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00:00November 1943.
00:03In the quiet countryside of France, an unassuming chalk quarry comes alive with activity.
00:09In the wake of an enemy invasion, Allied reconnaissance watches closely
00:14as the landscape is slowly transformed to serve the needs of the Third Reich.
00:19Here, on the outskirts of a small village, a monumental construction project is underway,
00:25one harrowing leap poised to shape the outcome of the Second World War.
00:30This is a strange construction, and it's located as close as you can get in Western Europe
00:37to British soil, in Pas-de-Calais, France.
00:41Given the Nazis' proximity to Britain, it was crucial to keep their plans hidden from enemy aircraft.
00:48Codename Bauvorhaben 21. Under constant threat of air raids,
00:54a prisoner workforce feverishly toils to complete construction.
00:58Before long, a colossal concrete shell emerges from the Earth,
01:02a symbol of Hitler's unyielding pursuit of victory, even as the tide of war begins to turn against him.
01:09This dome is a menacing sight from the air. By Allied estimates, it is 70 meters in diameter.
01:18There is thousands and thousands of tons of concrete here.
01:22What was it shielding? And why was it bombproof?
01:26Nothing around it gives them any kind of clue of what the hell this thing is.
01:31This imposing stone dome hovers over a hidden Nazi complex, shrouding a deadly secret that could alter the course of history.
01:40What was it protecting? Was it some kind of a biological weapons facility?
01:45Is it self-contained? Are there weapons in there? Who built it? What's it for?
01:49And what does it mean for the war effort?
02:13The quiet communes of northern France harbor a dark, decades-old design.
02:20A complex web of concrete that stretches across the Pas-de-Calais region.
02:27From defensive blockhouses to an annexed chateau, concealed rail lines to a subterranean stronghold.
02:38The Nazis erect a labyrinth of stone fortifications meant to protect a devastating scheme.
02:44There are many remnants of a massive Nazi undertaking in this region today.
02:49And the scale and diversity of the structures here reveals a region that must have been very important to the Nazis.
02:57Picture if you're the Allies. You need to figure out what these are for, what danger they represent for you, and how they can be breached.
03:04This is ominous. This is threatening. And deciphering what these structures are for is a project that will take years of hard work.
03:14Rising from the battle-scarred hills of Wiesern is the centerpiece of this Nazi network, an immense circular slab of concrete known today as La Coupole.
03:24My first thought as a structural engineer is how did they do that?
03:29This is thousands of tons of concrete emerging from the green hillsides of France.
03:37This is an imposing structure and it gives you a feeling of unease.
03:41A creation from the minds of the Reich's leading engineers, this aged bunker is built during Nazi occupation, cleverly camouflaged into the rugged plate of an old chalk mine.
03:54Beneath this earthen guise, a thick, reinforced lid protects tall hallways carved into the stone hillside.
04:02But where they lead remains a daunting question throughout much of the war.
04:09Where does this go? Is it self-contained? Are there weapons in there? What's it for? And what does it mean for the war effort?
04:16Why situate this massive dome and whatever it's hiding so close to the Atlantic in the Pas-de-Calais, only 30 kilometers away from the British coast?
04:27La Coupole lingers near the narrowest stretch of the English Channel, a mere stone's throw from the watery divide that once separated Hitler from his greatest foe.
04:37Three years before breaking ground, a Nazi invasion sets the stage for this grand design to take shape.
04:46Although the Second World War begins in September 1939 with Hitler's invasion of Poland, the war doesn't actually come to Britain and France until the following summer.
04:54On May 10, 1940, the Western Front erupts as Hitler's panzers rush into the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France.
05:06Six weeks of a vicious campaign ensues, resulting in approximately 2.4 million casualties, the majority of which are sustained by the French.
05:21One by one, these European nations fall to the Reich.
05:27Weakened and overwhelmed, France is the last to surrender, signing an armistice that effectively abdicates part of their nation to Nazi control.
05:37With France capitulating, Britain now stands alone against Nazi Germany.
