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Abandoned Engineering - Season 15 Episode 2 -
Hitler's Fortress of Fury
Hitler's Fortress of Fury
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00:00A Spanish settlement stained in innocent blood.
00:05What begins as an unpleasant scheme leads to bodies lying in the dust.
00:14In Wisconsin, a tranquil institution consumed by righteous anger.
00:20As the National Guard surrounded the area,
00:23there were reports about the back and forth shooting that happened.
00:30An Albanian hilltop citadel funded by one man's hubris.
00:36This is an area of the world shaped by strong men and he was no exception.
00:42But with a spectacular rise comes a spectacular fall.
00:49And a subterranean lair in France designed with a disturbing objective.
00:56Hitler is convinced that German technology can still win the war.
01:02And Joe Kennedy, heir to an American political dynasty, is going to die on his way here.
01:11In America's Midwest lies an isolated structure caught in the crosshairs of a nation's mission to reclaim what was once theirs.
01:30Tucked away from the road is a wide open clearing and in the middle of it, there is this colossal Georgian style mansion.
01:44It's far too big, too grand to be a single family residence.
01:48But who built it and why is it standing empty today?
01:53When you go inside, the stark concrete offers few clues to its former purpose.
02:01It's bare and cavernous, like it's been hollowed out to its core.
02:05This was once a place of religious devotion.
02:09It would become the symbol of a bitter struggle to be heard.
02:14Some said that it existed on stolen land.
02:17And that conflict would come to a head in a very dramatic confrontation.
02:22This land is Menominee ancestral land.
02:26As a people, we've been here since time immemorial.
02:31On a cold January day, a group descended onto this compound with shotguns and rifles.
02:39Their motto was deed or death.
02:41This was a month long armed standoff and soon it gains national recognition.
02:50Suddenly you had everyone from national grassroots organizations to movie stars like Marlon Brando
02:56showing up to the protests.
03:04Chris Caldwell is president of the College of the Menominee Nation.
03:08His family was involved in the battle that unfolded here during the 1970s.
03:16My aunt Chris talks about being in here, ducking from gunfire, you know,
03:21trying to make sure the kids that were with them knew to duck.
03:26It's been a process to reconcile those things.
03:32When this site was first built,
03:34it stood on territory that had been taken away from the Menominee.
03:39Its original function belies what would eventually transpire here.
03:44This grand building was originally constructed in 1939
03:48as a private residence for a wealthy widow from New York and her sick daughter.
03:53But sadly, she died before it can be completed.
03:56Then in the 1950s, the woman donated the unfinished house and the land to the Alexian Brothers,
04:03an organization that was close to her heart.
04:06The Alexian Brothers are a Catholic group devoted to religious study and taking care of the sick.
04:13And they turned the property into what's known as a novitiate.
04:18Somewhere where inductees would come to study and learn and prepare to take their vows.
04:24The novitiate operated like this for over 20 years.
04:27But in 1972, they moved their operations to Chicago.
04:32And this building is left empty.
04:35This could have been the end of the novitiate story.
04:38But events were underway that would send it on a collision course with an unfolding crisis
04:46at a nearby Native American reservation.
04:48Historically, the Menominee inhabited a vast area that stretched across Wisconsin
04:54to the upper peninsula in Michigan.
04:58But a series of treaties with the U.S. government during the 1800s
05:02shrunk their lands from 10 million acres to just 230,000.
05:07Still, the Menominee remained one of the wealthiest Native tribes in North America
05:15because they had large interest in timber.
05:20But in the 1950s, their way of life and land was threatened once more.
05:26The tribe was doing so well that the Bureau of Indian Affairs decided that they were ready to
05:34be relieved from federal government support and, in the term of the time,
05:40assimilated into mainstream U.S. society.
05:44The government establishes a policy of termination, which ends the tribe's sovereign status
05:50and changes the responsibility that the federal government has towards them.
05:56With termination came an instant tax bill for the 230,000 acres of our reservation lands.
06:05We had to find a way to pay for that, and our communities declined.
06:10It was a real disaster. They went from being one of the most affluent tribes in the nation
06:16to being desperately poor with all the social ills that come along with poverty.
