All language subtitles for Dark.Marvels.S01E02.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

Narrator: Tonight,
a closer look inside

the world’s most sinister
castles and strongholds...

Larissa Tracy:
Nobody can fathom a mind

that would create a place

that seems welcoming,
that seems safe,

but was designed to kill.

Narrator: From an iconic
torture tower...

Eileen Joy: It must have
been terrifying for prisoners

to be led down
into the dungeon.

Larissa Tracy: Your hips
are being pulled apart.

Your knees,
your wrists, everything.

It took some real time
to get his head off the body.

Narrator: ...to a hotel
of hidden horrors.

Clarence Goodman:
They’re going to be murdered

and the skeletons
sold for money.

It’s a tomb. It’s a trap.

Narrator:
These are the origin stories
of true temples of doom.

Not all inventions are made
with good intentions.

Unlock the twisted history

behind the world’s
darkest marvels.

Looming over the north bank
of London’s River Thames

is an imposing
stone structure

that has been a fixture
on the city skyline

for nearly a 1,000 years--
the Tower of London.

The Tower of London
covers about 12 acres,

which is about nine
football fields of area.

It’s surrounded
by a huge moat.

It dominates with its breadth.

It dominates with its width.
It dominates with its walls.

Michael B. Young:
The Tower of London
is a phenomenal,

spectacular building.

It was in many ways
the archetypal medieval castle.

Narrator:
This intimidating stronghold

is ordered to be built
in the 11th century

by King William I.

In 1066, William the Bastard
conquers England

and becomes known forever
as William the Conqueror.

Larissa Tracy: Once he takes
the reins of power,

the Tower of London is built
as his first main fortress.

Rebecca Simon: William the
Conqueror orders this tower
to be built from stone.

This is very unusual,

because people haven’t
really started crafting homes

out of stone yet in England,

and the reason
why William the Conqueror

wanted it
to be made out of stone

is because the idea was
stone would last forever.

Larissa Tracy:
The whole point of a castle
was to say,

"I am here, this is my land,

and I have now
built this structure

that will outlast even me."

Narrator: But construction
isn’t complete until 1097,

ten years
after William’s death.

Michael B. Young: The Tower
of London was originally

what is now just
the White Tower.

It was meant to be
impregnable.

It was the part of a castle
that was then known as a keep,

and the word means that
you could keep safe there.

Keep the royal family safe.
Keep the royal jewels safe.

Retreat there from an angry mob
or an invading enemy.

Over the course of
the next three centuries,

the White Tower in the middle
was successfully,

as we would say today,
militarily hardened

by the construction of
two encircling curtain walls,

moats, and drawbridges.

Each of those walls
had towers built on them.

Narrator: The tower
is considered so safe

it serves as the royal
living quarters

throughout times
of great upheaval.

Larissa Tracy: In 1348,
the first cases of
the bubonic plague show up.

Now the bubonic plague
of course

decimated the population
of medieval Europe,

killing six million people.

There’s a recession,
there’s economic depression.

There’s famine.

There’s a drought,
which doesn’t help.

And at the same time,

you have the English monarchy

pressing its claim
to the French throne

using English resources.

And so that leads to dissent
among the English population.

Narrator:
On May 30th, 1381,

that dissent turns
into an uprising

against the king
and his advisors.

King Richard II came
into power in 1377
when he was only ten.

So in an England
that’s run by a boy king,

that’s still reeling
from the bubonic plague

and thirty years
of economic upheavals,

1381 marks a watershed moment

in which the peasants,
the farmers,

the people who produce
the food are fed up.

Rebecca Simon:
Richard II wants to
appease the peasants,

so he leaves the tower
to go to talk to them.

But naively,
the gates are left open,

because it’s assumed
that no one would ever
go into the tower

because it is
such a large fortress.

Unfortunately, the peasants
see their opportunity,

and over 400 of them
storm the tower.

They go in, and they want
to get major leaders.

Cord Whitaker:
They do get a hold of one of
those advisors of the king

who they consider
an enemy of the people,

and that is chancellor
and archbishop of Canterbury
Simon Sudbury.

Along with him and several
other royal officials,

they drag them
out of the tower
across to Tower Hill.

And there they proceed
to behead these officials.