05:43The Nazis move swiftly into their newly acquired territory, spanning much of northern France.
05:50As British leaders pull their forces from the continent, Hitler turns his gaze to the English Channel, preparing his troops for Operation Sea Lion, the upcoming invasion of Britain.
06:02Yet, as more promising victories lure them to the Eastern Front, the Atlantic coast instead becomes a vast bulwark to safeguard his growing empire.
06:15Stretching over 6,000 kilometers from the tip of Norway to the Spanish border, the Nazis unfurl a vast barricade along the seaboard, the Great Atlantic Wall.
06:27Assuming that there's going to be a counterattack, Hitler builds this enormous line of fortifications, bunkers, pillboxes, barbed wire barricades, minefields, and it becomes known as the Atlantic Wall.
06:43This is the greatest protection because whatever attack is going to come from either England or the United States, either it's going to be in the form of air power or it will be in the form of a naval fleet.
06:54To complete his impregnable wall, Hitler orders the rollout of thousands of defensive structures, including five Sonderbauten scattered across the Pas-de-Calais region.
07:04Sonderbauten means special constructions or special buildings. They would have Sonderproject, special project.
07:10But what is that special project? You don't know and you're not supposed to know.
07:14Fortifying the sprawling coastline of occupied Europe demands both engineering prowess and a vast army of laborers.
07:26One bunker complex would take hundreds to thousands of people to build. That's just one bunker complex, let alone you're now trying to protect this entire coast.
07:36The person power involved in that is astronomical.
07:40Hitler entrusts this undertaking to Organization TORT, the only entity in Germany capable of marshalling the hands and expertise for such an ambitious task.
07:51It's a massive organization with enormous power given to them to do basically anything they want for the engineering defense of Nazi Germany.
08:03Staff from Organization TORT's Festung 27 Division are dispatched to Paris de Calais to plan and supervise the fortifications in France.
08:12Seeking a location both close to the coast yet somewhat concealed from Allied surveys, they established their headquarters in the commune of Hallene, taking over a 19th century chateau that had been seized during the Nazi assaults.
08:31Chateau d'Ambricourt was owned by the d'Ambricourt family and they were a wealthy local family.
08:36They made their money in paper making and they owned a lot of properties throughout this region.
08:41The chateau is chosen because of its location. It's situated on a very large lot that is camouflaged by quite dense vegetation.
08:52It's also within relative proximity to a railway station and so it also allows for the transportation of people and materials in and out.
09:02Chateau d'Ambricourt becomes a hive of highly confidential coordination.
09:07The new occupants expand the surrounding roads for military personnel and build a protective blockhouse equipped with a series of foxholes that protrude from the building's roof.
09:18Nazi blockhouses are an above ground fortification used by the Germans and their allies during the war.
09:25Hitler orders the construction of thousands of blockhouses across the Atlantic wall alone.
09:30These blockhouses are made of reinforced concrete and have ports for machine guns along with observational decks.
09:37Tobrooks were installed on the roof of this blockhouse. Shelters with an opening at the top where one soldier could stand upright with his head and shoulders exposed, usually with a machine gun.
09:48The castle estate's once pristine lawns are leveled to make way for 600 square meters of office space, housing the top architects and designers of the organization.
10:00One of the first tasks on their agenda? A special construction project in an old chalk quarry.
10:07Summer 1943. Just four kilometers from Chateau d'Ambricourt, allied pilots spot a frenzy of activity as laborers rush to install rail lines in the stark white basin of a hollowed chalk mine.
10:27These steel arteries snake their way from the quarry's subterranean depths to the main railway that cuts through Calais.
10:34Allies really have to rely on aerial reconnaissance because, of course, this is occupied territory.
10:44You're getting photographic evidence at best, so you can only make logical inferences based on what it is that you're seeing. And observation only goes so far.
10:52Plumes of dust billow into the sky as the top workforce dig their shovels into the chalky earth. A seemingly significant undertaking has begun.
11:02The Allies know that something is happening here. From the sky, it looks like an ant colony with all of these workers doing something. But they hesitate about blowing it up.
