Abandoned Engineering (2016–…): Season 2, Episode 1 - Hitler's Army Powerhouse - full transcript

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A high-tech industrial site
now lost to dense forest.

Without that production,
Hitler's war machine

would simply grind to a halt.

A giant chimney stack that became
a towering inferno over Baltimore.

It's really, really sturdy, almost
over-built walls, because they

were afraid of a collapse from
wind or some other natural disaster.

An abandoned tower consumed
by a bizarre force of nature.

It's a very strange picture,
because what was there before

is no longer there now.

And a mysterious installation
that waged a cold war in Berlin.

It was so brazen, it must have
been a giant middle finger to the ussr.



Once they were some of

the most advanced structures
and facilities on the planet,

at the cutting edge of
design and construction.

Today, they stand abandoned,
contaminated and sometimes deadly.

But who built them, and how
and why were they abandoned?

On the baltic coast of Poland,
near the village of police,

is a 450 acre fenced
off area of forest.

Smashed concrete structures
litter this overgrown site.

Skeletal buildings riddled

with collapsing walls, underground
shelters and a network of tunnels.

Hidden under the trees in
northern Poland is this labyrinth of

concrete structures.

It's quite clearly something
that was industrial.

That kind of thing does not



happen overnight, and not without a
vast investment of time and money.

A group of mangled structures

are clustered together
at the heart of the forest,

flanked by the pulverized
remains of tower blocks

and a strange brick coloured
tower that soars over the trees.

When you look closely, there
are clues to tell you exactly

what happened there.

On the side of one building is
marked in German 'coal bunker 4'

and then not far away, there's
the remains of what was, quite

obviously, large storage tanks
and right there, those two elements

are the core of the story that
tells you what happened there.

What was the
purpose of this site?

What events took place here
and why was it abandoned?

In the 1930s, the town of
police was part of Nazi Germany,

and would play a major role
in Adolf Hitler's plans for war.

Germany had already been
rearming in secret for years,

when Hitler openly announced
his policy of rearmament in 1935.

Hitler, however,
faced a critical obstacle

to building up
his military forces.

Very few people know that Germany
really lacked the natural resources

required to fight a major war.

Apart from coal and water, at
the time, pretty much everything

else was imported, and that

critical lack played a huge role
in Hitler's preparations for war.

One crippling energy shortage

outweighed all others,
and that was fuel.

Without it, not a single
aircraft could fly, ship sail

or tank roll across
the battlefield.

The Germans suffered from
real constraints in all of their

operations from fuel.

Through world war
ii, the prime mover,

the main transport was the
m1a1 horse, pulling a wagon.

Germany had almost no
fuel, and was therefore heavily

reliant on imports.

In the drive to
become self-sufficient,

they set out to
create their own.

The modern equivalent
of almost 1 billion pounds

was spent on this site -
the politz synthetic oil plant.

In 1937, construction started
on the huge industrial complex.

This was no ordinary refinery,

but rather a state-of-the-art
facility that used a revolutionary

new process called hydrogenation
to turn Germany's coal into oil.

The Germans

used methods to make fuel
out of coal that were developed in

the early 20th century
on to the mid 20th century.

They produce beautiful
fuels, but they produce fuel

that is very, very pure but
mindbogglingly expensive.

The synthetic fuel

is created by liquifying
powdered coal.

In a reactor, a mixture
of heavy oil, hydrogen

gas and a catalyst is heated
to almost 400 degrees celsius,

and subjected to the incredible
pressure of 10,000 pounds

per square inch.

This dangerous process made politz
a lethal environment for its thousands

of slave labourers.

The economics of
it really don't add up.

It's said that it takes 6 tonnes
of coal to produce 1 tonne of

synthetic oil and that's before
you consider the amount of coal

it takes to ship
everything around.

And whilst, for Hitler, that may
have served a purpose of Nazi

Germany, in any other
economy that just won't fly.

After four years of construction,
politz finally began fuel production

in 1941.

At the heart of the
plant was the coal mill.

Packed around it were numerous
storage tanks, distillation plants,

pressure chambers and
hundreds of miles of piping,

needed to carry the vital fuel to
waiting trains and tankers offshore.

Politz had gone into production
just in time to help fuel the 3,000 tanks

and 2,500 aircraft that took
part in operation barbarossa,

Hitler's colossal attack
on the Soviet union.