06:21It just pushed the Menominee, I feel, over the brink to,
06:26we really need to figure out how do we get back our lands? How do we get back that connection?
06:35One faction of the nation felt the only way to get their voice heard
06:39was direct action. These were members of the Menominee Warrior Society.
06:45During this period, the same political activism that we saw on college campuses
06:51and Vietnam War protests was also sweeping native communities across the country.
06:57Many of the members of the Warrior Society were inspired by activist takeovers,
07:04like that of Alcatraz in 1969.
07:08In 1975, the Menominee Warrior Society decided to make their stand.
07:14The target was the Alexian novitiate, which had been vacant for three years,
07:19apart from a lone caretaker and his family.
07:21The Menominee Warriors saw this as a visible symbol of land that they believed was rightfully theirs.
07:32On New Year's Day, a band of about 40 Menominee armed with shotguns and rifles arrived at the compound.
07:39They were led by a man they called the general, Michael Sturdivant.
07:44They seized the property and they take the caretaker and his family hostage.
07:49The novitiate was now under the control of the Menominee Warrior Society.
07:55The local police came out in force and surrounded the building.
07:59The Wisconsin state government acted quickly to contain the takeover.
08:05The last thing they wanted was for the protest to spread.
08:09Even the National Guard are called in, eventually growing to a force of over 2,000 troops,
08:14and then you have a standoff at the novitiate.
08:18The situation had become a powder keg, ready to ignite.
08:23When the Wisconsin National Guard was called in by the governor,
08:27there were different interactions between the Warrior Society and the different local community
08:34groups, and so there was gunfire back and forth.
08:39The Warrior Society is completely outmanned and outgunned,
08:43and the government doesn't want any deaths on their hands, especially in this already tense situation.
08:49The National Guard had one key advantage. They were able to cut off the power to the building.
08:55Soon the heat was out.
08:57It was cold at the time, and supporters would find ways to sneak into the building,
09:03you know, bring supplies and other things like that to help.
09:10The actor and activist Marlon Brando even arrived at the novitiate to support the Warrior Group.
09:18Despite the celebrity backing, local public opinion was divided.
09:23In the surrounding white community, of course, many were outraged by what they saw as an insurrection.
09:29Even on the reservation itself, there were those who agreed with this dramatic tactic,
09:35and others who thought that it would undermine their chances to have their rights restored.
09:40On February 2nd, after a month-long occupation, a deal was reached between the Warrior Society and the Alexian Brothers.
09:54The brothers agreed to sell the novitiate to the Menominee for the sum of one dollar.
09:58At that point, the Warrior Society peacefully surrendered, and 39 of them were arrested.
10:06Looking back, we have to give credit to the cool heads on both sides.
10:09It ended peacefully and with a resolution that respected the rights of the Native Americans,
10:17and did not erupt in outright bloodshed.
10:21Five members of the group were charged, including their leader, Michael Sturdivant, who was imprisoned.
10:30Menominee Warrior Society felt that coming to the novitiate was a way to promote those goals of the Menominee Tribe.
10:37And in that way, that activism, you know, it also brought light to the situation of Menominee.
10:47In April of 1975, three months after the novitiate standoff,
10:52the United States government restored the Menominee's status as a federally recognized nation.
10:59This granted the Menominee the right to self-govern their existing 230,000 acres of reservation land.
11:06It's unclear how much this occupation influenced that decision.
11:12Despite the efforts of the Warrior Society, the Menominee were unable to maintain the building.
11:18Eventually, they decided that the best course of action was just to give the building back to the Alexian brothers.
11:24Over the next 50 years, the property sat empty and suffered damage, including a fire that gutted the mansion.
11:30In 2021, the novitiate was purchased by new owners who are busy restoring the property.
11:43Its future is yet to be decided, but the Menominee Nation is being consulted.
11:48It was only a building in a moment of time for the Menominee people, but there's a lot of significance that came along with it.
11:57There's a responsibility to both listen to our elders and to learn the lessons from those events
12:07so that we can figure out a better path for people going into the future.
12:11In northern France, tranquil green fields disguise a conspiracy to lay waste to an entire population.