The beheading
of Simon Sudbury appears
to have been done

with, let’s say,
a rather blunt axe...

...and it took some real time
to get his head off the body.

And they take these heads

and put them on spears

and display them
on London Bridge.

Several days later,
the revolt would end

with the heads of some of
the leading rebellers on pikes

and used to replace
the heads on the bridge.

Narrator:
King Richard manages
to crush the rebellion,

but ultimately meets
his own grisly fate.

Larissa Tracy:
Even though Richard is only
14 when this happens,

his reign becomes very unstable
after the Peasants’ Revolt,

and he is seen
as more and more authoritarian
as his reign progresses,

until he’s deposed in 1399
and likely starved to death.

Narrator:
After the Peasants’ Revolt,

the monarchy stops
using the White Tower

as a primary residence.

Larissa Tracy:
In the late 15th century,
early 16th century,

the center of power shifts.

The monarchy
moves around a lot more,

and actually Windsor becomes

one of the primary
royal residences.

The Tower of London becomes
a seat of government.

Narrator:
But it also serves
another crucial purpose--

as a prison for people
accused of high treason,

including a queen.

Cord Whitaker:
Of Henry the VIII’s wives,

Anne Boleyn is perhaps
the most famous.

Henry VIII, his main concern

is to produce an heir
for the kingdom.

Anne Boleyn was not able
to provide him this male heir
whom he sought.

He wanted to get her
out of the way.

She is accused
of incest, adultery,

and she’s even accused
of witchcraft--

the idea that
she bewitched Henry

into divorcing his first wife,
Catherine of Aragon,

so he’d marry her instead.

Ultimately, she is found guilty,

and she’s thrown into the tower
and condemned to death.

Cord Whitaker: She is shut up
in the same apartments

where she had prepared
for her wedding

a mere three years before.

While she’s held there
for 17 days,

she can watch
the construction of the gallows

on which she is
to be beheaded.

Henry wants to orchestrate
a spectacle for her execution.

But Anne was very afraid
that an English axeman
would botch the job.

So Anne Boleyn asked
and was granted

the right to have
a French swordsman
come over from Calais.

French beheadings
at this time

were done with a very sharp,
very skilled swordsman.

He was paid 23 pounds,
6 shillings,

the equivalent
of $10,000 today,

to execute the first queen
who’d been executed
in English history.

This is unprecedented.

Narrator: Anne Boleyn is led
to the site of her beheading,

the Tower Green,
cementing its legacy

as a stage
for bloody executions,

which includes another
of Henry VIII’s wives

just six years later.

Rebecca Simon:
Catherine Howard
is Henry VIII’s fifth wife.

She’s very young
when she marries Henry.

Some historians believe
that she’s only 15 years old.

But Catherine
is repulsed by him,

and so she starts
having an affair

with a young member of court,

and she doesn’t
even really hide it.

So Henry VIII orders her
to be sent to the tower
to be executed.

In comparison
to the quite regal death

that attended Anne Boleyn,

Catherine Howard’s
was without pageantry.

It was hurried.
It was inglorious.

Rebecca Simon:
And this is very likely due

to Henry’s extreme
humiliation

at not only having
been cuckolded after
just one year of marriage,

but also having married someone

who so openly
was disgusted by him.

Larissa Tracy:
Her body is buried beneath
the floor of the chapel.

There’s not even a box.

Catherine Howard
is buried with lime.

And there’s every suggestion

that he just wanted to
dissolve her body and move on.

Narrator: During the course
of its bloody history,

many more meet their end
beneath the executioner’s axe.

Larissa Tracy:
There is currently on display

in the top of the White Tower

one of four axes
that was used for executions.

It’s a very distinctive axe
because it has a wide blade,

and then it tapers into this
almost hooked shape.

And that axe, of course,
very notoriously

becomes an emblem of beheading
in England specifically.

Narrator: But the tower
becomes even more well known

for its brutal methods
of torture.

Narrator: Hidden beneath
the Tower of London

are several dungeons
responsible for
its bloody reputation.

Eileen Joy:
It must have been terrifying

for prisoners to be led down
into the dungeons,

where they would have heard
other prisoners screaming,

moaning in agony.

They would have also heard
the torturers

and what they were doing.

Rebecca Simon: Torture was
extremely prolific

under the reign of Henry VIII
and Elizabeth I.

