For educational purposes
Explore the story behind one of the most advanced aeroplanes of WWII, the Messerschmitt Me 262, and the subterranean bat-cave where it was built.
Explore the story behind one of the most advanced aeroplanes of WWII, the Messerschmitt Me 262, and the subterranean bat-cave where it was built.
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00:00Hidden deep in the forests of Germany.
00:05This is a very impressive example of Nazi engineering.
00:10Concealed inside vast mountains.
00:13It's almost exactly like a Bond villain's lair.
00:16Lie the remains of one of the most intriguing engineering projects of World War II.
00:21This is a do or die operation.
00:25Vast underground factories built for the world's first operational jet fighter.
00:30What they wanted to do was to build the entire aircraft here.
00:36This is the incredible story of the ME-262.
00:40The ME-262 was the most advanced fighter aircraft of its time.
00:47And to build it, the Nazis will create a revolutionary subterranean lair.
00:56The biggest construction projects of World War II.
00:59Ordered by Hitler to secure world domination.
01:03Now they survive as dark reminders of the FĂŒhrer's fanatical military ambition.
01:08These are the secrets of the Nazi megastructures.
01:18Germany, 1945.
01:21A force of Allied bombers head for home after unleashing their deadly payload.
01:26When a mysterious shape suddenly appears in the skies.
01:29Fighter, ten o'clock.
01:32They're coming in.
01:39It's coming in in a half roll.
01:41Pull her up, chief. Pull her up, hurry.
01:43It's Adolf Hitler's new wonder weapon.
01:46The Messerschmitt ME-262.
01:49A revolutionary plane without propellers.
01:53Capable of flying up to 190 km per hour faster than anything the Allies have.
02:00At the controls is Adolf Galland.
02:03Bombers directly ahead.
02:06Galland has piloted over 700 combat missions.
02:09And this is the fastest aircraft he's ever flown.
02:15He knows the jet's incredible speeds give German pilots the edge in air-to-air combat.
02:27Galland rips the bombers apart.
02:37But it's not just the jet that's an awesome piece of Nazi engineering.
02:43Just as extraordinary is the top secret factory where the ME-262 will be built and made ready for war.
02:52An underground lair known as the RIMAG.
02:57RIMAG was an incredibly ambitious project.
03:01It was an enormous undertaking and a very good example of Nazi engineering.
03:07Jet historian Dr. Mike Pavelek is one of the few people to have been allowed inside.
03:14It's a colossal complex that wouldn't look out of place in a modern day spy film.
03:20It's almost exactly like a bombed Bond villain's lair.
03:23The combination of underground tunnels, concrete bunkers and a mountaintop airstrip would have been ideal.
03:38The story of the RIMAG factory and the high-tech fighter it built begins in the 1930s.
03:45When the race is on to produce the world's first jet aircraft.
03:52World War II historian and writer James Holland has studied the early years of jet development.
03:58In 1939 you've got at least seven or eight different jet engines being developed by various German aircraft manufacturers.
04:06Pioneering work to a greater degree than any other country in the world.
04:12On the 27th of August 1939 the Germans launched the world's first jet aircraft.
04:19The breakthrough means their air force could soon have a massive advantage over their enemies.
04:25But right now the plane is only a prototype, unproven in battle.
04:33Just five days later Hitler invades Poland.
04:40World War II has begun.
04:44And Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring relies on his propeller planes to win the air war.
04:51The leadership thought that the prop-driven aircrafts would be enough to run the victory.
04:57And that there's no need for something spectacular, unusual and new like the Messerschmitt Me 262.
05:06Within months Göring's Luftwaffe crushes the enemy.
05:10Within months Göring's Luftwaffe crushes the Allies in the sky and on the ground.
05:17By summer 1941 the Nazis occupy most of Western Europe.
05:23Confidence among the Luftwaffe is enormous, it's sky high.
05:27The world has never seen the degree of conquest that the Germans manage.
05:31It seems they're completely unstoppable.
05:34The Luftwaffe's success does have one unintended casualty.
05:38Their conventional propeller planes perform so well that the Nazis scale back their jet program.
05:49Development continues slowly.
06:03But by 1943 the tide turns.
06:06The German offensive in Russia fails.
06:09The Nazis are now on the defensive.
06:15American and British bombers wreak havoc on their industrial heartland.
