D.A.G. BROMBERG WW2 GERMAN MUNITIONS PLANT

so [Music] there are a few things one needs in order to have a war one of the most notable ones would be anything that explodes or propels itself at high speeds towards the enemy the production of munitions explosives and in large numbers and in an uninterrupted flow was paramount for germany during world war ii and equally of key importance is that the enemy did not find out where they were making the munitions as any kind of bombing would result in a catastrophe in poland in a forest they managed to do both 23 square kilometers of production space yeah listen to that in 1500 buildings linked by 40 kilometers of rail tracks and 360 kilometers of roads and from the air you saw none of it still today it's practically impossible to see any of the remaining buildings and in 1945 when the russians took the place they were almost completely surprised even a fake factory site however had been constructed three kilometers from the main site in 1944 the allies did have one bombing raid but no damage was occurred towards the end of the war over 20 000 people worked here at the same time this factory was producing munitions ammunition aerial bombs rockets including research into new more destructive warheads for the v2 and the niblewefa which was also tested at the local range here the plant was performing hand loading for air bombs manufacturing electrical ballasts and fuses but in a remote and secret part expanded in 1943-44 they were developed unprecedented missiles inflated with compressed air which gave them a blast radius almost of two kilometers of course these facilities were blown up by the retreating germans in january 45 two days before the russians took the site one of the most impressive things to keep in mind when we walk through this extremely complicated complex is that the germans had their plans for construction ready so they could begin building as soon as the battle for poland was over they planned ahead and the second thing is that we are seeing all of these buildings in this huge complex today yet it is only one percent of what was actually here at the time the amount of planning and detail needed here was staggering i have never ever seen anything like this it's almost surreal with the different levels and buildings and above ground tunnels i literally have to show it to you for you to get the picture and since of course the russians took all of the machinery after the war we need a little help navigating what is here today in a few of the buildings a museum was created to memorize the victims and of the historians here is going to give us a heads up on the basis we are in poland at the duck factory the explosive museum that was during the time of the war one of the biggest munitions production plants that existed that was made it was completely camouflaged had lots of forced laborers that worked here and most of the production went off to the eastern front it's a large large area with a lot of different structures lots of fencing lots of tunnels and production that we will see i think it's important to come here and see exactly what a verified munitions plant looked like during world war ii now walking through this area makes it rather hard to give an idea of what is what here however this is obviously an above ground tunnel from this house under the road this is interesting this is an above ground tunnel i have never seen i thought the whole idea with tunnels were that they're supposed to be underground there's the walkway of the above ground tunnel and then just to prove my point comes out under the road the other way and it just continues into the forest i guess we're gonna have to revisit this tunnel find out why very interesting this map that you can see here is only one percent of the whole area that was used here by nazi germans in the second world war uh the whole factory has got 25 kilometers square we count that they got here almost one and a half thousand buildings uh 40 kilometers of roads of railways for 400 of roads and through the whole history of the second world war were here almost 40 000 of workers on one day on all ships almost 10 000 of workers this is the second production line that was that wasn't used in the second world war because the first production line that was exactly here was really used and they made nitroglycerin that was only a part of explosive materials that was used here to make ammunition we count that 30 percent of each bullet used on eastern front was made here in this factory so the most important building is this building here and here as you can see two lines this is the nitration building so the building where they made nitro glycerin then the nitroglycerin went to the next building when it was separate from water and put new clean water with the nuclear water it went to the next building when it was mixed with nitrocellulose that was brought here from other parts of the factory and the nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin been mixed the gunpowder was transported to the next building here we've got rails and by train those explosive materials have been transported to the next part of the factory where they made smokeless powder and this smokeless powder being transported to the next part where they elaborate it so put it into shells into bullets everywhere in the forest are protective dirt mounds that's been built up to shield surroundings by explosions that might take place by accident in the middle sign of munition production and storage just a lot of built up earth walls walls and walls built for directional accidental explosions more on that again as camouflage you see trees on the roofs trees everywhere covering all this up the russians did not even know this was here [Music] and just in case you were wondering what was inside the building they've been making here tests