And this is because of
Henry VIII’s growing paranoia

of people working against him.

And so, anybody
who he even suspected

of possibly being treasonous
would get thrown into the tower.

Cord Whitaker: In the dungeons
at the Tower of London,

you would have had
three main forms of torture.

One of them is the rack.

Larissa Tracy: When somebody’s
attached to a rack,

they’re stretched,
and what you hear
is the popping sound

of their joints
and the cartilage

as they are slowly dislocated.

Your spine
is being pulled apart.

Your hips are being
pulled apart,

your knees, your wrists,
everything.

It would leave
somebody completely
and totally incapacitated.

Cord Whitaker: Then you would
have also had the manacles

that could be employed when
someone was accused of stealing

because one is being hung
by the hands.

Larissa Tracy: Manacles
were meant for imprisonment

or to suspend somebody
in a distended form.

Someone’s hands are tied
behind their back
and they’re lifted up.

So somebody in manacles
could be suspended

at varying angles that cause
varying degrees of pain.

And then, of course, you also
had the scavenger’s daughter.

Narrator: Like the rack,
the scavenger’s daughter

is used
to elicit confessions.

But instead of stretching
victims, it compresses them.

Larissa Tracy: The idea
of the scavenger’s daughter,

it’s a metal frame that holds
someone’s hands and their feet

so that they are forced
into a stress position
for a length of time.

And it is designed
specifically

to cause severe pain
and cramping.

Narrator:
Perhaps even worse
is being locked up

in the most fearsome
dungeon of all,

a dark four-by-four cell
known as the Little Ease.

Cord Whitaker: If you’ve ever
had to even bend over

for longer than you’d like,
you know how painful it can get.

People would be locked in it
for hours or even days.

Eileen Joy: But it’s also
solitary confinement.

You cannot see anyone.
There is no window.

And in my opinion,
except for deaths that
happen bit by bit,

nothing is worse
than solitary confinement.

Narrator: A horrific fate
experienced by its first

unfortunate victim in 1534.

There was a young woman
named Alice Tankerville who
had been accused of theft,

convicted for it,
and imprisoned in the tower.

However, one of the guards
of the tower named John Bawd

fell in love with her.

So one night
they sought to slip out

of the tower together.

They made their way
toward Tower Hill,

when they were caught
by one of John’s colleagues,

who of course
called other guards in.

Narrator: As punishment,
John Bawd is locked

inside Little Ease
until he’s almost dead.

Then he’s hung outside
until he dies of exposure

and his body is picked apart
by ravens.

John Bawd goes from being one
of the guards of the tower

to one of the tower’s victims.

Michael Young:
Alice, because she had
originally committed

a theft on the Thames,
was convicted of piracy.

And in keeping with the crime,

she was hanged from
the side of the River Thames
as were all pirates,

either to die of hanging first

or die as the tide
rose over her.

Narrator: In 1640, torture
is outlawed in England,

bringing this dark chapter
in the tower’s history
to a close.

But over two centuries later,

an even more menacing
castle emerges.

July 1895,
Chicago, Illinois.

While conducting
an investigation
of a South Side hotel,

police make
a shocking discovery.

In the basement, the police
find a dissection table.

They find a kiln
for burning things,

and they ultimately find
evidence of bones and jewelry
inside this kiln.

Also, a tub full of quicklime,

which is a classic way to
dissolve and dispose of a body.

Larissa Tracy: And they find
so many jumbled remains

that it’s impossible
for them to determine

exactly how many corpses
they’ve found.

Narrator:
News headlines dub the hotel
"The Murder Castle,"

and investigators start
to dig deeper

into the building’s owner,
Dr. H.H. Holmes.

Clarence Goodman:
Holmes was born in May of 1861

as Herman Webster Mudgett.

And then it is upon his
graduation from medical school

that he decides to take on
an assumed name.

Ed O’Donnell: Holmes also
displays a macabre
fascination with cadavers,

with bodies, with dissection,

and some of
his earliest known scams

are taking out insurance
policies on fictitious people

and presenting a cadaver
as the dead person,

collecting
the insurance money.

Narrator: After leaving
New York and Philadelphia

under suspicious
circumstances,

Holmes moves to Chicago in
1886 to work at a pharmacy.