06:19The Germans need a new weapon to seize back the initiative.
06:25Hitler is obsessed with wonder weapons and there are huge hopes for anything that involves dynamic and exciting new technology.
06:37Hopes turn to Germany's revolutionary jets.
06:42By 1943 one aircraft emerges as a front runner in the Nazi's jet program.
06:50The Messerschmitt Me 262.
06:53The Me 262 is like nothing ever seen before.
06:58The Nazis believed that this aircraft was potentially a war winner,
07:02or at least that this might be an answer to keeping American bombers out of the skies.
07:10Determined to win Hitler's favor, Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring champions the new Me 262 prototype.
07:19But it's still at test flight stage.
07:23Adolf Galland, commander of the Luftwaffe's fighter squadrons, is one of the first pilots to be given the chance to fly it.
07:31An ace with over 90 kills to his name, Galland's approval could help get the new jet into full production.
07:40He is one of the most respected combat pilots in the Luftwaffe, if not the most respected.
07:47He's a pin-up. He's got bucket loads of charisma.
07:51Göring loves him. The Nazis love him.
07:57On the 22nd of May 1943, Galland arrives at the test center.
08:03He knows taking to the skies in this experimental plane is a risk.
08:08A test pilot has recently been killed and there have been problems with the new engines.
08:14This crate will probably shake me to death or break down at 3,000 meters.
08:21Galland is stepping into the unknown.
08:23He'll be flying 175 kilometers per hour faster than he's ever flown before.
08:43As Galland later recounts, the jet quickly blows away all his doubts.
08:50I could see that this aircraft was not just our last hope in the air war.
08:55I could see the future of aviation for the next century right in front of me.
09:02Galland thinks the Me 262's speed could allow him to stop the Allied onslaught of Germany.
09:14Now, if you're still a young guy like Galland is in 1943-44,
09:19and there's some super new technology which enables you to fly aircraft even faster than anyone ever before,
09:25you're going to grab that with two hands and say, yes, give me a bit of that.
09:30With Galland backing the program,
09:32the German Air Ministry put in an order for 100 production Me 262's just a few days later.
09:43High-tech aircraft factories are prime targets,
09:46and the new Me 262 production lines are destroyed.
09:53German air chiefs need a solution if they're to build Hitler's new jet and regain control of their skies.
10:00The problem is for Germany is that they're now a nation in a hurry.
10:04They've got to develop places where the Allied bombers cannot reach.
10:10The Nazis decide to hide Me 262 production all over Germany.
10:15Wings, engines and fuselages are built in forests, caves and tents.
10:22But scattering production means different parts of the plane have to travel hundreds of kilometers before assembly can take place.
10:30They need a single centralized location where a fast assembly line can be recreated in complete safety.
10:40In Kala, 230 kilometers from Berlin,
10:44an old porcelain mine that's already been earmarked for aircraft production could become the perfect hideaway.
10:52But transforming the inside of a mountain into a high-tech jet factory is something that's never been attempted before.
10:59Heading up the project is one of the most ruthless men in the Third Reich.
11:03ObergruppenfĂŒhrer Fritz Sauckel.
11:08Sauckel was put in charge to get it running and get the airplanes in the air.
11:14Fritz Sauckel is an early Nazi party member.
11:17He was a member of the Nazi Party of Germany.
11:20He was a member of the Nazi Party of Germany.
11:23He was a member of the Nazi Party of Germany.
11:26Fritz Sauckel is an early Nazi party member and fanatically loyal to Adolf Hitler.
11:33He is now head of forced labor for the Reich.
11:36Sauckel will do whatever it takes to transform the old mine complex into a fighter-making facility.
11:43He was very driven personally. He was also pushed very, very hard from above.
11:49Hermann Göring, head of the German Air Force, is anxious for the Reimag factory to be built quickly.
11:57It is still incredible to think of the enormous hold that Hermann Göring has over the Nazi war machine.
12:06And the Reimag is just another example of this.
12:10Sauckel promises a bomb-proof factory that can produce 1,000 aircraft a month.
12:16We can start production of the site immediately and with the highest intensity.
12:22I am confident the project will be a success.
12:30But Sauckel faces a massive challenge.
12:33Building a high-tech production line under a mountain.