with the fuel for for v1 and explosive materials but the most important thing that is ammunition for flak 37 88 and 10.5 and if you ever wanted to know where to find that next car tower for your yard well they're all in here i wonder if they'll sell me one hold the car towers well some of them that has been sitting around the perimeter of this place and here they all are these are all guard towers interesting in front of one of the old buildings and you'll see a lot of pillars throughout this area a lot of fencing a lot of designated areas because if you worked in one area you were not really welcome in most of the others there's a lot of these and just for the hell of it i will say for the first time in a month of researching visiting locations in europe this is the first one that doesn't involve stairs or mountains crawling in our deep wet tunnels well so far anyway but still you get the idea flat ground i like i've only been here for some 10 minutes and i'm already seeing a lot of similarities between this factory and what i've found out of the mulkey factory in ludwigsdorf near the henge and this was verifiable uh there's no doubt they produced munitions here but the technology the tunnels the near the ground tunnels between buildings it's very interesting but it's very it's a very large area very hard to get a handle on just walking through it and trying to figure out what is what obviously there would be a lot of wells here you see a tunnel come out of the side of the wall and it's elevated here and continues into another building it's very interesting this is a very large building so interesting to see them using tunnels that goes above ground and underground very interesting concepts they've been using for the construction now despite only being able to see about one percent of what really was here what i'm going to do in this rather long episode is take you through the complex as we can see it today and we'll talk to the experts who will then talk us through and tell us about the process about the time of the war the prisoners that work here the sabotage and how everything actually was connected as far as we know because there are still quite a few blanks and especially when it comes to some of the special research projects that took place in buildings that were destroyed or we certainly can't see today i am very curious as to the output and usage of electricity the plant had there were also two huge boiler houses the combined heat and power plants of the two boiler houses were constructed in 1940 the boiler rooms were here to supply the lines of denitration and nitric acid concentrations with high pressure steam and also to heat the production buildings the largest plant ec3 was equipped with three turbine sets these units were fueled by coal also power from nearby power plants were run into this huge complex and one of these transformer stations is still in use today a couple of small this whole factory was uh completely history for for poles and for british and for the alliance and for the uh soviet union because it was really important to hide this factory uh in a forest as you can see we are in the middle of a forest here in a camouflage so no one will know nothing about this and up there something else the power plant as you can see there are large dirt mounds earth walls protecting every one of the structures from each other from explosions and so on over there is the power building and here on the other side there are two more mounts for very large tanks next to this building i would imagine this is diesel storage look at how brilliant this is for camouflage got the trees next to it trees on top of it even today if you do a google map search here fly over google maps or some other map program it's very hard to see electrical mountings that we are somewhat used to seeing and a lot of red brick a lot of reinforced cement and concrete there used to be a little platform back here and then we have oh wow i know what this is this is another generator building wow yes it is damn so they have two of these okay this is in a little bit more disrepair than the other [Music] this is the transformer station where power would come from the main power station and then from here it would get divided out to the individual manufacturing buildings are there so there are tunnels under here where the cables run not sure it's tunnels most cables were just under the ground the electricity comes from a huge uh power plant to different zones and then it's separated to all buildings oh transformer building yes transform okay on this side we've got three of those still we use one of them so this is the original building yeah and here you've got the number of the building it's 1562 as you can see but in the second world war number of the building was 562 after the second world war when polls start again counting those buildings they just put one in front of the number just because you didn't want to do like the germans did i mean it is extremely well camouflaged especially today if you have a little extra overgrowth but if you deliberately try to camouflage this thing how much better of a job could you do than letting nature do it and i'm imagining waterways well it is wet but there's another building well there's a lot of spiders out here there's another building right up from the power plant so there's the fenced off area and i'm imagining there'll be a lot of those but this is actually where i was wrong all these pillars throughout the complex are in order to hold the pipes that transfer all the various liquids here well the doors open i would feel rude not going in it's like an invitation right here's what a utility tunnel looks like here in the factory don't worry if it doesn't light up i'll get some light for you g bag in a tunnel shocking utilities have a little power something maybe a little slight