11:15Sending out bombers to attack something is using precious resources, but also putting men's lives at risk. And they are aware that the workforce that is being used to build this is French laborers.
11:28Killing a bunch of French civilians is not going to be something that the Allies are going to want to do unnecessarily.
11:35They also aren't sure if anything really nefarious is going on here because the Nazis have this tendency to set out decoys. So they start creating these sites where they make it look like something important is happening, but they use it to divert attention from where they're actually doing something.
11:55Is this a decoy or is this something that is going to surprise us in a very bad way?
12:02Allied intelligence has already been alerted to a seemingly more dangerous threat lurking just 15 kilometers northwest in the commune of Watten.
12:11Hidden beneath the dense tree cover of the Epeleck forest, the Nazi's prisoner workforce has arrived en masse to excavate trenches for another covert Sonderbauten.
12:24The location of the blockhouse to Epeleck is strategically significant. It's located in the Epeleck forest very close to a river. It's also near electrical gridlines and a Luftwaffe airfield, and that provides crucial access to air defense.
12:39Soon, rising 18 meters from the earth, a German blockhouse is born, forged from thousands of tons of reinforced concrete.
12:48For the Allies, its sheer mass is dwarfed only by the enigma it conceals.
12:55By 1943, the Germans are now beginning to get pushed back. The German army is expelled out of Africa, the Russians are pushing the army out of the Soviet Union now, and things are getting a little desperate.
13:13The question becomes, is this construction part of Hitler's attempts to regain the upper hand?
13:20Hitler is relying on wonder weapons. And the question is, is what are German scientists working on? What wonder weapon might they be producing?
13:32From the war's outset, Hitler had proudly promised a secret superweapon of apocalyptic power.
13:39Although initially dismissed as nothing more than a propaganda ploy, by 1943, Allied intelligence gathers convincing evidence of a German missile program at work.
13:50The Germans recognize that the only thing that they have left to be able to develop is a weapon that can actually pass through the air defense and naval defenses that the British have.
14:02So it has to be something that they can launch from far away to be able to make a direct hit on Great Britain.
14:09As Hitler's suspicious blueprints materialize right under Britain's nose, the Allies spring into action with the precautionary Operation Crossbow.
14:19On August 27th, 1943, an American fleet of 185 Boeing bombers unleashes a devastating airstrike on the Watten Blockhouse, bringing construction to an abrupt halt.
14:32A British civil engineer, Sir Malcolm McAlpine advised the Royal Air Force to bomb this blockhouse when it was most vulnerable, while the concrete was still setting.
14:43By bombing that when it's wet, you are destroying the formwork. You're bringing them back to square one.
14:49This strategic attack renders the site unusable, leaving nothing but a maze of mangled rebar and shattered concrete behind.
14:58Hitler, forced to recalculate his scheme, turns to his trusty architect, Albert Speer, and the chief engineer of organization taught, Franz Xavier Dorsch.
15:10Dorsch recommends that the chalk pit be used as the new site for this secret operation.
15:16The Nazis' original plan was for the chalk quarry to serve as a simple storage facility for the blockhouse, but now it's going to become the center of the operation.
15:25The irony is that the decoy ends up actually being the real threat.
15:30However, the standard blockhouse design will not suffice.
15:34To deter enemy interest and protect their plan from carnage, the Nazis will have to take their mission underground.
15:41November 1943.
15:46The sleepy storage center in Wiesern is abruptly transformed as more than 1,000 workers descend into the pit under the scrutinous eye of Franz Dorsch.
15:57The bold plan to convert the quarry into a lucrative Nazi base commences under the code name Bauvorhaben 21.
16:04This ambitious task will require 1 million tons of concrete to create an expansive network of tunnels, operational facilities, and storage rooms forged deep beneath the hills.
16:15They had already invested large amounts of time and labor into the Watten facility, and now they're about to do it all over again.
16:23Hitler was determined to bring this project to fruition, and he was not going to be dissuaded even by major setbacks.