12:38And they have to do all this in the last year of the war, where everything is in short supply
12:45and in which the whole Third Reich's war effort is unbelievably stretched.
12:51Sauckel has to deliver before Hitler's Germany is bombed into oblivion.
12:58This is a do-or-die, boom-or-bust operation.
13:03In 1944, construction begins on the Nazis' underground fighter lair.
13:09From the outset, Fritz Sauckel has a problem.
13:13A massive army of workers is needed to build this subterranean factory.
13:19But for the head of forced labour in Hitler's Germany,
13:22it is not a problem.
13:24A massive army of workers is needed to build this subterranean factory.
13:30But for the head of forced labour in Hitler's Reich, the solution is obvious.
13:40Marcel van den Steen is a 23-year-old living in Belgium,
13:43when the Gestapo abduct him from his parents.
13:50Marcel keeps a secret diary during the war years.
13:53It provides a rare insight into the brutal conditions faced at Sauckel's Reimag facility.
13:59Out, quickly!
14:02We were forced into a truck and then a train and we were taken to Karla.
14:08Where are we?
14:09No talking!
14:15Marcel is one of 12,000 forced labourers transported across Europe and forced to work at Reimag.
14:22It's the beginning of a living nightmare.
14:25It quickly became obvious that Fritz Sauckel had utter contempt for human life,
14:29as he used a number of slave labourers brought in from camps specifically for this programme.
14:37The workers must fight to survive.
14:41They have to complete the tunnels before Sauckel can begin building planes.
14:46A staggering amount of energy, logistical effort, resources,
14:52human and financial and materials are being put into creating this.
15:08Incredibly, the ruins of Fritz Sauckel's massive project still remain.
15:13Hidden in a clearing in a remote part of Germany, the broken rubble,
15:18silent witness to the Nazis' obsession with the ME-262.
15:27Mike Pavelek wants to explore underground at the Reimag facility,
15:31but access is limited and extremely dangerous.
15:36There's another way.
15:38Local historian Markus Gleischmann is on hand to lead the way.
15:44You've got to be kidding me.
15:53To travel back to Sauckel's secret wartime tunnels,
15:56they have to head deep under the Walpersberg mountain.
16:01It's not too easy to find the right path.
16:04I would imagine.
16:07I would imagine. It's a good thing we've got you here.
16:12Mike and Markus access the tunnel system through the one remaining entrance.
16:17All other ways in and out have been sealed off.
16:23Trekking 700 metres underground,
16:26they arrive at production tunnels that were being dug in 1944.
16:32Sauckel's plans for this place was to build the entire aircraft here.
16:37Jets, the engines, the components, the fuselage, everything.
16:44The Nazis have to build an underground factory
16:47where they can assemble a 13-metre wide plane.
16:52Planners envision 75 separate tunnels measuring 15 kilometres.
16:58Thousands will be employed on this immense task
17:01of enlarging the existing porcelain mine and building the new facility.
17:08Including Belgian forced labourer Marcel van den Steen.
17:14Workers are selected for heavy or light duties depending on their strength.
17:18This is not good.
17:20You worthless piece of dirt, our light worker.
17:2416-hour shifts with no breaks are commonplace.
17:30This place would have been enormously difficult to build.
17:33Imagine having to remove all of the material from inside these tunnels,
17:38putting it outside, but just digging through this sandstone
17:42and then reinforcing it and building a production centre under a mountain.
17:49Conditions in the tunnels are terrible.
17:52Workers are forced to dig with little expertise and basic tools.
18:08Unstable bands of slate in the ceiling above
18:11mean that tunnelling is a life-or-death gamble.
18:23Especially in areas where SAUKEL plans to build
18:27even wider tunnels and bigger halls.
18:36This is very impressive.
18:39It is one of the largest tunnels in this system.
18:43The aircraft assembly halls are planned to be at the centre of the mountain.
18:47Components built in smaller tunnels will be fed into this working area
18:51where the ME-262 can be put together.
18:56The plan was to build it 450 metres in length
18:59and a height of 5.5 to 6 metres and a width of 15 metres
19:05so that the whole airplane will fit in here.
19:11But a cave this big might completely collapse during construction.
19:16So the Nazi engineers come up with a low-tech fix.
19:22Rather than excavating one big tunnel, workers dig four smaller tunnels
19:27so the weight of the rock above remains supported.