voice to the rail add it to your room and a ladder up so this is one of the old munition buildings platforms and machinery all the buildings were located at different heights from one another and openings never lined up this arrangement prevented chain reactions and possible destruction of the technological lines in the event of any catastrophic disruption at any of the production stages in addition to that lines were duplicated so to increase the likelihood of keeping production going if it occurs a breakdown or a catastrophic failure staff could use multi-branch escape tunnels equipped with bunkers and i use that term lightly and you'll see why basins platforms these two were foundations for something that went all the way up there now you can see this is all the way of mixing the explosives at various stages that we'll hear all about reflection [Music] so this is the conditions persons we're working in different floors separated it's very sturdy building one side see these holes go all the way through to the roof okey dokey the history of the dag company began in 1863 when alfred nobel developed a method of producing nitroglycerin on an industrial scale by 1875 there was 14 factories set up in 12 countries and in 1876 the company was transferred into a joint stock company which eventually took the name namit akshay keshelsaft the third hike had a total of 80 explosive factories 32 of which belonged to the dag 27 warfare factories and 241 ammunition production plants after the outbreak of the war the plants expanded and 1944 dig produced a quarter of the total production of military assets for the third reich here at the factory it's estimated that they produced enough powder for 20 million rifle bullets and 26 thousand artillery shells every day so all the floors looks different different holes [Applause] fly you can come up here you can barely see and what makes this so fascinating is the ground here is all fairly flat yet after walking up four flights of stairs i am now on the level of the ground level which i thought i had just left behind which was then a valley but up here we're in line with another series of buildings and tunnels which will be in line with another building and another hill you literally walk up and down without realizing the different levels and heights of these buildings and i would imagine that is ventilation i would imagine quite a bit [Music] vertical drop holes and all the way down [Applause] drainage metal drainage liquid since the war many of the buildings have been torn down or put to other use and still munitions are being made for the military in other parts that we were not allowed to see but still in the force there are several bunkers buildings and many other structures to explore for the next time there was multi-level earth embankments for safety and in order to reduce the effect of possible explosions several types of buildings were built one with a light edifice mainly warehouses and bunkers light buildings were made of bricks and surrounded by earth embankments in case of any explosion the entire blast would be directed upwards on the other hand bunker-type buildings used when explosive risks was assessed as high considered as a quality edifice were three walls and a thick reinforced concrete ceiling in this case the architectural concept directed the blast to the fourth side i.e an exhaust wall made of wood or glass the debris being blocked by the earth embankment outside such reinforced buildings could withstand the burst of the shock wave and still not fall apart although as we'll see it did crack a little i'm always hitting above ground how did that happen i walked up four floors and now i'm above ground because i walked through a tunnel so i walked up four floors into a tunnel and now i'm just on the surface well that's interesting let's go back in the tunnel absolutely can't wait for someone to tell me how this works or what's what so all these tunnels are connecting the buildings the roof broke open obviously there would not have been an open roof there and there's a tunnel to the next building and then the building underneath that four floors down a little late don't you i feel i'm going upwards just five six seven degrees not and here's much [Music] i wasn't it was done with explosives but this place was never bombed because they didn't know what was there and he had all the electrical attachments well this is the rebar i'm talking about that thing interesting i feel fresh air coming from here a lot of pipes and things i remember being told what that was once different types of peppers does not mix well so we have a turn down there oh [Music] and that bring engineer which is suppose fair enough so we'll see where this thing [Music] it goes out well i will say these are the cleanest tunnels i've been in on this trip [Music] walls [Music] [Music] hang on and quick turn there's a parallel tunnel running next to this one and out there must be a turn right there why would this thing be right here parallel to this well you can see there's different layers it was a fairly thick fairly thick wall and then we're out somewhere we're out into what looks like a guard tower which i'm guessing is ventilation guessing that's ventilation and we came out here and there's a building above where we were that is not connected to that tunnel and here's another that's not a wall that's another tunnel calling in a different direction [Music] oh and there is i think the museum building the main building put some of these with a question what is this there's three tunnels one there one there and one over there but why would there be one up there and those round arches and red brick very similar to what we saw in bluetooth all right let's go in here so attachments on the roof on the ceiling it's all a little good solid l shapes obviously protecting against destinations