16:30Most critically, Bauvorhaben 21 will be bombproof, and Dorsch enlists engineer Werner Floss to implement an ingenious method of making this possible.
16:42Utilizing a technique known as Verbunkerung, Floss relies on the structure of the natural chalk hills to fashion a protective hood atop the soon-to-be subterranean site, a massive reinforced concrete dome weighing 55,000 tons.
16:59The Verbunkerung method of construction revolutionized bunker architecture.
17:04On the hilltop, the Nazis constructed this enormous mound of earth that would act like a mold on which the roof would be set.
17:13They then poured concrete and more concrete and more concrete until the shell was an astonishing five meters thick.
17:22That is a huge chunk of concrete. Five meters thick is about the height of a standing giraffe.
17:29You don't build a five meter thick roof unless you are protecting something important.
17:36Once that massive concrete in the roof has then cured, they can then start excavating the earth from the hillside below without the threat of being bombed from above.
17:47Even by today's standards, this is a remarkable piece of engineering.
17:52And the fact that it was created whilst there was a war on, in many senses makes it even more impressive.
17:59The concrete slab spans an impressive 71 meters across with ample space beneath to carve through the hills.
18:07Ida, Katerina and Sophia, some of the facility's codenamed tunnels, are planned to stretch up to 90 meters through the earth, seamlessly integrating the previous lead railway through the compound.
18:20The one vulnerability of the chalk pit, however, is that it is completely exposed.
18:26How do they avoid the same fate as the blockhouse de Perlec?
18:32To disguise the construction of their concrete cocoon and any equipment or materials that could tip the allies off,
18:39tort officials devise an intricate camouflage to cover the building site.
18:43They had to build their own camouflage by hand.
18:49They're building a net of ropey material and tying fake and real vegetation to it to make it look real.
18:56And they've got to cover a 71 meter dome.
19:00Just the camouflaging this is a huge project.
19:03This site is like a nesting doll of secrecy.
19:06You have a camouflage net that protects a concrete dome,
19:10which in turn conceals a covert facility.
19:16Meanwhile, security titans at the nearby Chateau d'Ambricourt,
19:20where a similar veil of netting is placed atop the grounds,
19:23housing Werner Floss and the Festung 27 Engineering Division.
19:27Were they creating an other underground bunker that would house members of the organization taught
19:33to protect them in case the chateau was attacked?
19:36Once the Germans begin to move everything underground,
19:39this really now begins to signal to the allies that there's something significant about to be happening there.
19:46Just a few hundred meters from the chateau, a complex of tunnels is being planned underfoot.
19:53Armed with jackhammers and over 2 million individual bricks,
19:57the taut workforce begins chiseling their way into the earth.
20:01Once completed, a 60-step descent will lead officials into a 3-meter-high passageway.
20:07This tunnel system will open onto two parallel halls separated by a 30-meter gap
20:13that branch off into six galleries of office space for high-ranking staff.
20:18Here, the work on their valuable Sonderbauten will be able to proceed entirely out of sight.
20:24The initial sight for this new weapon system, the Allies bombed at.
20:31The Germans now learned that exterior sights are not necessarily going to be the safest way to go.
20:37So everything is moved underground for both security and safety.
20:42By 1944, Allied intelligence begins to paint a disturbing picture.
20:48Photo reconnaissance and undercover reports amass sightings and blueprints of never-before-seen missiles
20:54that are being developed and tested by the Reich.
20:57Pursuing their initial suspicions of Hitler's intentions in France,
21:02Operation Crossbow intensifies bombing across Pas-de-Calais.
21:08This site was built just 15 kilometers away from another location that had been destroyed by Allied bombs.
21:14So why keep building in this area that's so susceptible to Allied bombing raids?
21:20Pas-de-Calais is the closest part of France to Britain.
21:24This is an incredibly menacing structure.
21:27But what role does it play in the Nazi arsenal?
21:35In the early months of 1944, construction at the quarry is halted hundreds of times
21:40by the ominous blare of air raid warnings.