19:31Within these four tunnels they gradually secure the ceiling overhead
19:35and build up the foundations with concrete.
19:39Then they hollow out the cave until just two columns of rock remain.
19:44Once these are removed, a space big enough for a fighter jet is created.
19:51And it was big enough in here for a full-size Messerschmitt 262?
19:55Yeah.
19:57Very impressive technology.
19:59All this was done by hand?
20:01Yes, all this is done by forced labourers from all over Europe.
20:07The Nazis have long-term plans to produce 750 jets a month at the Reimark facility.
20:14But building the fully functional factory is taking much longer than they hoped.
20:22And this isn't the only challenge the ME-262 project faces.
20:28Willi Messerschmitt has built the world's fastest jet fighter.
20:32But it's so revolutionary the Nazis argue over how best to use it.
20:37Ever since its conception, Adolf Hitler has had strong opinions
20:41on how to exploit the jet's deadly capabilities.
20:45Professor Messerschmitt, is this aircraft able to carry bombs?
20:50Yes, my FĂŒhrer, it can carry for sure a 250 kg bomb, perhaps.
20:56This is the blitz-bomber I have been requesting for years.
21:01What Hitler wants to do is have an aircraft that can knock an invasion force back into the sea.
21:08And so he thinks a fighter-bomber, which can combine the role of being a fighter and drop bombs, is the answer to that.
21:15But Adolf Galland thinks that weighing down the aerodynamic ME-262 with a bomb will slow it down.
21:23Hitler is destroying the jet's main asset as a fighter, its speed.
21:28Galland thought that Hitler's request to make the aircraft a bomber was absurd.
21:33Galland knew that the ME-262 was the point-interceptor fighter
21:37that he was looking for to clear the Allied bombers from the skies.
21:41If the Atlantic invasion comes, it can easily fly through enemy defenses, attack ground targets and escape at speed.
21:54You, Messerschmitt, have to make all the necessary preparations to make this feasible.
22:01This was really the beginning of the misuse of the Messerschmitt 262.
22:06I felt my heart sink at that moment.
22:08Hitler is more concerned about attacking the enemy
22:11than providing his fighter pilots with the jet they need to defend Germany from Allied bombers.
22:19If Galland is going to change how the ME-262 will be used,
22:23he has to take on the toughest opponent in the Third Reich, the FĂŒhrer himself.
22:29Galland knows how to play the game.
22:31He knows how to make the right decisions.
22:33The FĂŒhrer himself.
22:35Galland knows how to play the game.
22:37He knows how to manipulate and talk to the right people and get what he wants.
22:44Galland enlists the help of Armaments Minister Albert Speer, one of the FĂŒhrer's closest confidants.
22:51Given the tactical situation, we believe the best we can do
22:54is use these aircrafts as a protective fighter force at our critical industries.
23:00No, never!
23:02I will order the halts to all fighter aircraft production.
23:06If you persist in this, I will have the fighter arm disbanded.
23:10But...
23:11I've heard quite enough.
23:14This is how Hitler paints the war. It's how he's always seen the war.
23:17He's a man of extremes. There's no middle ground.
23:20It's always one or the other in his mind.
23:24Before long, how the Germans use the ME-262
23:28is going to be less critical than how quickly they can get them into the air.
23:33The Allies are planning to launch the largest invasion armada
23:36ever seen against Hitler's fortress Europe.
23:45At the Reimag facility,
23:47Fritz Sauckel's underground plane factory is a long way from completion.
23:52The die-hard Nazi pushes his workers to the limit.
23:58All the men must be fed, sheltered and treated in such a way
24:01as to exploit them to the highest possible extent,
24:04at the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure.
24:10Hermann Göring promises Hitler that when the Allied invasion comes,
24:14the German air force will smash them on the beaches.
24:18Göring needs as many planes as he can get
24:21and puts the pressure on Sauckel to get things moving.
24:25But he might be too late.
24:29The 6th of June, 1944.
24:32D-Day.
24:34The Allied invasion of France.
24:37Thousands of troops and tanks pour ashore,
24:40taking on Hitler's Atlantic wall.
24:59None of the new Nazi wonderjets are available
25:02to throw the Allies back into the sea.
25:06Worse, the Luftwaffe fails to provide the air support the German troops need.