but i am up so there's a lot of tunnels pointing out here so what was here okay unexpected very unexpected this is the profile view of a very thin wall so if there was a detonation then it would blow out this way it would go that way and possibly into the tunnel that would then funnel the explosion this way so if there was an explosion in here it would funnel past this wall into this wall and out that tunnel and out to the side which means this was also an emission production room with interesting basins okay and of course i think this could be the brick wall of the tunnel that was in and here's the other tunnel so you funnel explosions out in a lot of different directions so whatever was made in here seemed very volatile on the way from the barracks the workers would be searched for anything that could set off an explosion or used for sabotage cigarettes matches pieces of metal all were taken from the prisoners and for good reason as the resistance did infiltrate the plant and act of sabotage were occurring even if they're only small and had little or no bearing on long-term production suspension for something [Applause] it could be the door to the top of my listen i'll pipe in the forward again then we have this which is leading out now there was some sabotage and there was some explosions in here some things went wrong this might be one of them because this whole house is just a little bit crooked this could be one of those where something went horribly wrong and bang yes plenty of poles first labors of course also war prisoners uh british french also we've got uh people from soviet union and thousands of hungarian jewish women brought here from conserved lager in shutoff in this building in 1944 there was an explosion and after the explosion the whole process was uh stopped for just few weeks they pushed a pipe from this building where they produce nitroglycerin on the second production line to the first production line and after three months the first production line again started to work we've got the explosion on the first production line 44 in this building so the nitration building after the explosion they just push a pipe from the nitration building from the second production line and after three months the uh whole production on the first production line gets back again uh so this is really important to duplicate those two lines so if we get an a problem if we get an emergency or explosion the process can go day by day 100 after the explosion all workers that worked in this building of course died uh but the building wasn't damaged so much it depends on the structure of the building because it's made from full concrete and there was also an uh sabotage here in uh 44 when germans engineers from from berlin came for a visitation then they stopped the mixers the heat was really going up and we've got an explosion and of course the most important thing those nazis just died there in this building but many many more small let's say small sabotages made by um just casual workers and they just just wanted to know for example stop machines or put some put some metal part inside you've got gunpowder inside and of course you've got spark and a fire an explosion and sometimes uh it's a history from poles because they need to transport exposed materials in bags from one building to another one and they've got some leaflets on those bags with the date of each day so when the germany's been looking they've been just transporting those bags and when the germans just been let's say went to the toilet they took the bags back again and take out those leaflets and put new ones with the same date so the production was really let's say smaller than it should be a lot of the acts of sabotage like you said if you you turn off one piece of machinery the other one overheats and that would usually result in the people doing that sabotage would die themselves wouldn't it the guy that stopped this machine when the german engineers came here he died in this accident it's the end of a tunnel and then here's the tunnel i was in a minute ago ventilation on the roof of that one big bunker possibly the main building at the end there so if i go this way on top of the tunnel that was just i should get to the roof of the building i was in but i'm not going to jump that hole so that's not going to happen so we take this tunnel instead so there's another tunnel so we take that one [Music] this is so interesting with tunnels above ground also it's a little crooked and it is coming downwards on a downward slope this is so very interesting that's correct a bit and it's tilting a little bit to the right and i wonder how many of these had catastrophic events in them that's a very significant part sitting in the middle of a staircase leading up there congratulations i'm certainly not doing anything all right see the building come apart here as well i'm not holding the camera quickly the building is just a little crooked and here you see it was actually built to come apart very interesting see this type of design i haven't seen anywhere in the multibuildings down there ventilation wonder if i'm inside the big building these are the rooms where the glass had metal wires in it and would explode outwards into this earth embankment here see how that whole wall anything went boom in here it would go out that way so here we have a building that was used to clean water that was used in the nitration building because the whole nitration process is looks like this we've got glycerin that was brought in barrels we've got sulfuric and nitric acid that came to the nitration building in pipes there was a machine called nitrater that mixed those things and we've got nitroglycerin then the nitroglycerin went to another machine that was called separator that separates acids from the nitroglycerin and then nitroglycerin went to washing glass