12:28We're not far from the English Channel. We're not far from Paris. But here, it's the country.
12:35And then you look around, you start to see evidence that there's more here than meets the eye.
12:41There are these huge chunks of concrete that are really smashed apart.
12:45What could have caused these massive holes in the quiet French countryside?
12:51Nearby, an entrance leading into the hillside reveals something unexpected hidden below.
12:58Parts of it looks like it could be a railroad tunnel, but as you look deeper, it's a lot more than that.
13:05The architecture is very utilitarian and it tells you that this was probably a military facility.
13:13Masses of concrete, the smell of slave laborers' blood and sweat.
13:21This has got to be Nazi engineering.
13:26This subterranean complex was built in a desperate bid to save an evil empire.
13:32The threat it posed was unlike anything the world had seen before.
13:39It was a race against time. Could the Allies stop this weapon before the Nazis reigned terror down on London?
13:46In early 1943, things aren't going well for the Nazis.
13:56The campaign in Russia is slowing down and the Allies are gaining ground in North Africa.
14:01Hitler thinks that if he gets German scientists, German engineers working in the right direction,
14:09they will create Wunderwaffen, wonder weapons, and those wonder weapons are going to win the war.
14:17On the 13th of June 1944, seven days after the D-Day landings, Hitler unveiled the first wave of a new destructive power developed under the Wunderweapon program.
14:31The V-1 was a flying bomb that buzzed when it went overhead, and when it was about to drop, it got totally silent, meaning that the people below knew it was about to strike them.
14:47Four months later, the Führer revealed the next stage of his plot to wipe London from the map.
14:53The V-2 rockets were essentially the first ballistic missile.
14:58They're going to hit without warning and at speeds that you just can't intercept.
15:05Hitler really believes that by sending the vengeance weapons, the Vergeltungswaffen into England,
15:14he is going to break the British will to fight, rob the Americans of their base for invading France,
15:24and the Nazi thousand-year empire will begin.
15:30But the crazed dictator still had one last piece of his destructive puzzle to complete.
15:37It was called the Fortress of Mimoyek.
15:41Caroline Albert is an expert on this clandestine Nazi facility.
15:46There were three really secret weapons, the V-1 and the V-2.
15:52And here, the third secret weapon was supposed to be a V-3.
15:56And all these vengeance weapons were supposed to destroy London.
16:02Construction on the site begins in 1943.
16:06Over 1,200 workers arrived to begin digging out those tunnels.
16:08Despite all this natural reinforcement, they went ahead and put a 16-foot reinforced concrete top over it.
16:19The Allies were completely unaware of the ferocity brewing beneath the French countryside.
16:24It was basically a huge cannon, and it fired shells using multiple explosive charges along its barrel.
16:31The round goes past firing chamber after firing chamber, going faster and faster,
16:40until it is able to fly all the way to London and, bang, deliver a payload right into the center of the enemy capital.
16:51But this complex wouldn't house just one of these super guns.
16:56Each of the five firing shafts was meant to hold five cannons, totaling 25 in all.
17:05In theory, it could fire 600 shells an hour, 24 hours a day.
17:09London would have been littered with bodies, and the city would have been flattened.
17:13The Allies had no idea what was coming.
17:15Yet French resistance fighters spotted the sinister building activity and alerted British intelligence.
17:24When Allied reconnaissance flights discover this space, they're not quite sure what it is.
17:29But they know that it's big, they know that it's Nazi, and they know that it has to be destroyed.
17:36Between November 1943 and the spring of 1944,
17:40British and US airmen fought through an onslaught of anti-aircraft fire to try and really take this place out.
17:49They drop over 4,000 tons of armaments, and it's still there.
17:54Something else needs to happen to destroy this.
17:58The Allies turned to Barnes Wallace, the brilliant engineer who was key to the success of the iconic
18:05Dambusters raid earlier in the war.
18:07So, Barnes Wallace is the guy who figures out the bouncing bomb that can destroy German dams.
18:16Now we need to destroy a German concrete bunker.
18:21Who is going to design a bomb capable of penetrating the ground?
18:28Well, it's Barnes Wallace.
18:29He developed an extra-large bomb that was called the Tall Boy.