Soon after, he buys the
vacant lot across the street

to build a new endeavor--
a hotel.

Ed O’Donnell:
Holmes is a guy who wants
to keep his business secret.

So no contractor,
no carpenter, no bricklayer,

does more than
a couple of weeks work
before they’re fired,

which means they won’t see
the diabolical plan in full.

When this building
of Holmes’ springs up

in the middle of the town,
it is so singular,

even down to the turrets.

It has the resemblance
of a castle,

and it is so tall and takes up
so much real estate,

that it is eye-catching.

Narrator: The ground floor
of Holmes’ hotel

is built out as
a conventional retail space.

But the second level is
a maze of hidden passageways,

trap doors, and dead ends.

On the second floor,
we’re looking at approximately,

say 8,000 square feet,

and you’ve got roughly
30-some-odd rooms

and about 50-plus doors.
That’s a lot.

Clarence Goodman: He folds
asbestos into the plans.

This makes everything silent.
Why is this important?

Because you can’t hear
someone in a muffled room.

Holmes wants to keep you in.
So, the hallways are mazes.

The exits are not clear.
The windows are boarded over.

So, it’s almost the opposite
of what a hotel should be.

It’s a tomb. It’s a trap.

Narrator:
In late 1892,

H.H. Holmes’ hotel
is open for business.

And his timing
is deviously perfect,

because in just a few months

the World’s Fair
will open in Chicago

in the spring of 1893.

Clarence Goodman:
Holmes put ads in newspapers
around the middle-west,

and incredibly,
he has women answering his ads

who are planning on
coming to Chicago.

These people have no idea
what they have walked into.

Larissa Tracy:
He would put them in rooms

where he knew that he could
either control them entirely,

or he could control
their sense of perception.

The hotel itself is set up
like a maze.

It’s a labyrinth.
There are dead ends.

They’re staircases
that lead nowhere.

There are doors that open out
onto alleys with a drop.

And if a young woman
is disoriented

and tries to leave her room,
she’d get lost.

Clarence Goodman:
They are put to sleep,

because Holmes
has introduced gas

into their sleeping chamber.

And then they sadly wake up
in the basement

strapped to a table.

And he might be
experimenting on them.

He might be torturing them.

For those unfortunate enough
to actually see this basement,

they must have felt like
they were seeing some new form

of a medieval torture dungeon.

A rack for stretching
human bodies,

a dissection table
for experimenting
and for torture.

A vat for quicklime,
a vat for acid.

A huge furnace
that could accommodate
a full human body.

And then so many surgical
and dissection tools
all around the room.

Ultimately, they’re
going to be murdered,

the soft tissue disposed of,

and the skeletons
sold for money.

Holmes is a spider,

and the Murder Castle itself
is the ultimate spider’s web.

He was charming and could
convince women to come with him.

Ed O’Donnell:
Most of the victims of
H.H. Holmes were young women,

many of them who had resources,
who had wealth.

The best example of that
is the Williams sisters,

Minnie and Nannie Williams.

Minnie comes to Chicago,
and she and Holmes

not only take up
with one another,

but Minnie begins to work
for Holmes as a stenographer.

They become engaged.

Minnie Williams is convinced

to sign over all
of her material wealth,

and Holmes does the same thing
with young Nannie Williams.

And now he really has no use
for the sisters Williams.

Minnie is killed.
When Nannie gets there,
she is killed.

That’s sort of
the distillation
of Holmes’ kind of MO,

drawing in young
vulnerable women,

ultimately killing them,
and acquiring their property.

Narrator: But after a series
of suspicious fires,

by the summer of 1893,

his crimes start
catching up with him.

Holmes had taken out
insurance on the castle,

and so he was
trying to collect.

But because of the really,
really sketchy nature

of the fires,
he was not paid off.

Narrator: Undeterred,
Holmes cooks up a new scam

with his business partner
Benjamin Pitezel.

Clarence Goodman:
Holmes and Benjamin Pitezel
have a plan to defraud

an insurance company
in Philadelphia,

where they will
present a dead body

after taking out
an insurance policy

on Benjamin Pitezel.

Pitezel, sadly,
he thinks he’s a partner,

but he’s actually going
to be the victim,

because Holmes is going to
present the real body

of one Ben Pitezel
to the insurance company.