columns and was washed by hot and cold water and in that water you can have few parts of nitroglycerin so the water from those columns come here to this building on two cascades and slowly swim through those because nitroglycerin is more heavier than water it was at the bottom of those cascades the water again comes again to the whole process and nitroglycerin can be transported to the place where they've been uh mixing nitroglycerin with new clean water so not a single drop of nitroglycerin will be waste and this building is also a one that can be explosion inside so that's why it's made from concrete uh we've got this glass wall uh if we get an explosion hill the whole blast will go just through that wall uh also the ceiling goes up and every corner in this building is round so the building won't be destroyed if we got a huge explosion here uh the same thing is with the nitration building and the building of stabilization where they just mix the nitrogen with water this is the most important thing we got buildings uh that are let's say made from concrete and bricks and from full concrete where they produced an or used nitroglycerin so somebody will be observing a process in here which means there's a way into that room identical so this is an identical this is the room parallel to it you see the other wall on the other side clearly directional for the blast and here you have shutters there's actually shutters in this i mean if there's an explosion these little shutters are probably not going to help you and i'll put it in there that's where i came from so i'm going to get into those rooms i have honestly no idea what building [Music] i don't like lightweight i said there's a parallel room right next to it i just came out of this building top of which of course there's ventilation and more of it and then i come down here and i see two more identical entrances and i am wondering if they're going to lead me into the observation rooms i have actually thought that this direction would lead me into the pit this is so interesting oh and it does this just lead me into the pit without the window so no it doesn't is there no wing on here so what was being done in here shutters up there stairs machinery mounts and blast windows and i would love to show you an aerial view to get a better idea of how these buildings are laid out and i tried and all you can see are trees but the designs and planning of this must really be interesting to see and must have been a lot of work shutters so this is will blow outwards okay downstairs this is such an interesting process this is not small arms this is explosive for shells or bonds or something bigger [Applause] and there should be shutters in here and here's another room with sugars in there wow what's the point i asked myself put this downstairs oh that's original that's beautiful all right all right okay i need a hobby i know oh into walking hallways it is one turn after another after another and this makes a u-turn and an l behind here and then room in there this is completely separated and yes there's a tower behind me i can then there's a staircase up well why would i want to go where i can go down sounds like my acting career this must be explained well i understand the price directions of course tunnel demolished a bit of bottles we can do without okay another this pipe okay i am intrigued [Applause] yes now all of a sudden i'm way above ground i am way way above ground and there's a room besides me and a drop underneath me how did i get up here the layout is just fascinating let's see here's literally the supports there's literally the supports for what i'm assuming is a tunnel or a room of course there's a room next to me i can't get into it because there's a towel that keeps circling around this is one of the fascinating things i am expecting door to go not the right of course there's going to be a little there's of course let's get to one of these in this building they mixed nitroglycerin with nitrocellulose looks a little bit better condition than the other one it's the most low has been brought here from other parts of the factory on the highest level here in this building then throw it on the third level where nitroglycerin came here with water and there we've got huge mixers it was mixed nitroglycerin with natural cellulose and it'd been thrown down to the next level where we've got huge centrifuge machines exactly as the same thing as whirlpools now on the huge speed the water was thrown out and a little bit wet gunpowder been thrown to the next level two bags and transported to the next building and this building has also got a risk that an explosion will be here so as you can see we've got the glass walls made from wood and glass and those parts made from wood as you can see here are original and the building got three parts so the first one stairs the second one and the third one that was kept in case of any emergency we are on the second production line that was built in case of any emergency and you've got a part of the building that was made in emergency of emergency as you can see so they really need to produce plenty of explosive materials and they need to be hundred percent sure that the production will go each day when you said throw nitroglycerin and throw in the same sentence it will literally just pour it down uh nah because when you mix nitroglycerin with cellulose you've got something like a gun powder but it's really sticky and wet and it won't explode this is the most important thing mixing nitroglycerin and nitrous elos it's almost safe of course we've got the blast walls because it's not so hard to make explosion of explosive materials but it's not so unstable as nitroglycerin with water so you could run down a slide into the okay i'd just love to hear the terms throw a nitroglycerin in the same sentence and that room and where i