18:36It would bury itself in the earth before exploding, and it would create an earthquake.
18:41It was the perfect weapon to destroy underground structures.
18:45Throughout the spring of 1944, the Nazis rushed to complete the V3 cannons.
18:51But before they could be deployed, the skies darkened over Memoyerg.
18:57On July 6, 1944, the Allies send over 100 Halifax bombers.
19:02They're carpet bombing the target in order to destroy anything on the surface.
19:10And then the Lancaster bombers are going to fly in with the Tall Boy bomb.
19:19Three near misses, and then a direct hit.
19:21With that hit, they've managed to smash through that massive concrete roof.
19:29This huge crater is due to one Tall Boy bomb.
19:32It's about 25 to 35 meters large to 20 meters deep over there.
19:38Despite this, the Allies still feared the site could be made operational.
19:44They couldn't take the chance that Hitler's weapon could still flatten London.
19:48U.S. Navy airmen were tasked with a top-secret mission to take Memoyerg out once and for all.
19:57It was codenamed Operation Anvil.
20:01This is a project designed to take worn-out bombers and turn them into an early form of drone.
20:11They would have pilots on board who would set the explosives,
20:14parachute out, and the plane would continue on to its target.
20:20One brave pilot steps up for the mission, and that pilot was Joseph P. Kennedy.
20:27Joseph was the eldest of the Kennedy children,
20:30and his father had been grooming him to be president from a young age.
20:34On the 12th of August 1944, he and his co-pilot took to the skies.
20:41Kennedy radios in the code word spade flush to indicate that they were about to jump out of the
20:48plane, but then those ended up being his very last words.
20:51The whole plane goes up in two enormous explosions.
20:59There is literally nothing left of Kennedy and his co-pilot.
21:07It's sad that when JFK heard the news, he said,
21:10And now the burden falls on me.
21:14Less than a month after Joseph Kennedy's tragic death,
21:18Canadian troops arrived at Mimoyek to find it had been abandoned by the retreating Germans.
21:24They also made another chilling discovery.
21:28The fortress had been destroyed beyond repair by the earlier Tallboy bombing raid.
21:33When Joseph Kennedy died on the mission to Mimoyek, at 29 years old, it was really for nothing.
21:47Today, the upper levels of Mimoyek can be visited by the public.
21:52But the lower levels were so badly damaged,
21:55some of the secrets of Hitler's vengeance fortress will never be known.
21:59One thing Winston Churchill is going to make sure of,
22:05that this dagger pointed at the heart of England is never going to be used again.
22:1336 tons of high explosive are packed into this place, and it is blown to smithereens.
22:23It is the mystery really underneath, because nobody never went down since the war.
22:33We still don't know how many garries there are, if they are part of the canons,
22:38or even the number of persons who died here.
22:47In a remote region of southern Spain,
22:50an isolated structure conceals a story of forbidden love and ruthless retribution.
23:00We're in this landscape of rugged hills and dusty plains.
23:04It feels like something more from the Wild West than Spain.
23:09It's an arid, barren place.
23:12Even in the best of times, eking out an existence here must have been hard.
23:16Yet, signs of life reveal somebody settled in this unforgiving landscape.
23:24All the way out here, there's this structure.
23:27It's kind of hauntingly beautiful, standing alone against this vast, empty scenery.
23:35Walking around, you can see a lot of the rooms are just empty shells.
23:39It's hard to tell what this place once was.
23:42Then you start to see clues.
23:47With its bell tower and raised area inside for an altar, you quickly realize this was a church.
23:54You also get the feeling that this is a home. You've got the kitchen and the pantry.
24:00But apart from these details, many of the traces of whoever lived here have long since disappeared.
24:06In the beginning, this was a peaceful dwelling.
24:11It became the scene of a shameful crime.
24:16This place has been immortalized in books, in plays, and even Hollywood films.
24:26Grooms jilted at the altar, lovers fleeing in the night, violent confrontations.
24:31This story has it all.
24:32It's like the original telenovela.
24:44Growing up as a child, I've heard so many stories about this place.
24:49The first time I came was roughly 17, 18 years ago, and I was so impressed, actually.