Larissa Tracy: Holmes had
a tendency to eliminate

anybody who knew his secrets.

Pitezel knew of his fraud.

Ed O’Donnell: He kills
his business partner,

and then acquires possession

of Benjamin Pitezel’s
three children.

Narrator:
Holmes goes on the run

with Pitezel’s
children in tow,

ultimately killing them.

After two of the bodies
are discovered in Toronto,

police search
his Chicago hotel in 1895,

and what they uncover
is truly horrific.

When the police arrive,
this one-time fortress

is in tremendous disrepair.

And so they’re looking around,

and they see these nefarious
and weird rooms.

But it’s when they go
to the basement

that they are greeted with
the sight of bones and blood
and bloody clothing,

and a basement
that looks like it had been
a medieval torture dungeon.

Larissa Tracy:
Nobody can fathom a mind
that would create a place

that seems welcoming,
that seems safe,

but was designed to kill.

Narrator: Ultimately,
Holmes is sentenced to death

for the murder
of Benjamin Pitezel.

But before he’s executed,
he writes a shockingly
detailed confession,

admitting to a total
of 27 gruesome murders.

Because the stories of Holmes’
crimes is nationwide news,

the tabloid medium
makes him into a celebrity.

Now that he knows
he can do no further,

he wants his crimes
to be revealed.

Whether or not
he reveals accurately

or exaggerates and
embellishes his own reputation

is impossible to know.

Narrator: H.H. Holmes hangs
on May 7th, 1896.

But the building dubbed
the Murder Castle

stands as a grim reminder
of his crimes until 1938.

Clarence Goodman:
The city of Chicago, they take
possession of this building,

they bulldoze it,
and they build a brand-new
U.S. post office,

using in part the original
Murder Castle basement

as the basement
for the new post office.

And so in that regard,
this hotel, this fortress,

this monster is still there.

Just because this building
was torn down

doesn’t mean
that whatever happened there
didn’t happen there.

The horrors that took place
on that ground,

the blood that was shed there,
is still there.

Narrator:
The Murder Castle might
never escape its bloody past,

but about 1,800 miles away,
there’s an island where escape

is said to be
downright impossible.

Narrator:
A mile and a half
from San Francisco

stands one
of the most notorious

maximum-security prisons
in America-- Alcatraz.

Ed O’Donnell: The nickname of
Alcatraz was The Rock.

Someone once wrote
about Alcatraz

that it was
the great garbage can
in San Francisco Bay,

into which all
the federal penitentiaries
sent their most rotten apples,

so it had that reputation
of being a terrible place.

Narrator:
Ironically, Alcatraz,

a place known
for locking people in,

was initially built
to keep people out.

Ian Craig:
Alcatraz has history
going back to the 1850s

as a U.S. Army post,
the first fortress built

by the American government
on the West Coast.

Narrator: After a major
natural disaster in 1906,

the fort gets a new purpose.

Greg Jackson:
The thing we need to remember

about the San Francisco
earthquake of 1906

is that it wasn’t
just an earthquake.

It was also a great fire.

Fire sweeps through and
obliterates San Francisco.

Alcatraz is an island
just a mile away,

and it becomes
the dumping ground
for all of the people

who had been incarcerated
in San Francisco.

Ian Craig: Ultimately,
it would be decided

that building
would be torn down,

and rebuilt by a much larger
prison building.

When the prison building that
we see today was completed,

it was the largest
reinforced concrete building

ever built at that time.

Narrator: In 1934,
it officially opens.

Ian Craig: Letters were
sent out to the wardens

of other federal prisons,

"Make your prison safer.

Send us your worst."

They wanted to round up

all the most
troublesome prisoners,

and the most
dangerous prisoners,

and put them all in one place.

Ed O’Donnell:
Al Capone ended up at Alcatraz.

Machine Gun Kelly as well.

And in a later date,
Whitey Bulger.

So lots of well-known criminals
who had made headlines

before they ended up
getting incarcerated.

Narrator: Most convicts
are housed in three blocks,

A, B, and C.

But the worst offenders

are sent to solitary
confinement,

the dreaded D block.

Ian Craig:
The lower floor of D block
contains six dark cells.

The door leading in is
a three-inch thick steel door
filled with concrete.