came from and another room downstairs okay so i'm on top and these are slides all right maybe the other side will give me an indication what should have been here this is just a lot more fun than i thought it was going to be more stairs more rooms more floors all right these are so chemicals would be up here this is where the mixing process would start and then they would continue downwards throughout the building [Applause] so i do hope they have pictures of what this looked like when they found it no serious rebar see we're all the way on the fourth floor and i don't know this is original it looks like it could have been installed or the door recently it must be it must be attachments throughout the ceiling everywhere and this is how i am i guess this will be a nice granora window i mean yeah there used to be a wall there see how high up we are what a fascinating complex here again so this is the bottom of the slides and the blast window holes are not straight under as well they are wood down here similar setup let's go down so [Applause] okay thank you so there's the hillside so building's right next to a bit of a hillside i said that too fast this is not still more holes leaning down for this side which is where i would imagine the finished product would come out so very small there's a basement ceramic pipes lots of ceramic pipes that we have certainly seen before malka and other places everywhere i go there's broken ceramic pipes which from the plumbing point of view makes sense it's a good way to transport liquids and other things so so there used to be grates on these windows more ceramic [Applause] temperature just dropped a good 10 degrees down here there's no way out [Applause] um amazing absolutely amazing except for the how do i get out for this should be how i got out however it's not yeah this is the first time i've seen tunnels above ground though yes we've got some above the ground probably they should be under the ground but this factory was built this zone was built in 43 so germans get a little bit from russians and they need to build this factory really really quick so you don't want to lose workers false laborers you just put the uh sand and grass on the tunnels you just use the tunnels as they are when they've been built so in some of the older complexes there's tunnels but there's underground between the buildings and that's all been destroyed or most of them by something else which is rather interesting so the building else in there and then you have i don't know what the beginning of a walkway that leads into a bricked up wall there are holes in the wrap this looks more like drainage does not look like what we've seen in the lower ceiling at all this whole facade was literally made to just blow out blast windows this entire facade was designed to blow outwards only damaging this area and into this hill here i cannot wait to find out what they actually built here wow and there's well camouflaged 100 meters someone you can barely see it put it into the next one that looks different and this honestly looked like the skeleton of one of the above ground tunnels i don't really know what else to call it so just fascinating skeletons of things and of course things hanging by threads we have seen that at the multiplant right above us and number of times so what is this platform for generators i would imagine lots and lots of generators should be on both sides building on that side as well as this side for the roof reinforced enough for trees yeah this wall is looks new just like something just put up to keep people like me out i've heard that strong before haven't we even the little walkway camouflage for trees on top or bushes and then just because you think i'm only out here looking for ruins i find the most interesting things in the middle of nowhere one of the coolest restored yamahas i've seen in a long time have a nice day i figured it's a world war ii empty munitions plant lots of bunkers a lot of production facilities that are empty roads hidden under trees this is one of the most fascinating areas i've been can i even find a cool motorcycle yay another broken pillar one that's upright even the pillars blend in with the trees leading down to the factory down there ventilation tower yeah because now you are staying on on the top of hatana and this is one of the old preparation buildings this is the building similar to this one that we've been before this is from the second production line and the main building our reception is in the second profession so we are in front of the nitration building from the second production line what is really important here that in this building worked for workers if something will go wrong they just use this tunnel as an escape tunnel you just went through this tunnel run from him through him and just run here catch one of those supports that you can see and hold how many strength he got so the blast won't throw him somewhere in the forest of course it's only a psychological thing because nitroglycerin explodes in uh less than a second so you need to have time to just run through this tunnel run here hold the support and pray that he will still be alive uh as i said to you on the first production line there was an explosion in a building similar to this one no one survived so it's only a psychological thing that you will feel comfortable in your work yes there's there's no warning with likes of blizzardness there so this was the bunker yes and this was for electrical yes because there was a chance that um an engineer that was for him it was forbidden to go inside the building because he was too precious and he can just go here to this little say chamber and look on all the stuff that they've got in the building so do they have cameras and monitors or uh they've got something like pipes and clocks and he can see the collar temperature and