24:58Miguel Jaume Mora is a guide in this arid region.
25:04Like many locals, he was drawn to the tale of intrigue that took place within these walls.
25:11This building is well known all over the country for all its tragic happenings.
25:18It is a very important part of the local culture.
25:23It's a shame, actually, to see the state in which it is.
25:28Essentially, it's a kind of farm complex common in the south of Spain.
25:32It was originally built in the 1700s by Dominican monks, and that's why it has such an elaborate chapel.
25:38They were given the property because no one wanted to live here.
25:43Life here would have been very difficult.
25:47It was called the Cortijo del Fraile, the farmhouse of the friar.
25:54But in the mid-1830s, the government decides it's going to take possession of many of the properties that were owned by the church.
26:01They sold it to raise money, and so the farm goes into private hands.
26:04For almost a century, the rhythms of life in this dusty outpost remained the same.
26:12Farmers growing and selling their produce, living in harmony with the seasons.
26:18But in the early 1900s, a new family arrived at the Cortijo.
26:24With them came scandal and murder.
26:27One of the families that lived here was a widower with his daughters, Carmen and Francisca, who was known to everyone as Paka.
26:39Paka was given a cruel nickname, Paka Lakoha, meaning Paka the Ling.
26:46While the family blamed her limp on polio, it's said that the real story is her father beat her so badly as a baby, he permanently damaged her hip.
26:57Well, we're just in the house where Paka lived, here at the farm.
27:06This room was one of the bedrooms, and it could have actually been Paka's bedroom.
27:13Eventually, the elder sister, Carmen, got married and moved out of the Cortijo, and Paka grew increasingly close with her cousin, Francisco.
27:27She was in love with her cousin when they were children, the usual thing when they play.
27:33Well, you're going to be my boyfriend, and when we're older, we'll probably get married.
27:40But Paka's father paid no attention to her youthful infatuation, and in 1926, he began looking for a suitable husband for her.
27:53Whoever she married would receive a generous payment called a dowry, and would play an integral role in the running of the Cortijo.
28:02As it happened, Paka's sister came up with a plan for who she should marry.
28:07There was a local laborer named Casimiro.
28:12He just so happened to be her husband's brother.
28:15How convenient.
28:16It seems like this was all part of a sinister plan to marry her sister to someone inside the family that they could control.
28:27Carmen was very ambitious.
28:30She wanted to try to gather all the properties and get her husband to be the farmer that was in charge of this farm.
28:39Paka was completely unaware of her sister's cruel intentions and agreed to the marriage.
28:48It was a decision that ended in tragedy.
28:51On the evening of the 22nd of July, the year 1928, is a reception of the wedding.
28:59The tradition at the time was to celebrate first and then hold the wedding ceremony the following morning.
29:05All the guests started to arrive and among these guests that were invited to the wedding, her cousin, Francisco.
29:16Francisco didn't come to celebrate.
29:19He was simply biding his time.
29:22Francisco seizes the opportunity and he sneaks into her bedroom.
29:27He begs Paka to run away with him so that they can be married the next morning.
29:31She never was in love with Casimiro.
29:38That's when she started to think about it and she told Francisco, it's now a never.
29:45And that's when they escaped through this passage to the stables.
29:51The lovers believe they will be long gone before anybody realizes what had happened, but they were wrong.
29:58Carmen quickly realized her sister and Francisco had disappeared and she was furious.
30:06She told her husband, Jose, and they got a horse and soon went chasing them.
30:12It wouldn't be long before they found them.
30:17It's said that they hid behind some undergrowth as the lovers approach and then they jumped out to confront them.
30:23Jose had a revolver.
30:28He brought it out and he just shot three times, three shots, and killed Francisco.
30:35And apparently Carmen told Jose, I'll be in charge of my sister.
30:44Carmen began strangling her until, well, until she stops moving.
30:51The murderous couple fled the scene and left the bodies to be discovered by the other guests out looking.
30:59They found Francisco dead on the floor and Packer nearby desperately clinging to life.
31:05At first, Packer was unwilling to reveal who had attacked her, fearing it would bring shame to the family.
31:15But she eventually identified the assailants to the authorities, who were arrested and a trial date was set.