25:11Göring's promise is false.
25:18The Allies secure their foothold and advance into mainland Europe.
25:23It signals the beginning of the end for the Third Reich.
25:29In desperation, work on the Reimag Me 262 factory steps up a gear.
25:41Belgian labourer Marcel van den Steen is one of 12,000 labourers
25:45forced to work 16-hour shifts, overseen by brutal SS guards.
25:51It's gone up. One slice of bread is now four cigarettes.
25:55You swine! Back to work!
25:58Sauckel pushes Marcel and his fellow workers even harder.
26:04Starved of food and with the onset of winter,
26:07Marcel sees the death toll rise,
26:10along with the levels of brutality.
26:16Workers get thrashed here like dogs
26:18and so many have died in the last six months.
26:21I saw someone dying on the floor.
26:24I wasn't even allowed to help him.
26:26A German guard kept shouting,
26:28Leave him! Keep walking, pigs!
26:321,500 prisoners will die at the Reimag facility.
26:36By winter 1944, the factory under the mountain is still not ready.
26:43The Nazis are forced to construct buildings outside of the tunnels,
26:47where the production of plane parts can go ahead,
26:50including massive bomb-proof bunkers.
26:57There's simply no end in sight for Reimag's forced labourers.
27:05My future here is looking bleak.
27:07I'm suffering here like it's hell,
27:10but I don't want to die here for Hitler.
27:26But Fritz Sauckel's cruel regime begins to pay off for the Nazis.
27:31His workers are finally ready to assemble complete Me 262s
27:35for the first time.
27:38The resources and effort required to do that are just absolutely enormous,
27:43and yet they do it.
27:45It never ceases to amaze me,
27:47the lengths to which the Nazis go to continue their war effort.
27:53Sauckel's attention turns to the next challenge,
27:57how to get his new planes into the skies above Nazi Germany.
28:04Germany's railways have been bombed into oblivion.
28:08Reimag is in the middle of nowhere.
28:13The problem that Fritz Sauckel runs into is,
28:16how do you get the aircraft to where they're needed to be,
28:19in combat operational squadrons?
28:22There isn't a clear place anywhere in this valley to put an airfield.
28:27So he comes up with either the craziest idea in the world
28:31or the most ingenious idea in the world,
28:33and that's put an airstrip on the top of this mountain
28:37to move the aircraft out of this valley.
28:42Reimag's very own take-off site
28:44will have to be at least 1,000 metres long to launch the new jet.
28:49Marcel van den Steen is one of over 1,000 workers
28:52forced to work under strict guard.
28:55Building the runway was an impressive undertaking.
28:58All of these trees had to be cleared, the topsoil had to be cleared,
29:02in addition to the concrete that had to be brought
29:05to the top of the mountain to build this runway.
29:08The labourers eventually level off the top of the mountain
29:12and form a concrete runway.
29:15Sauckel is in a rush to launch the wonderjet.
29:20But the planes are still at the facility 85 metres below.
29:32Mike is on the hunt in the forest alongside Reimag's ruins
29:36to find out exactly how Sauckel hauls a fighter plane
29:40to the top of a mountain.
29:50Well, these are the concrete pilings
29:53that the wooden trestles would have laid across.
29:58One-and-a-half-metre wooden trestles are kept in place
30:02by concrete foundations that still remain today.
30:05What this is is an image taken at the end of the war, 1945.
30:10The picture is of the elevator that took the Messerschmitt 262
30:16from this level up to the top of the mountain.
30:22The assembled Me 262 is hauled on a wheeled platform
30:26up a rail on the southern slope of the mountain
30:29to the runway above.
30:33Over 1,000 workers are employed in building Sauckel's ambitious vision.
30:40The human and engineering effort to get an aircraft
30:44up 660 feet at a 25-degree incline is enormous.
30:50What this tells us is the Nazis were incredibly desperate
30:53trying to get aircraft from bomb-proof production facilities
30:57up this mountain to an airfield at the top
31:00in order to get them into the war as fast as possible.
31:04By January 1945, workers from factories all across Germany
31:09have given Hitler just 500 operational Me 262s.
31:14It's not enough.
31:16But the FĂŒhrer has given up on his fixation
31:19with using the jet as an attacking blitz bomber.