By 1943, the plant was producing

a staggering 7,000 tonnes
- 15% of all Germany's fuel.

The synthetic fuel plants
kept Germany in the war.

That was Germany's only reliable

source of fuel and so they were
quite dependent on those plants.

Without that production coming
out from politz, Hitler's war machine

would simply grind to a halt.

Whilst pivotal to Hitler's war
machine, it came at a terrible cost.

30,000 slave labourers were
brought in from across occupied Europe

and the Soviet union to operate the
complex and dangerous machinery.

Nearly half of these prisoners died
from the brutal treatment and toxic

working conditions at the plant.

13,000 slave labourers
gave their lives at politz alone,

and that's something that
should never be forgotten.

As allied forces gradually
gained the upper hand, synthetic

fuel from plants like politz became
ever more vital for Hitler's armies.

The Germans are really dependent
upon these synthetic fuel plants,

and when those plants are attacked,
then there will be a huge drop off

in the capability, for example
there is no fuel to train pilots.

They're producing air planes but

there's no fuel and it will
become progressively worse.

The critical weakness of
synthetic oil was now exposed.

It relied on coal to make it, but
coal was desperately needed by

other industries - power stations
and even the trains and ships that

were taking the oil
away from politz itself.

There simply wasn't
enough fuel to go around.

The German war effort

has got to expend a lot more
resource on burning 1l of high

test aviation gas than the British
or the Americans or the Russians.

The Germans are fighting a much
more expensive war, because they

haven't got key resources.

By late 1944, politz was within
reach of allied bomber fleets

operating from
britain and Italy.

And in January, 1945, they unleashed
a devastating 14-minute air raid.

More than 1,600 bombs
pulverised the plant.

This hammer blow mortally
wounded the German war machine.

Once the campaign gets going,

you see a dramatic drop
in German oil reserves,

and in the supplies available for
the German army, and this impacts

the German operational
effectiveness quite severely.

By February 1945, the
red army was closing in.

The chemists and engineers
running operations fled west for safety,

and after the war, the Soviet union
looted the remaining equipment,

leaving the ruins
of politz abandoned.

Today, the remains of this once
high-tech refinery are accessible

and can be explored with care.

They are a forgotten monument
to oil production, the achilles' heel

of Hitler's third reich.

The allies pulled out

all the stops to try and bring
production to an end, and if you

visit politz today, there's
evidence of that everywhere.

Huge craters in the ground,
roofs, all these building destroyed,

some buildings
completely turned over.

The devastation there was
phenomenal, because it was

so important for the allies.

That was their means of
bringing Nazi Germany to an end.

Politz reminds us of the horror
of death, it reminds us of mass

enslavement under cover of war,
and it reminds us of the Nazi idea

that cruelty and enslavement

could create fuel
where there was none.

Over 4,000 miles away in the
heart of Baltimore, Maryland,

looms an incredible yet
largely unknown structure.

Hemmed in by office blocks,
this tower is from a bygone era

and is, to many of the
city's inhabitants, an enigma.

So, if I was just randomly driving
through the middle of Baltimore

and I saw this massive
brick structure in front of me,

I think I'd be pretty confused to
be honest, because I would think,

"is it a chimney for a factory,
is it part of a power plant,

is it even for storage?"

It was the tallest structure
in the United States.

Not only was it made of brick,
but it was made of so many bricks.

The tower reaches
a height of 215 feet.

Pierced only by a few

deep set windows, it soars high
above the surrounding streets.

At the base of the
tower is an iron door

that leads through the 4.5 feet
thick wall, and into a hollow shaft.

Jackson gilman-forlini is an
historic properties coordinator

and works for the preservation
of the city's historic buildings.

It is quite a climb.

I mean going 215 feet, you
know, it's over 13, 14 stories high.

It really is an engineering
masterpiece and this really

was untrodden ground.

Wooden beams rise up out of
sight, supporting bizarre zig-zag

shaped iron brackets.

Around the walls, a creaking
staircase leads to the summit.

The smooth
surface of the tower's

interior is testament to
the skilled workmanship

in laying the kiln
fired Clay bricks.

The intricate wooden framework
lining it reveals the complex

engineering that went
into its construction.

But what was the purpose of
this mighty building and why

was it abandoned?

Decades after the
war of independence,

the American military was
again in conflict with Great Britain.