21:43Yet, despite its vulnerable and seemingly easy-to-target location,
21:47the site remains remarkably unscathed.
21:51All the elements to raise suspicion are there.
21:54The British are making the calculation.
21:56Are we 100% that this kind of rocket capability is ready to be used by the Germans?
22:04Because if it were to be ready to be used by the Germans,
22:07why haven't they used it already?
22:09Do you see what I'm saying?
22:10So, in a way, they're calling Germany's bluff.
22:13With the dome completed, most of the workforce moves underground,
22:18leaving the quarry above to appear deceptively quiet.
22:21Little more than a pit of shrubbery and stone.
22:26However, on March 4th, 1944, a British Spitfire captures photographs
22:31of a vast concrete mixing operation beneath the site's camouflage veil.
22:36This is the Allies' smoking gun.
22:39It proves that there is far more happening here than meets the eye.
22:43March 11th.
22:4434 B-24 Liberators pierced the clouds above Pas-de-Calais
22:49and begin their descent on the quarry.
22:51Though obstructed by thick, overcast skies,
22:54ground-based radio transmissions guide the pilots to their target.
22:58Suddenly, the village erupts as 248 half-ton bombs rain down from the sky.
23:05Even with direct hits on the dome, nothing happens.
23:14It's just bouncing off that concrete,
23:17especially because it has this kind of curvature on it.
23:20Often, they don't even detonate.
23:22They just bounce off, and then they detonate after they hit.
23:25In order to add additional protections,
23:27they built this element called a shatter wall
23:29that was a two-meter-thick reinforced concrete wall
23:32that ran the circumference of the dome.
23:35And this would help absorb any forces from bombing.
23:39It was essentially sacrificial.
23:41It could be destroyed,
23:42and it would not have impacted the structural integrity
23:44of the main dome itself.
23:45As the sheer tenacity of the German dome comes into focus,
23:49the Allies escalate their efforts,
23:51launching seven additional air raids.
23:54These are bombs that had successfully destroyed plenty of other structures,
24:00and yet this one has remained intact.
24:03The harder the target is to destroy,
24:06the more worried the Allies become about it.
24:09This thing is made indestructible.
24:11What is it?
24:12What are they doing there?
24:13When the Allies discover that their bombs aren't penetrating the dome,
24:17they start bombing the roads and the rail lines going into the location
24:23in an effort to choke out any kind of activity.
24:28Despite these setbacks, work at the quarry presses on at a heightened pace,
24:32with the workforce expanded to meet Hitler's intended deadline.
24:36The Allies respond with innovative bombing techniques
24:39and new pathfinding technologies.
24:42Yet the dome withstands each attempted assault.
24:46To shatter this concrete behemoth,
24:48they're going to need a heavier bomb.
24:51The Royal Air Force decides it's time to deploy a newly developed device,
24:55the Tallboy,
24:57a vessel of destruction otherwise known as an earthquake bomb.
25:02The Tallboy was first deployed in the summer of 1944,
25:05and it was enormous.
25:07At six tons, it was 12 times the size
25:10of the typical medium-capacity bomb.
25:13These are known as earthquake bombs
25:15because upon impact,
25:16they were designed to create an earthquake-type shock,
25:19undermining foundations of any building.
25:25On June 24th,
25:26the Royal Air Force's Dambusters Squadron
25:28puts the formidable device to the test
25:30with a fleet of 16 modified Lancaster planes.
25:34They assemble into formation above Vizern.
25:37In a matter of minutes,
25:3915 menacing Tallboys plummet towards the quarry.
25:45The impact inflicts significant damage
25:47on the ancillary structures, roads and rail lines,
25:50but the dome itself is remarkably unshaken.
25:54Undeterred,
25:55the squadron returns one month later,
25:57unleashing a dozen more earth-shattering explosions
26:00in what will be the decisive blitz.
26:04The air raid in July
26:06finally delivers a meaningful breakthrough.