31:23Hitler finally relents, allows the Me 262
31:26to be developed specifically as a fighter,
31:29and after that the argument is over.
31:32The FĂŒhrer gives orders allowing Adolf Galland
31:35to form his own jet fighter unit.
31:39He assembles Germany's top guns into an elite squadron.
31:45His aim? To finally prove the Me 262 is the perfect defensive fighter.
31:52We are to form the ultimate fighter squadron.
31:55We will be flying 262s as fully operational fighters.
31:59We have full reign to deploy them as we see fit.
32:02Gentlemen, welcome to the future of air war.
32:09Me 262s are rushed into battle across Germany,
32:13and the drive to get more of these jets into the air is immense.
32:17Nowhere is this pressure more obvious than at the Reimag facility.
32:27Mike Pavelek treks further up the Walpersberg mountain
32:31to find out more about just how the aircraft was hauled up the steep incline.
32:36What we have here is the top of the aircraft elevator system.
32:41This was probably the wheelhouse for the entire elevator.
32:45And what that means is there were machinery components in here
32:49that ran the cables to bring the aircraft platform to this level.
32:55The runway is no longer visible, lost to the forest.
33:00In 1945, it would have been possible to fly the Me 262
33:04In 1945, it would be from this level that Sackwell's new jets would have to take off.
33:11But the 1,000-metre runway will be dangerously short for a new jet fighter.
33:17They could have never landed if they had a problem,
33:20because it was too short of a runway to land.
33:23They had to go where they were going. There was no coming back.
33:28The 21st of February, 1945, the big launch.
33:34Lift-off from the short runway will be touch-and-go.
33:39Marcel and some of his fellow workers are allowed to witness the risky first flight.
33:44I hope he crashes.
33:46Marcel may get his wish.
34:05But against all the odds, Reimag's first Me 262 soars into the skies.
34:13Sackwell has delivered his first jet to his Fuhrer.
34:17From an engineering point of view, you've got to take your hat off to it.
34:20I mean, it's astonishing what they managed to achieve.
34:25March 1945.
34:27The Nazi drive to get the new jets into the sky shows no signs of diminishing in size.
34:32The Allies are on the borders of Germany.
34:35The Soviets set their sights on Hitler and Berlin.
34:39The German capital already lies in ruins.
34:42There are not enough jet fighters to defend the city from bombers.
34:46But Hitler will never allow surrender.
34:50In one final act of defiance,
34:53his engineers fast-track an Me 262 factory
34:57that takes the insanity of the Third Reich to a whole new level.
35:04In MĂŒhldorf, 70 kilometres from Munich in southern Germany,
35:08lie the remains of one of the most remarkable Nazi structures ever built.
35:16A desperate last-ditch idea to bolster the Me 262 production line
35:21and give the Nazis more of the new jets
35:24and give the Nazis more of the new jets they need.
35:29This is the last remaining arch of a huge bunker structure
35:32that was planned and partly built by the Nazis
35:35during the last months of World War II.
35:40These remains of Nazi architecture were once a vast barrel-shaped bunker
35:45built using arches made of poured concrete.
35:49The purpose of this bunker was to build parts
35:53for the Messerschmitt 262 fighter aeroplane.
36:00It is planned to be 400 metres long,
36:03with nine storeys below producing 900 jets a month.
36:13This is a very impressive example
36:16of Nazi engineering.
36:20Incredibly, this structure can withstand a direct hit
36:24from a six-tonne bomb.
36:29This is fantastic. How would you have built this?
36:32They had a mountain of gravel for the form.
36:36Under here?
36:38Under here, where we're standing now.
36:40And on top of this gravel mountain, they would build the concrete.
36:47Each separate arch section is built on top of a huge mound of gravel,
36:52which is removed once the reinforced concrete is set.
36:56But how did the workers move this gravel
36:59once the arch had been constructed?
37:03A dark secret lies beneath the earth in this secluded forest.
37:17In MĂŒhldorf, local historian Michael Geertner
37:21searches for clues from Germany's Nazi past.
37:28You can see the dimensions of the gravel removal tunnel,
37:32which was big enough to host a railway.
37:37An underground railway runs beneath the entire length
37:41of MĂŒhldorf's vast fighter jet bunker.
37:44Carriages are moved into position below,
37:47allowing the fast removal of the gravel above.