During the war of 1812, when
the British set fire to the white

house, the American military were
still reliant on imported ammunition

from France, Holland and Spain.

Unable to manufacture the
huge quantities of ammunition

they needed, it was a crucial
weakness in their defences.

The United States, at this
time this was built, was still

a relatively young country,
that was trying to come onto

its own on the world stage,
and therefore, it needed a way of

producing military armaments
quickly and inexpensively.

In 1828, Charles carroll III, a
surviving signatory of the us

declaration of independence,
laid the foundation stone for this,

the Phoenix shot tower.

This vertical factory
made lead musket balls

and round bullets called shot.

It was designed to
produce 100,000 bags

of shot every year, each
bag weighing 25 pounds.

To construct this impressive
building, it required the production

of well over a million bricks.

This presented a
potential problem.

The limitation of the structure

was probably due to the
compressive strength of the brick at

the bottom, right, you can only
make it so high before the weight

of the structure above just
crushes the bricks at the bottom.

Despite this, the extraordinary
new building began to take shape.

Yard after yard, it
reached farther into the sky.

The need for such
height lay in the science.

The time when the shot
tower was constructed,

guns would shoot spherical,
basically, lead projectiles

out of 'em, and the most
efficient way to do that is to

pour molten lead from a height,
which, as it falls, the molten

lead coalesces into a sphere,
almost like a perfect sphere.

The process was invented by
William watts of Bristol in 1782,

the same year he built
the first ever shot tower.

The technique relied on an
ingenious use of physics to

achieve the
perfectly round bullet.

Tonnes of lead were
hauled to the top of the tower

and heated to nearly 330 degrees
celsius to create molten lead.

This was then poured
through a copper sieve.

The combination of surface
tension and friction with the air

turned the folding drops of
molten lead into perfect spheres

before they hit a cooling pool of
water at the bottom of the tower.

You're basically using gravity,

you're using physics, to create a
sphere, so it makes perfect sense.

But clearly what you need
for that is a lot of height,

and how do you get height? It's
by building a massive brick tower.

Building a 215 foot tower
presented major challenges.

They didn't really know
entirely what they were

getting themselves into.

Incredibly, no scaffolding was
used to build this, it was built

entirely one level at a
time, slowly building bricks

as they went up.

It's really, really sturdy, almost
over-built walls, because they were

afraid of a collapse from wind
or some other natural disaster,

and so, this tower
is really strong

as a rock, because of those super
thick, load bearing masonry walls.

But with no scaffolding,

the tower's sheer height
made working conditions

extremely dangerous.

This led to the introduction of
one of its most distinctive features.

That cast iron

metal track, it looks
kind of strange and a lot

of people ask what it is but
it's actually a early braking

system for a kind of
elevator. They didn't just put

any old elevator in, they
thought about, "well, what

happens if a rope
actually snaps?"

There was a terrible accident
in which workers fell to

the bottom, but
thankfully survived.

After that, they installed
this track so that the box for

the pulley system had spokes,
which would fit into the track.

So if there was a breakage,
it would very slowly kind of

shift its way down to the bottom
of the tower and hopefully no-one

would get hurt.

Just a year after the first
brick was laid, the Phoenix

tower went into
production in 1829.

Probably one of the most effective
ways that the United States had of

making shot, it was a huge
production facility that created

hundreds of thousands
of bags of shot.

For over 30 years, the Phoenix
shot tower successfully produced

spherical bullets for muskets.

Then, on the Eve of the American
civil war, more advanced rifle

ammunition was developed.

New, conical-shaped
bullets that spun on exit,

offered greater
range and accuracy.

This contributed to the
staggering casualty rates seen

on the battlefields of
america in the 1860s.

The shot tower no
longer had a role

to play in america's
military production.

So, the tower
created bullets for

the nation's civilian
game hunters instead.

Yet production was brought to a
dramatic halt in September 1878,

when the wooden
interior caught fire.

The flames were shooting
out so much that the fire itself

could be seen from miles away.

The fire burnt out all of the
internal structure of the shot

tower, but the bricks itself
remained intact, due to their

inherent resistance to fire.

Well, brick is actually a really
good insulator. What that means

is it doesn't get very hot or very
cold very easily, and because of

the thickness of the brick it
actually contained the fire.

