always knock.
34:16Nobody answers.
34:19Excuse me.
34:20It seems the room is empty, so now we go in, let some light in.
34:25And a bit of fresh air.
34:33And the next thing we do here is to shake the duvet to air it a bit.
34:41In its heyday, the sleeping compartments on the Orient Express
34:45were the most luxurious way to travel.
34:49Beds were made up with silk sheets,
34:51the finest woolen blankets, and eider-down comforters.
34:54Then the pillows come,
34:58and then I will just lift this part of the bed
35:04and push it in, goes right there.
35:08Then I lift the other part
35:10and take out the pillows.
35:14With the bedclothes neatly packed away,
35:17Ildi Sekeresh makes the room day-ready.
35:20So we are putting down the pillows,
35:22bring it to the corner,
35:24like that.
35:26So the big one comes here
35:28to support the back,
35:31and this one is to support the arms.
35:35Every morning, Orient Express conductors
35:38would perform much the same routine.
35:40It's amazing that what I'm doing here,
35:44they were doing that on the Orient Express 100 years ago.
35:50The Orient Express conductors were famous.
35:54They were required to be available at all times
35:56and were expected to uphold the strictest discretion.
36:00Many served much of their life on the train.
36:04So I've been working on this train four years.
36:06I enjoy it very much,
36:08especially meeting new people.
36:10and the guests are very, very kind,
36:14joyful, relaxed people,
36:16and it's just fun to be of use.
36:21After the Orient Express left Paris,
36:38it was around a thousand-mile journey
36:40to reach southern Germany.
36:43Once they had travelled through Stuttgart and Munich,
36:46their next stop was the ancient Austrian city
36:48of Salzburg.
36:50A booming salt-mining town in the Middle Ages.
36:58Salzburg's atmospheric old town
37:00has barely changed in centuries,
37:02with ornate guild signs
37:04still hanging from its buildings.
37:08Orient Express passengers who left the train here
37:11were directed to its historic Mirabel Gardens
37:14and its ancient religious sites.
37:20A subject that's close to tour guide Heidi Hochreiser's heart.
37:25Here we are in the oldest convent,
37:28the convent, the convent of Nornberg,
37:31which was founded over 1,300 years ago.
37:36And at the moment,
37:38there are about 11 nuns living here
37:40in a very strict cloister,
37:43but they have a wonderful place.
37:47This is the first time the nuns have ever allowed filming
37:50within the walls of the convent.
37:51It was founded by Rupert.
37:57Rupert was a bishop from Worms.
38:00In the year 696, he came to Salzburg.
38:04He founded two monasteries,
38:08St. Peter and this one here.
38:10In the 1920s,
38:13it became home to a woman
38:15who would make Salzburg famous,
38:17Maria Augusta von Kuchera,
38:20the real-life Maria in the sound of music.
38:23There was a family at Barham.
38:27He had seven children and was widowed,
38:29so he needed somebody for his children.
38:32He needed a teacher.
38:33He went up here,
38:35he went to Mother Superior and said,
38:37Have you got somebody who helps me
38:41educating my children?
38:43And she said,
38:45Take Maria.
38:46Because Maria was a very, very lively person.
38:51She loved children,
38:52but first, she hesitated.
38:55She was an orphan.
38:56Her mother died when she was a few months old.
39:00Her father died when she was three.
39:02And she had an awful childhood.
39:04The person who was in charge with her,
39:08an uncle,
39:09was a nasty person.
39:11He was beating her up every day
39:13for things that she hadn't done.
39:16And so when she grew up,
39:18she went to Salzburg.
39:20Here she was in peace
39:21and nothing would harm her.
39:27Maria accepted the job
39:29and when her contract finished,
39:31she returned to the convent.
39:34The children were very sad.
39:36They wanted her back.
39:38So the baron asked her to marry him.
39:42This is the church
39:44where Maria and the baron of Trapp
39:47got married in 1927.
39:50It was a wonderful wedding.
39:52She wore a beautiful long white dress
39:54and it must have been a wonderful day
39:57with the children around them.
40:00The baron was a great violin player.
40:03He was a musician.
40:04He loved music.
40:05But she came with her guitar.
40:08Suddenly,
40:09they became a real wire.
40:16By March 1938,
40:17the von Trapp's idyllic existence
40:21was threatened
40:21when the Nazis marched into Austria
40:24and the family
40:27was asked to sing
40:28at Hitler's birthday.
40:31Of course,
40:32they didn't want to sing for Hitler.