37:50A good part of the gravel came down itself by gravity,
37:54but there were prisoners working by hand,
37:58removing the gravel from the carriages.
38:0510,000 workers are employed on the project.
38:088,500 of them forced labourers.
38:118,500 of them forced labourers
38:14and inmates of a nearby concentration camp network.
38:18Of these, more than 3,000 will die.
38:24During the construction, the prisoners had to run
38:28with cement bags of 50 kilograms in their bags,
38:31and it would happen that they would slip out
38:34and just fall down into the liquid concrete and drown there.
38:39Despite the horrific loss of life,
38:42only seven of the 12 intended arches are built.
38:45The Germans are months off completing the factory,
38:48and no fighters will ever be made here.
38:54Just one of the massive arches now remains,
38:57a moving monument to the human cost of the Me 262.
39:04The whole thing is insanity.
39:06I mean, it's just, it's another sign
39:09of the way in which the final year of the Third Reich
39:13is just going more and more into the realms of fantasy world.
39:20It is a fantasy that will soon be brought to an abrupt end.
39:24But first, Nazi fighter ace Adolf Galland still has a point to prove.
39:29His elite unit of fighter aces takes to the skies to attack Allied bombers.
39:37This is very much the last hussar,
39:40the last cavalry charge, so to speak, of the Luftwaffe.
39:45Galland's new jet fighters are 190km per hour
39:49quicker than the fastest Allied planes.
39:55And Galland can use them as he wants,
39:58gunning down slow-moving bombers at high speed.
40:03One of the major tactics was, don't touch the throttles.
40:07Climbing to high altitudes, holding there,
40:10waiting for your targets, and then dashing through the targets
40:14with a speed that guns can't follow
40:17and especially also that prop fighters can't follow.
40:21The 18th of March, 1945,
40:2437 Me 262s take on over 1,300 Allied aircraft.
40:33The heavily outnumbered Germans shoot down 13 enemy bombers
40:38for the loss of three jets, a ratio of over 4 to 1.
40:43The Me 262 proves how deadly it can be,
40:47but it's too little, too late.
40:51The Luftwaffe by the end of the war
40:53didn't have enough pilots to fly these things.
40:56They didn't have enough fuel to fire them.
40:59They didn't have enough maintenance units to maintain them.
41:03The Germans had a wonderful weapon.
41:06It was simply outnumbered by American and British material superiority.
41:13The 12th of April, 1945,
41:16the Americans advance towards the RIMAC facility.
41:24The troops are stunned by what they discover.
41:28A hidden subterranean factory built to create an aircraft
41:32that looks like something out of science fiction
41:35and the camps of the labourers that were forced to construct it.
41:41After eight months' imprisonment, Marcel van den Steen is a free man.
41:46I don't believe this. My heart is beating.
41:49I just want to kill those men that made us suffer.
41:53But Fritz Sauckel is nowhere to be seen.
41:56He's now a Nazi on the run.
41:58His plan to build hundreds of jets at the RIMAC facility has failed.
42:03By the end of the war,
42:05when this installation was taken over by the Americans,
42:09only 24 or 26 Me 262s had left this installation,
42:14gone up the elevator and taken off from this very short runway.
42:18Obviously not enough aircraft to change the course of the war.
42:26Adolf Galland would ride his luck to the bitter end
42:30and pay the price.
42:34My canopy was shattered and my right knee was struck by a bullet.
42:37I was losing power and in great pain.
42:40I flew for the deck.
42:52Galland somehow manages to survive the crash.
42:55He's later captured and taken to England,
42:58where he would be interrogated about the Me 262.
43:01On 9th May 1945,
43:04Fritz Sauckel, the man responsible for RIMAC,
43:07was eventually captured at Hitler's mountain retreat.
43:11He's later tried at Nuremberg for his crimes and executed.
43:16Alongside him in the dark is Hermann Göring,
43:19who continued to believe the Me 262 could have won the air war
43:23if more of them had been built earlier.
43:28This was an aircraft that would never be forgotten.
43:33Anyone who has even just the remotest love of aviation
43:36cannot help but be seduced by the Me 262.
43:41But you can't escape its origins
43:44and how it was built in horrific conditions,
43:47in underground factories,
43:50by a monstrous regime that was just responsible
43:54for some incredible level of misery and death and mayhem.