The heat just couldn't penetrate
through this massive wall of Clay,

and, also, remember that this
Clay has actually been fired to much

higher temperatures already than
the fire would have been producing.

The tower Rose from
the flames like a Phoenix.

Just a month after the fire,
it reopened for business.

Towards the late 1800s,
more efficient methods

for making round lead bullets
resulted in the tower's demise.

Hauling tonnes of led up a high

tower was increasingly seen
as too hazardous and inefficient.

The Phoenix tower closed
its iron doors for good in 1892.

Today, the Phoenix shot tower
stands as a monument to a bygone era.

It helped de-shackle
the American military

from its reliance on
foreign-made ammunition.

Yet, without a concerted effort,
this abandoned vertical factory

would have vanished
without trace.

The tower had been purchased
by a gas and oil company,

which did propose
tearing the tower down.

However, the citizenry of Baltimore
loved it so much and cherished it

as a landmark, that they
rallied together and raised

the money to purchase the
tower and then donated it to the city

government for safe keeping.

Now open as a museum,
the Phoenix shot tower

is more than just a symbol
of outdated technology.

Not only did this incredible
brick factory help to revolutionise

the production of ammunition,
it was also a vital stepping stone

towards the nation's
world-leading military industries.

Across the Atlantic
ocean, in western Berlin,

a battered shell of a building
looks over a tree-covered hill.

This hill is called the
teufelsberg, or devil's mountain.

The name adds a sinister touch

to the strange structure
rising out of the trees.

At first sight all you're thinking
is, "I don't know what this is,

but it's an eye-sore."

It looks almost like an
ancient prussian castle,

then suddenly it turns into
a bizarre modern facility,

strangely perched on a peak,

overlooking the
modern city of Berlin.

Towering 260 feet above

the surrounding plateau is a central
tower topped by a mysterious dome.

Two more tattered domes

flank the tower, and nearby,
another one rises from the summit.

Ragged plastic sheeting
exposes their ruined interior.

Surrounding them is a sprawling
complex of derelict facilities.

This thing is really a hangout
for rebels, conspiracy theorists,

counterculture intellectuals,
and most definitely graffiti

artists, and there's a sort
of an angry presence to it.

Mystery surrounds
this strange ruin.

What was its original purpose
and why was it abandoned?

In the 1960s, Berlin was at
the centre of cold war espionage.

The city was divided into four
sectors, three run by the allies -

america, britain and France.

While the eastern side
was under Soviet control.

Democratic west Berlin was
surrounded and enveloped by

communist east Germany,

making west Berlin easy prey for
the Soviet union's network of spies.

The American embassy in Moscow
is riddled with listening equipment.

The American fleet at sea
is constantly being tailed

by Soviet fishing trawlers
bristling with listening equipment.

Everybody is
shadowing everybody.

Though encircled, america's
national security agency, the NSA,

took advantage of their close
proximity to communist Berlin.

They built a cutting-edge
listening station

called field station Berlin,

known to its operators
simply as 'the hill'.

We had listening posts with
large antennas all around

the periphery of the Soviet union,
collecting electronic intelligence,

and it was especially well placed,
because it's 150 miles inside

the enemy lines in this
enclave of west Berlin.

Teufelsberg was a place where we
in the west could listen in and get a

look inside the operations
of the Soviet armed forces.

In 1963, a year after the Cuban
missile crisis brought the world

to the brink of nuclear war,

engineers began constructing
the new monitoring station

on the summit of
devil's mountain.

The foundations of the new complex
were dug deep into the ground,

but not into standard bedrock.

Devil's mountain is actually
13 million cubic yards of rubble -

a mound created with the
war time ruins of Nazi Berlin.

Beneath this devil's hill is
something really interesting,

a Nazi technical college, designed
and constructed by Albert speer,

and it was designed so well
they couldn't knock it down,

so they just buried it.

As soon as the hill went into
operation, the Soviet union were

desperate to shut it down,
in large part because its

surveillance technology
was proving highly effective.

In each of the distinctive
domes was an antenna, a rotating

parabolic radio antenna that
intercepted Soviet communications.

Monitoring this radio chatter
gave the NSA valuable insight

into military manoeuvres
behind the iron curtain.

However, to maintain the shape
of the plastic sheeting over the main

dome, the whole structure had to
be kept under pressure with potentially

life threatening consequences.

It's interesting that the iconic
ray domes are still there today.