pressure of nitroglycerin that was inside the building so the engineer would be here and everyone else will be working in there inside in the building it is a pipe it's the cables cable and then this will be the electrical exactly the information building all floor is covered by what was covered by led because it's a really soft metal and if someone that worked in the building let's say lose his hammer or something that was metal and it fall on the ground that is really soft so it won't be a spark there and of course we don't have the the led flaws because soviet union came here and in the next two years they took also that flow of course were the tunnel roofs uh waterproofed as well no it was only concrete only concrete yep for your thing you put the waterproof and then the dirt and then the soil and then build the trees up in those that are in the ground yes but this tunnel as you can see you can see here it's not so hard because as i said to you just before they didn't have time to discover the tunnels but actually needs to go not absolutely okay somewhere here when you go up there should be a road clicking here there's a pipe sticking up yes oh it's really interesting thing because as you can see for example this tunnel is really in a line but entrance to this tunnel are from ankles from this one and this side and when you just brought here you want about here few meter pipe it's impo it's impossible to make the ankle here at the beginning of the tunnel so they just use something like this to put those pipes inside the tunnel i i've seen that in all castles too you build an indent so you can turn along things and this is the pipe this is the hole for the pipe from above that's very clever surprise it's still here but i think they would move it but then again then if you move it you can't replace things yep and everything was about water was about liquid so it was about gravity so there's another escape room i just love the little the little handles yeah and above it you can see a towel that was used to transport assets acids to the denitration building because nitroglycerin can be pumped mechanically the pressure will cause an explosion and the nitration buildings on both sides are on the highest hill here in this zone all buildings all the rest buildings where nitroglycerin need to end are built definitely lower so they use the gravity force so simple so easy but you look at it one thing is looking at the map when you look at it it is a complex somebody really thought this out yes the most important thing is that they build those buildings from documentary that was made many many years before they came here because in one building of that we have on our zone the building is built as it was on the paper but they didn't use all parts of it they just our company came here built the building it didn't ask anything it's when it's built it's done okay you can work here but they didn't use 100 the whole structure of the building the nitration building so here they transport assets uh inside we've got huge columns that goes from the lowest level to the highest level uh inside the columns we've got uh sulfuric acid and nitro oxygen by using overheated steam we got again separated nitric acid and sulfuric acid nitric acid went to the other part of this building where it was again cleaned and concentrated and then transported to a storage the same with sulfuric acid in this building we've got asset proof floors and on each floor you've got a bath that was also covered by acid proof coffees and inside you've got alkaline water so if something will happen to you and you've got acids on your clothes on your skin you can just jump to the bath and you should be safe but we've got here sulfuric and nitric acid in the concentration out of 70 percent so it's impossible that alkaline water will stop there uh those those assets on your skin again psychology is the most important thing here you when you feel safe you will work every day 100 but if you are scared you don't want to come here to the next day as if you had a choice so we got pillars leading from here yes those pillars went to a storage that is really hard to see because of the forest the pipe would come out through here yes from this building to the storage on top of this or yeah and then so huge distance as you can see so those pipes can go above the ground not in tunnels so that's what all the pipes are that all the poles are for so as you can see there a middle window on the highest floor it's a little bit damaged because through that window soviet soldiers just online took all the stuff from the highest level to the bottom and the lights were overheated so they a little bit damaged they pulled them from the highest floor down here to the ground online and they took as i said to you everything by everything i mean everything also railways and led floor when they start to build this factory and those buildings they got plans made definitely before they came here to this factory because in this building this thing that is on the highest level here was should be used to transport nitroglycer nitrocellulose on the highest level in this building but they never use it because they used a lift that was just behind this building made from just from wood a wooden floor lift and they put bags on the wooden floor left and they just transported to the highest level never use this uh how to say it in i don't even know how to out building outcropping something like that something yeah so there should be a tunnel ghost that will be going to the uh uh opposite side of this building that is just in front of me uh so uh to the railway station so from trains they can put those bags with nitro cellulose and transport it to the highest level through that tunnel but they never made that tunnel so the plan of building this bit of this how the building should look like