26:10Whilst the bombs don't directly penetrate the dome itself,
26:14they compromise its integrity
26:16by destabilizing the supporting structure.
26:19They totally destroy the infrastructure underneath the dome.
26:25The air raid seals off the site's tunnels
26:28and causes part of the hillside to collapse.
26:3116 major air raids carried out by hundreds of planes
26:35drop a staggering total of over 3,000 tons of explosives on the site.
26:39Ultimately, the mighty Tallboy finally brings Bauvorhaben 21 to its end.
26:49It shakes up Hitler's confidence in his wonder weapons,
26:53in his architects,
26:55and it signals that nothing is indestructible.
26:58We'll get to you eventually.
27:00The fall of the dome is just one domino in a cascade of loss for the Nazis.
27:08Around 350 kilometers down the French coastline,
27:11the tide of defeat had already washed ashore.
27:15On June 6, 1944,
27:17over 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy
27:21in the largest amphibious invasion in history.
27:25Ushering in a wave of liberation,
27:27they surge towards Pas-de-Calais,
27:29slowly reclaiming Hitler's occupied France.
27:33Hitler believes that the most likely landing spot
27:36for the Allies is at Pas-de-Calais.
27:39The Allies realize that that is the area that the Germans expect them,
27:42and that is where most of the defenses of the Atlantic wall are built.
27:47So the Allies choose another location in Normandy.
27:51As the Allied forces close in,
27:52the once impenetrable dome stands exposed and vulnerable.
27:56Its secrets ripe for the taking.
27:59By September, the site comes under British control,
28:02and the concrete curtain is finally drawn back.
28:06An unexpected benefit of the dome not being destroyed
28:10is that when the Allies arrive after D-Day,
28:13they're able to infiltrate the site
28:15and gather information about what the Germans were up to
28:19and what kind of technology they were developing under the dome.
28:23September 5th, 1944.
28:29At the request of Operation Crossbow officials,
28:32British engineers enter the deserted quarry
28:35for the first intimate glimpse of its monstrous Nazi bunker.
28:39Clambering through the rubble,
28:40they inch closer to the inner workings of Hitler's elusive operation
28:44and unearth a secret far more extensive than ever imagined.
28:48As the Allies advance into territory held by the Nazis,
28:53they encounter a lot of weird stuff,
28:54strange structures, and they're not sure what the purpose was.
28:57But they know that Hitler had a secret weapons program.
29:00They have to ask themselves,
29:01will we find evidence there of what the Nazis are working on?
29:04Will we find tools and intelligence that will allow us to counteract
29:08whatever secret weapon he's about to unleash on us?
29:11Adjacent to the massive domed roof,
29:15they observe a concrete cube jutting from the hilltop.
29:18A partially excavated ventilation shaft meant to service the hidden complex below.
29:25Though the two main entrances to the subterranean base
29:28have been buried by British tall boys,
29:30an alternative access point is discovered via the site's railway tunnel.
29:35Codenamed Ida, this tunnel, with a direct link to the main rail line through town,
29:42leads to an unloading station for supplies and personnel.
29:46From here, seven kilometres of tunnels bridge out to connect galleries,
29:50store rooms and a 33-metre-high octagonal chamber directly beneath the dome.
29:56Getting up close to this phenomenal structure must have been a chilling experience.
30:03The Nazis had excavated an immense network of tunnels and chambers,
30:08clearly designed to house something of incredible scale.
30:13Armed with new observations and intelligence gathered from local sources,
30:17British engineer Colonel Terence Sanders is tasked with compiling a definitive report.
30:23Putting my engineering hat on would be a fascinating exploration to try to deduce.
30:28What was the purpose? What was it made for? How was it made?
30:31And you're trying to deduce that basically out of a pile of rubble.
30:34That's a tough project.
30:36Gradually, Colonel Sanders and his team assemble a chilling image of a functional Vizern base.
30:42As ample storage rooms, workshops and towering passageways are sketched onto their map,
30:48the report reveals a grim assembly line fitted to the specification of a new vertically positioned projectile.