Now, these were thin plastic
put over frames in a highly

pressurised room, and
we're told, interestingly, that

the men who worked there had to
go through a decompression chamber

upon leaving, or otherwise risk
getting decompression sickness.

The Soviets continuously attempted
to block or interfere with us army

radio communications.

This was a practice
known as jamming.

Now, jamming was a standard
procedure of the Soviet union,

but in this case, there's
not a lot you can do

with an enclave
that's deep inside

your system, without jamming
your own radio transmissions.

This structure,
high up on the hill,

it was so brazen, it must've been
a giant middle finger to the ussr.

Year after year, the hill listening
station gathered intelligence on

the strength and capabilities of
Soviet and east German forces,

and nuclear missile launch
units were given top priority.

You can learn a lot
from military operations

from just listening, even if
you haven't broken their codes.

We understood that

when we were on the radio,
the other guys were listening,

and they understood
that as well.

Both sides continuously
eavesdropped

on their opponent's
radio communications.

But for more than 30 years,
the hill's location in Berlin, right

at the heart of communist Germany,
gave the west a crucial advantage.

You're surrounded by a large
number of Soviet east German divisions,

which are holding manoeuvres,
which are pushing the radio traffic,

and it's a great place to listen
to all of their patter, their tactical

operational transmissions.

The Soviets failed
in their quest.

They never managed to put
an end to the NSA's surveillance.

However, with the
collapse of the Soviet union

and the Warsaw pact in 1989,
the cold war came to an end.

The hill became redundant,

and as soon as it was
decommissioned, it was stripped

of its secret
monitoring equipment.

All that remained
was an empty shell.

Today, the teufelsberg listening
station is a ruin, overlooking

the united city of Berlin, yet it's
rebellious status remains intact.

Who wants to remember
that paranoia, that imminent

destruction?

So, now it's a graffiti gallery
and maybe that's appropriate,

you know, maybe
that's even healing.

Even today, details of its

surveillance work are classified,
but the knowledge and experience

gained on this mountain of Nazi
rubble gave the us and its allies

a lead in signals intelligence
that has never been lost.

We're looking at people's
bandwidths and transmissions

all the time, and
it's still a very,

very big part of intelligence,
in fact, it's probably a bigger

part of intelligence
today than it was before.

The site has now has been
completely stripped of all its equipment,

so there's no clue about
what it actually found,

and, to this day it remains
highly classified, in fact, top secret.

430 miles away, on the northern
tip of Denmark, a solitary ruin

stands in total isolation.

The derelict tower

overlooks the sea from its
position on top of a huge sand dune.

When you think of shifting sand
dunes, you possibly conjure up

images of the Sahara
and vast desert landscapes.

You certainly don't
automatically think of Denmark.

Perched precariously on this
desolate landscape, it overlooks

the skagerrak, the narrow strait
of water that separates Denmark,

Norway and Sweden.

When you see this tower
emerging out of the sand,

I mean it's eerie,
it's mysterious.

It's a very strange initial
picture, and that's primarily

because what was there
before is no longer there now.

The 75 foot masonry tower is
topped by a glass-fronted turret.

Scattered around its
base are the remains

of buildings
submerged in the sand.

The whole structure is
precariously balanced

on the lip of a sheer sand cliff,
200 feet above the crashing waves.

What really stands
out, as it rises up

into the sky and looms over
the cliffs, is when it was built,

the tower was strong enough to
withstand even the strongest Gale.

So why was this one abandoned?

In both world wars, this stretch
of water, the skagerrak strait,

was the German Navy's main
gateway to the open ocean.

This tower witnessed prowling
British submarines lying in wait,

and the 'Bismarck'
sailing to its doom.

But centuries earlier, the
Danish government had realised

its critical
importance to trade.

To become a global power,
they need to help ships navigate

one of the most dangerous stretches
of water in the northern hemisphere.

Jacob kofoed is a guide
and curator at this unique site.

It were very dangerous
to sail at this sea.

There was a lot of storm from
the west and boats often come into

trouble, so they want to
make some lighthouses

along the coastline.

With a budget equivalent to nearly
750,000 pounds in today's money,

the Danish lights
and buoys service

commissioned a
revolutionary lighthouse.

They called it the
rubjerg knude fyr.

In march 1899,

construction began on a complex
of buildings on a 200 foot high cliff.