was made definitely many months maybe years earlier than they came here so they got plants they build it they didn't fold about will we use it in 100 that we should uh as you can see here they just use the wooden lift i was wondering about that one because it's open in one end and then on the other end it's closed and turns into a room and that was the same in both complex one and two right probably because they've got plans so as germans when plants look like this you should do that there's a plan we follow the plan it doesn't work doesn't matter that's the plan yeah ah yes the germans are very very good at following rules this is the or at least one of the rail loading bays is off the main road and here you can see the railway tracks obviously they have been disconnected so they're ending somewhere around here of course the munitions would be packed onto train carts that we see in some of the smaller places i will however also say this building does look rather new okay so this is the place where the crates with explosive materials being transported on a such wagons as this one this one we've got a railway station why i'm saying on a rails like this on wagons like this one because this is an original wagon from 39 that was found few years ago on the whole zone 25 kilometer zone that was used after the second world war and it was used after the second world war polls and it's an original wagon made from by the company of man in stuttgart in 39 so definitely not wagon was used to transport explosive materials through the whole factory here in the second world war 40 kilometers of railroad yes within these so you had a lot of rail stations like this yes but this is the original uh rail station one of them one of them many of them were here in the fact in the whole factory on our zone we've got now we've got three of those uh in the second world war were four one was destroyed so you'd have rail stations that would come into off offload yes would they then load at the same place or would say came trains with nitrous lows that have been transported to the building between just before and when they just uh reloaded from unloaded from nitrous silos they reloaded with nitro with gum powder in crates so the train came here with something and go out also with something okay and the gunpowder would also go different other smaller factories around germany now the gunpowder went to another part where they produced smokeless powder and the smokeless powder from that part went to another part where they made the elaboration and the explosive materials made went to the front so they would actually move supplies within this 25 yeah on actual full-size rail cars yes that's big plenty of explosive materials all right i threw this hole here in this direction oh yes now whatever it is yes i wonder if this has been all the way to russia with stuff and back again a few times 500 wagons from this factory went to russia and never came back remember i told you for two of the three wars the german war machine ran on rail cars released an original from the last of those wars now one of the really interesting things about this place is there was no fuel used here the runners with messages from bicycles the trains were cold on steam and the cars ran up to fuel not entirely sure if that was because of restrictions or it was just to keep any kind of fuels out of of the plant that to prevent accidents and you can clearly see how all the tunnels are sloping the gravity just matches your closer under water and from the main room down there in the main room down there now the hallways are clearly moving upwards so we're going up to the building with a nitroglycerin mixed with water so it will run pipes downhill [Music] one of the few remains of the second world war that can be said today to have made a great impression would be engineering innovation and most certainly architecture even if it is architecture of war and explosives and one must say that this place is a most intricate design layout and must have been a bit of a nightmare for any architect to design it with all the different inputs of all the different things that could not coexist or should be anywhere near one another there are quite a few other explosive factories and chemical plants from the second world war and i will endeavor to visit quite a few of them may even do a live episode from the other dag factory in poland so you all can experience the labyrinth with me live and see me get lost all on my own [Music] in any case i'm going to continue my journey through world war ii architecture because it really is one of the most telling reminders we have of that time it's true to the saying we just can't build them like that anymore i'm also not sure if we want to but it would be interesting to see if we could [Music] behind me is van of unbound's first test stand down the road is deepness nuclear reactor over there is the maginot line in all its amazing forts i'm visiting them all and i'm bringing them to you so i really appreciate you like follow and share what i'm doing trying to document all these important historical locations and if you feel like you want to watch more pictures or documents that are used for these go to lostbattlefields.com and if you feel like helping me out with my travels because gasoline and travel and airforce is expensive my paypal is there protectionservicent.com you are more than welcome but you don't have to i appreciate all your support and all your help and i love seeing these locations and i love bringing them to you

Channel: Lost Battlefields w Tino Struckmann

Views: 12,013

Keywords: dag, explosives, munitions, factory, polish, tino, struckmann, lost, battlefields, war, ww2, bromberg, v2, v1, rockets, german, special, weapons, structures, amazing

Id: W6wHzlpIvus

Length: 92min 8sec (5528 seconds)

Published: Fri May 20 2022