30:55Hitler's rumoured wonder weapon, the deadly V2 rocket.
31:01The V in V2 stands for Vergeltungswaffe, and this translates to vengeance weapon.
31:08He brands them as vengeance weapons for what he felt was the Allied bombing of civilians in Germany.
31:15The over 12 and a half ton missile stands 14 metres tall and is built to deliver explosive payloads without the need of a pilot.
31:25An autonomous bullet capable of mass destruction.
31:29The supersonic weapon has the potential to revolutionise warfare,
31:34and the Führer, desperate to turn his fortune, clings to the hope that it will shatter Allied resolve.
31:40As the Allies are coming to grips with the V1, the world's first cruise missile,
31:46the Germans unleash a new weapon, the V2, the world's first ballistic missile.
31:51The F1 V1 had a slow cruising speed.
31:56Pilots were able to not only shoot the V1 down, but a pilot could fly at the same speed,
32:02and with the wing of their plane just tip it off target and the thing would crash.
32:07It was very easily destroyed.
32:10Hitler is looking for some kind of a last-ditch magic weapon that they can launch from far away,
32:16and that can pass through the air defence and naval defences to make a direct hit on Great Britain.
32:23Designed by Nazi rocket scientist Werner von Braun in utmost secrecy,
32:29the V2 entirely dwarfs its predecessor.
32:32The missile is armed with an advanced guidance system
32:35and utilises an innovative propellant system to generate immense thrust.
32:40This propulsion allows it to reach distant targets nine times faster than the V1,
32:45at speeds of over 5,000 kilometres per hour.
32:48The V2 just came up in silence until it detonates.
32:54So you never knew it was coming.
32:56We didn't have anti-ballistic missile technology at that time,
33:00and so Britain certainly would have been vulnerable.
33:03Not only was the dome well within range to wreak havoc on Britain as a V2 launch site,
33:09it also hosted testing and maintenance facilities.
33:13Far more than a missile launch pad,
33:17the Vizern Dome protects an entire ecosystem of operations.
33:21The V2 rockets begin their journey through this fortress on the Ida Railway,
33:25arriving from Germany, where they are manufactured by slave labourers.
33:30The missiles are then loaded onto trolleys and transported to the heart of the dome,
33:34the octagonal, multi-storey chamber where they are prepared for their deadly mission.
33:39In here, the V2 rockets would have been fuelled, armed and lifted into an upright position, ready for launch.
33:49However, the potential of the V2 relies on more than its range.
33:54At the core of its revolutionary propulsion system is a critical component, liquid oxygen.
34:00The problem is, the demand for liquid oxygen to fuel V2s far outstripped the available supply of liquid oxygen that the Nazis had.
34:09So they actually had plans to create a manufacturing station right in this massive complex.
34:15That would have transformed it into a self-sufficient V2 hub.
34:19The Vizern complex is designed to be a self-sufficient marvel of military engineering,
34:25housing a hospital, staff barracks, offices and generators.
34:30A subterranean city dedicated to the V2 program.
34:34Meanwhile, the remnants of the Watten blockhouse were planned to host a supplementary liquid oxygen factory,
34:41while the nearby Rockatoire substation would assist missiles in their initial moments of flight.
34:46About 10 kilometers from the dome, the Rockatoire blockhouse was built to house a radio guidance system for the V2s.
34:55That means that once functional, this radio beam technology could be deployed to assist missiles with course correction in real time.
35:04Just as the Allies had suspected, these Sonderbauten or special construction projects scattered across Pas-de-Calais were much more than isolated outposts.
35:14Once fully primed for firing, the V2 rockets would be carefully guided down one of the two main launch tracks,
35:22codenamed Gretchen and Gustav.
35:25Leading westward to the quarry pit, two hefty bomb-proof doors forged from meter and a half thick steel plates
35:32would part to reveal the outdoor launch pads.
35:35This is where Colonel Sonder's team stumbles upon a strange discovery.
35:41There were two tunnels that the engineers couldn't access. The entrances had been destroyed.