For safety, it was set 200
yards back from the shoreline.

From its clifftop position,
the light should be visible

across miles of sea
and save countless lives.

Now, ships still frequently sail
through these waters, and in stormy

and foggy conditions, even with
the advent of modern technology,

lighthouses are still needed

for captains to know
where the land starts.

After nearly two
years of construction,

in late 1900,

the light at the top of the white
tower was finally switched on.

It was powered
by a 550 watt bulb

and had state-of-the-art
French-made fresnel lenses to

amplify the beam.

With numerous
glass rings stacked at

different angles, the fresnel lens
focused light towards its centre.

On clear days, this allowed it
to be seen from 25 miles away.

However, sand picked up by
strong winds along the coast

constantly clogged its machinery
and scarred the fresnel glass.

And engineers hadn't foreseen
an even bigger problem.

When it was built, rubjerg knude
was 200 yards inland and 200 ft

above sea level,
and miles away to

the south was a sand dune,
but not just any sand dune.

The rubjerg mile is the largest
moving sand dune in Northern Europe.

For 300 years, 5 million
cubic yards of sand crept

along Denmark's northern coast
at a dramatic rate of 60 feet a year.

It's really hard to imagine
that a country like Denmark

could have a slow-moving sand
Tsunami creeping up the coast.

The sand dunes themselves
always have a sort of back slope,

a windward slope, and then a
slip face where the sand gets

blown up, it bounces up and
falls down the slip face, and slowly,

through time, it migrates
across the land's surface.

We can't stop the wind,
so we're not gonna be able

to stop the sand dunes that are
migrating because of the wind.

The fact is, this sand dune
had been moving for centuries,

but where the lighthouse was built,
there was never any reason to think

that the sand would
ever be any kind of threat.

For over 20 years, the tower's
light and foghorn penetrated

darkness and mist to keep vessels
clear of the dangerous shallows.

By the 1920s, however,
the rubjerg mile dune

had arrived on its doorstep,
to the horror of engineers.

They tried to just do a kind of
king canute and stop the sand in

its tracks. They put barriers in
the way to stop the sand migrating.

On doing so, there was a big
traffic jam of sand building up

and the dune got
bigger and bigger.

So, actually, then you've
created a bigger problem,

'cause you've
created a bigger dune.

In an unlikely twist, the
200 foot cliff that made

the lighthouse so visible, now
acted as a ramp and carried

the slow moving Tsunami of sand
up and over the lighthouse complex.

The sand had made its
way all the way up that cliff,

and had swallowed up the
buildings around rubjard knude.

The sand was laying
around the lighthouse

and the big dunes were built
up there, and higher and higher.

Though the sands have
now shifted position,

in 1953, the dune actually grew
higher than the lighthouse itself.

Trapped in a hollow in the
sand, the light and fog signal

were no longer
clear to ships at sea.

The only way they figured they
could save the lighthouse was by

continuously digging away
the sand around the base,

but even then they must have
known this was a battle against nature

they were never going to win.

In 1968, authorities
finally gave up the battle

against the flood of sand, and
the light was decommissioned.

Yet the tower itself and its
surviving buildings became a museum

and study centre for
sand dune movement.

Ironically, though the peak of the
massive dune had long moved on,

the museum itself was slowly
crushed by the sand and closed in 2002,

when the whole site
was finally abandoned.

Today, the lighthouse at
rubjard knude is an empty shell.

Every year thousands of visitors

climb the mountain of sand
to explore its haunting remains.

The onshore winds that
suffocated the light with sand

have also scoured away
the cliff on which it stands.

The coastline is coming
too close and closer,

so in a few years, maybe two,

three, four, five, six years,
there's no lighthouse any longer.

The rolling dunes may
have snuffed out the light,

but in the very near future,
erosion will cause the mighty

tower to collapse
into the waves.

The engineers who built

the lighthouse believed its
location and solid construction

could withstand anything
the elements could throw at it.

But they didn't anticipate

the extraordinary power of the
wind to transform the landscape itself.

There's always a need to take into
account your natural surroundings,

but mother nature has a way
of continuously reminding you

who's really in charge.

Now abandoned,

they were once on the
cutting-edge of human engineering.

Within these decaying structures
are the echoes of history,

they speak of war and terror,

but also of exploration
and human endeavour.

Captioned by
ai-media ai-media. TV