40:34So they decided to go to America.
40:38And in America,
40:40they became a very, very famous choir.
40:42They called themselves
40:43the Trapp family singers
40:45and they toured
40:46the whole of America.
40:48They toured South America,
40:50everywhere,
40:50and didn't come back to Austria.
40:52They only came back for visits.
40:57The von Trapps
40:58became so well known
40:59that by the 1950s and 1960s,
41:02Orient Express passengers
41:04knew the city primarily
41:05for the family.
41:07In 1965,
41:09the film
41:09The Sound of Music,
41:11largely filmed in the city,
41:12kicked the fame into overdrive.
41:16Sixty years on,
41:17the story is still celebrated
41:18somewhere that would have been familiar
41:20to Orient Express passengers.
41:24Salzburg's 110-year-old
41:26Marionette Theatre.
41:29The Marionette Theatre
41:30is a very special institution.
41:33It was founded in 1913
41:35by sculptor Anton Eicher.
41:37When I was six years old,
41:40I visited this theatre
41:42for the first time,
41:44and after my studies,
41:46I came here
41:46to do this as a profession.
41:51Philipp Bruner
41:52has been with the company
41:53for the last 22 years
41:55and is now
41:56its artistic director.
41:57We mostly do plays,
42:01we do operas,
42:03we do ballets,
42:04we do children's performances,
42:06and also musical,
42:08like The Sound of Music,
42:09which is also very important
42:11in Salzburg, of course.
42:14So here's our puppet room.
42:17Here we store about
42:19six to seven hundred
42:21different puppets.
42:22These are the puppets
42:24of The Sound of Music here,
42:27and now I will grab one
42:30and show you
42:32how we perform.
42:37This special little control
42:40was also created
42:42by Anton Eicher
42:43as he wanted his puppets
42:46to move like small human beings
42:50with very organic movements
42:52but it needs a lot of dexterity
42:55and a lot of sensitivity
42:58and it needs, of course,
43:01the experience of many years.
43:04We have this little
43:06T-shaped piece of wood
43:09below a small triangle
43:12where three strings
43:14are fixed for the head
43:16and we have this little stick
43:18in front where we move the arms
43:21and if we lean this T-piece
43:25to the left and to the right,
43:27the puppet can walk, yeah?
43:31You never watch
43:34what your fingers up here are doing.
43:38You only look down to the puppet.
43:41Move like this.
43:42It's like that we are hidden actors.
43:48We build and make all the puppets
43:52here in the house
43:53and also the sets.
43:56So the puppeteers are not only
43:58playing the performances
43:59but also making the puppets.
44:01So the relation between puppeteer
44:04and the puppet is very close.
44:06They all have strings
44:07so we cannot take off the clothes.
44:09We have to build puppets
44:12if there is a costume change.
44:14We have three sets of children
44:16in different costumes for Maria.
44:18We have five different puppets
44:20and we have a lot of scenery
44:24that needs to be moved around
44:26during the show
44:27and what is especially difficult
44:29in the sound of music
44:31is all the dancing.
44:33You have always nearly
44:35at least eight to ten puppets on stage
44:39so it needs a lot of technique
44:42to make the puppets go around
44:45to have them passed on
44:47from one player to another.
44:49Yeah, it's quite a tricky show.
44:53Since the Sound of Music
44:54was first performed in 2007
44:56it has become one of the theater's
44:58most popular shows.
45:02I think it's very important
45:05to show the local audience
45:08and audience from Germany
45:09that something like
45:11the Sound of Music exists
45:12and that it is connected
45:16to their history as well.
45:18so we are very happy
45:20to have this show
45:21in our repertoire
45:22and to keep it alive.
45:30Salzburg Station
45:31built in 1860
45:33is today home
45:34to Austria's premier
45:35high-speed trains
45:37the rail jets
45:38but once it had the Orient Express
45:41stop on its platforms.
45:43As passengers breathed in
45:45the crisp air
45:45engineers prepped the engine
45:48for the next stage of the journey
45:49towards Vienna.
45:53As the train pulled out of Salzburg
45:55its next challenge
45:56was clear for all to see.
45:58the Alps
46:01next time
46:05a shocking attack
46:08it exploded
46:09and the locomotive
46:11and four carriages
46:12fell down
46:13to the abyss
46:14a close escape
46:15It was extremely dangerous
46:18and Freud of course
46:19spent the most horrible hours
46:21of his life
46:22and a rare survivor
46:24it was a luxurious carriage
46:26from top to bottom
46:27The Alps
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