35:46However, they were able to determine that the height of these tunnels was between 17 and 24 meters.
35:53A five to seven-story tall building could fit in that space vertically. That's a really big tunnel.
36:01They realized this is a much longer and deeper silo than you needed for the V2 weapon.
36:08And so there would have been a V3, a more powerful missile coming, that would have been an intercontinental ballistic missile, ICBM.
36:17Further analysis of the quarry's location finds the orientation of its launch pads to be within half a degree of the shortest aerial path to New York.
36:28Britain's not the prize anymore. The prize is the United States of America that's the much more powerful enemy
36:33and the country that has been sitting protected by both the Atlantic and the Pacific. The prize is the United States.
36:40There's going to be nicknamed the America rocket. The possibilities are frightening. They now understood what that dome was about.
36:53Though the Nazis' grand vision of unleashing a daily barrage of dozens of missiles across the English Channel is thwarted, Britain does not escape unscathed.
37:02Even as the Allied forces claim victory at the Wiesern Dome and liberate the entirety of France, Hitler's V2 program persists in the distant shadows of his crumbling Reich.
37:14Learning from the shortcomings of a fixed launch site like La Capole, these V2s are launched from mobile launch pads across Holland and Germany.
37:23They launched about 3,000 V2 rockets over the course of the war. They were responsible for the loss of nearly 9,000 lives both in Britain and in other Allied countries.
37:33Yet, for all its human cost, the V2 campaign proves to be a futile endeavor. The Fuhrer's desperate bid to sow fear and chaos among Allied populations fails to turn his fate.
37:46Hitler isn't just looking for a final victory, but it's also to do as much damage as he possibly can, even if he is going to lose the war.
37:54In a final frenzied act of defiance, the last V2 rocket screamed skyward just weeks before the Reich's collapse, ending Nazi Germany's most ambitious and costly armaments project.
38:07A 2 billion Reichsmarks gamble that hastens the downfall of the regime.
38:12Hitler's motivations were demonstrating power, and these massive undertakings took time away perhaps from other things.
38:22It is really quite a vast and ambitious project that might have been part of his downfall as well.
38:30Though the Fuhrer's vengeance weapon ultimately fails, the toll it takes is undoubtedly profound.
38:37The Toad organization is known for its enormous building projects, and those building projects came with an equally enormous human cost.
38:44They were often carried out through the use of forced labor.
38:47Prisoners of war, conscripted forced laborers, and slave laborers from concentration camps.
38:52Twice the number of people were killed who were working on the V2 than the V2 killed of the enemy.
38:59The Sanders team's final report, published in 1945, deems the site perilously unstable due to ongoing structural failures beneath the massive dome.
39:11Recognizing the potential dangers and possibility of future use, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill orders the complex to be partially demolished, sealing its sinister legacy for years to come.
39:23The cavernous halls of Bauvorhaben 21, now known as Le Cupol, stand dormant for decades.
39:34Yet the influence of this sprawling subterranean complex soon reaches far beyond its stone walls, becoming the prototype for modern underground missile silos used in both military operations and space exploration.
39:48The dome's innovative layout went on to influence the blueprints for missile silos during the Cold War.
39:56Ironically, the big winner from the V2 rocket program is the United States and the Soviet Union, because they will take that technology and those German scientists,
40:06and they will ultimately then develop the rockets that are used to put the first humans into space.
40:13While many of the Nazi Sonderbauten sites across northern France succumb to decay, La Cupole finds new life.
40:21In the 1980s, the Ida Tunnel is ceremoniously reopened to house a historical exhibition.
40:27The winding passages and chambers have since been transformed into a comprehensive museum, preserving the dark stories of its past, a powerful reminder of the innovation and devastation waged in a time of war.
40:41The dome becomes a symbol of the moral implications of engineering.
40:51In war, we are forced to innovate. It is a time of great engineering that advances our societies.
40:59It challenges us to reflect on the implications of scientific and technological advancement and the weight of responsibility that comes with that power.
41:09NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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