31:21Her sister Carmen was found guilty of attempted murder, but she served just 15 months in jail.
31:30Her husband, who killed Francisco, was sentenced to just eight years in prison for the murder.
31:37The events of that night were a media sensation.
31:42Newspapers across the country wrote about this horrific incident.
31:47The breathless coverage also caught the attention of a well-known Spanish author.
31:52Five years on, Federico Garcia Lorca premiered his play, Bodas de Sangre, or Blood Wedding.
32:05The play opens to nationwide acclaim, and to this day it's performed around the world.
32:11And the story of the terrible events that took place on this farmstead are immortalized.
32:18Packer died in 1987.
32:21She never spoke about what happened at this remote farm.
32:25She lived out her days as a recluse in a house near the Cortijo.
32:30She never married again, and it's said she wore black for the rest of her life, in mourning for her true love, Francisco.
32:41After the events of the Blood Wedding faded into the past, life at the Cortijo returned to normal.
32:50Yet that all changed in the 1960s.
32:54This is the age of the spaghetti westerns.
32:56Western movies with Italian directors, great soundtracks, and they're filmed in Italy and Spain.
33:04Of all the spaghetti western directors, none is more famous than Sergio Leone,
33:11and his Iconic Dollars trilogy.
33:15The Cortijo would be chosen to play a key role in two of those movies.
33:201965's For A Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in 1966, both starring Clint Eastwood.
33:30It's even said that the harsh Almiria sun was so bright, it forced Eastwood to keep his eyes half closed,
33:37giving rise to that famous, intense, giblet stare.
33:43But its fame couldn't save it from decay, and the abandoned farm slowly descends into ruin.
33:50On the Albanian coast stands the faded icon of an era ruled by Europe's most obscure dynasty.
34:04Perched on a hillside is one building that looks weirdly out of time.
34:15It's neither ancient nor modern.
34:18It could be from some angles a mid-century hotel, but it also has the aspect of a kind of a Moorish palace.
34:27The inside is just as stunning. The sillings are adorned with ornate plaster, and the staircases are solid marble.
34:37This was clearly built to impress.
34:40The man behind this hilltop citadel was infamous for his iron will, respected and feared in equal measure.
34:49He was considered a traitor, a dictator, and one of the most important politicians of the country during the 20th century.
34:58His extravagance and his hubris brought in great wealth. It's what built places like this.
35:04But with a spectacular rise, comes a spectacular fall.
35:08Andi Pinari is a state historian and expert on the period in Albanian history where one man revolutionised the country.
35:23I mean, mixed feelings in here, visiting the entrance of this beautiful villa.
35:28Because it reminds us of a time when aristocracy and nobility managed to control the country.
35:39It belongs to the most powerful man of the period.
35:44In the early 20th century, Achmed Zagoli was a regional governor in northern Albania.
35:52But his ambition stretched far beyond his home region.
35:56Starting especially from the end of the First World War, he became the Minister of Interior and slowly started to gain more and more power.
36:10But in 1924, Zagoli was ousted after a leftist revolt.
36:15He returned seven months later with the backing of a mercenary army, seized control of the country, and later installed himself as president.
36:26But he was not what you would call an enlightened leader.
36:30He was a brutal, semi-dictator.
36:32He had no qualms about killing off his political opponents.
36:36He basically was not a nice guy.
36:38There were a secret police, and they were controlling all enemies of the state, not only in Albania, but even outside the country.
36:47The power-hungry tyrant, who had by now changed his name to Zogu, was still not content.
36:56His dream was to be recognized as not a prime minister or president, but as actual royalty.
37:04With plenty of enemies, Zogu realized that he wasn't going to succeed without backing from abroad, and he found a willing partner in Mussolini's Italy.
37:12Mussolini saw Albania as a strategic asset in the Balkan region that could strengthen his own fascist dictatorship.
37:21He was happy to pour money into the country in exchange for influence over its economy and society.
37:27Zogu now had the support he needed to fulfill his despotic ambitions.
37:35In 1928, with Italian approval, Zogu refashioned the governance of the entire country and named himself Zog I, King of Albania.
37:48So he was the man who controlled almost everything.
37:55He even developed a Zogu salute, which was a flat hand placed at the chest with the palm down.
38:02Next, the newly crowned King Zog embarked on a series of costly building projects.
38:09This one was called the Royal Villa of Douros.
38:12The palace was finished in 1937.
38:18It had Italian marble, elaborate plaster work, all the best finishings in art.
38:25To us, as a country that has been under the Ottoman influence, this type of architecture was something new.
38:32And we were totally, let's say, influenced and modernized by contracting architects from Italy.
38:39The idea was a place for the royal family to come during the summer to escape the heat of the city,
38:46enjoy the coastal vistas, welcoming visitors to this stunning lookout on the hill.
38:54But trouble was brewing.
38:56Mussolini had loaned Albania in excess of approximately £4 million, worth around £230 million today.
39:05And he wanted to see a return on his investment.
39:12King Zog's government began to struggle under the burden of all these debts.
39:16Meanwhile, Mussolini wanted to exert more control, not just over the government, even over Albanian culture.
39:26They were even mandating that Italian be taught in Albanian schools, but the king refused.
39:31They were forced.
39:33Mussolini became increasingly frustrated with Zog's refusal to comply.
39:39In April 1939, he ordered his troops to invade Albania.
39:46They landed a small military force, and after some minor resistance, quickly took over the country.
39:52This was a stunning fall from grace.
39:56Zog had created a monarchy out of sheer force of will and political power.
40:02But he was deposed and exiled by his greatest ally.
40:07King Zog would never again step foot in his homeland,
40:11and live the rest of his life as an exile in England, Egypt and France.
40:16After World War II, another political earthquake swept Albania when it was taken over by a communist regime
40:25that operated under the protective umbrella of the Soviet Union.
40:29A royal palace had no place in the new People's Republic, so it was repurposed as a civil government building.
40:35But when communism crumbled in the early 1990s, Albania's switch to democracy created a new set of problems.
40:47Zog's former palace was drawn into the turmoil that followed.
40:52Like so many other previously communist countries, they didn't have the economic or legal infrastructure
40:59to really make the transition to free market capitalism. Corruption was everywhere.
41:06The rudimentary financial system was soon dominated by Ponzi schemes.
41:10And even government officials backed pyramid schemes.
41:16The pyramid schemes soon began to default on payments and declare themselves bankrupt.
41:23Almost overnight, hundreds of thousands of people saw their savings vanish.
41:27The government collapsed and anarchy ensued.
41:33Protests spread like wildfire and arms depots began to be looted across the country.
41:40One report estimates that every Albanian male, from the age of 10 upwards,
41:45had at least one firearm in their possession.
41:48This was absolute chaos.
41:51In the harbor below the villa, people streamed onto ships to flee the country.
41:57In March 1997, with Albania on the brink of civil war, the violent disorder reached King Zog's lavish villa.
42:08People came in, they took almost everything in here.
42:10There were poor people trying to steal, to get some money.
42:15So, after that, the villa was totally, let's say, abandoned, and it remains like this.
42:20When you see it, you feel sad and you see that, yeah, we built it, we have destroyed it.
42:32Today, King Zog's villa sits neglected above a modernizing city.
42:37His family returned to Albania in 2002 and later reclaimed the property.
42:43They then sold it to private owners in 2023.
42:47King Zog's grandson is the head of the royal family, but any return to power at this point seems pretty unlikely.
42:55In the back of 2020 and later reclaimed the royal family in this country,
42:59titled William James The Black Company.
43:00The original father of Israel, was a writer andeni Basically.
43:03A writer of Israel earlier the modernizing city in 2016,
43:04is the founder of the royal family on the part of the royal family.
43:06King Zog's villa was a part of the royal family,
43:06that was a free of the royal family and the bank of the royal family.
43:10In the early Gwen, the square of the royal family,
43:12is the prime man of the royal family that made the royal family.
43:13Please visit to the royal family and the royal family.
43:14The royal family and the royal family are the royal family.
43:15He then, would never be to the royal family and the royal family in the house.
43:18They're not the royal family.
43:19Give him a lot of the kingdom of the royal family.
43:20You
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