And when they closed
that cell door,

you were in there in the dark.

The diet was basically
bread and water

with a real meal every third day
by government order.

Ian Craig:
Some prisoners who would be
taken to the dark cells,

and they would be complaining,
"I have pain.

I think I’m really sick.
I should see the doctor."

And on a couple of occasions,

when they were checked on,
they had died.

They had six cells that were
psychotic cells, you know?

Sort of where you put the guys
that are cracking up,

that are uncontrollable.

There’s nothing
but a hole in the floor.
That’s all they got.

No bed, no sink,
no toilet, nothing.
Just a hole in the floor.

Rebecca Simon:
The solitary confinement
wasn’t completely solitary,

because being
in the center of the bay
and very, very isolated,

the prisoners,
they were able to hear
the ocean waves outside.

If there were boats sailing by
with people celebrating

or even just people laughing,

prisoners could hear that
very clearly.

It was like freedom was just
at the tip of their fingers

but they could never touch it.

The most high-profile guy
that was there when I was there
was the Birdman.

They gave him life
in solitary confinement.

Now can you imagine that?
Never to come out.

They did the same thing
to a guy in later years,

only they put him actually
underground in a cell.

They buried him alive.

Eileen Joy:
Solitary confinement is
the most brutal punishment

a prisoner can receive.

If you’re in a room like that
day after day after day,

it’s been proven that your mind
completely breaks down.

Narrator:
Solitary confinement isn’t
the only form of punishment.

Ed O’Donnell:
In the early years, you’re
not allowed to speak at all.

The theory was it was
a good idea to keep order.

But it actually was terrible
for the psychological
well-being of prisoners.

Narrator:
Conditions are so bad,

some inmates contemplate
drastic measures.

Daniel Dickrell:
To build a prison,
you have to understand

that the people inside will
do everything in their power

to try and break out
of that prison.

And so you have
to keep that in mind

as you’re designing
and building it,

human beings inside
are very creative

and they’re very effective
at finding weaknesses.

Narrator: Preventing
any attempts to escape

are armed guards
who patrol 24/7 from
the gun galleries,

a maze of walkways
protected by bars and mesh.

They had holes
where they’d stick their gun
through the window.

Any time there was
a fight in Alcatraz,

they’d shoot one shot,
a warning shot.

If you didn’t break it up,
they would shoot you.

We hated the ( bleep ).

Ed O’Donnell: In addition
to all of these guards,

highest percentage
of guards to prisoners than
anywhere in the country,

is a system of tear gas
canisters that are suspended
from the ceiling.

So, if there’s a prison
uprising or an escape attempt,

they can release this tear gas
and immobilize the prisoners.

Narrator: But these defenses
don’t stop prisoners

from risking it all
to break out.

Narrator: In the 29 years
the prison is open,

few inmates are daring enough

to put the escape-proof
Alcatraz to the test.

One of the most
violent attempts

occurs in May of 1946.

Bernard Coy is a bank robber,
and he’s hell-bent on escaping.

He enlists the help
of several other inmates

in a scheme to find a way
to break out.

They study
for a period of months

the movements of the guards
and the changing of shifts.

Ian Craig: Bernard Coy
successfully navigated

his way to the gun gallery

when the guard had gone
around the corner.

When he came back,
Coy punched him unconscious.

He succeeded
in getting his guns,

a .30-06 rifle and a handgun.

Their plan was to retrieve
the key that hung on a chain

from the gun gallery,
and it wasn’t there.

Narrator: Coy and his
cohorts grab the keyring off
the unconscious guard.

Daniel Dickrell:
They try as many keys
as possible in the mechanism,

but they jam the mechanism,
and they can’t get out.

Ed O’Donnell:
One of the prisoners says,

"We’ve gotta kill
these guards because

they’re gonna testify against us

and send us all
to the electric chair."

So Coy kills one, seriously
injures several others.

Narrator:
This ultimately leads to
a tense three-day standoff

between the escaping inmates
and law enforcement.

Ed O’Donnell:
Marines come in with grenades

and the real heavy equipment
and begin blasting away,

not really caring whether
they take down the building

or kill a lot
of innocent prisoners.

It’s all about simply
suppressing the insurrection.

Ian Craig:
And there was no escape,

and they would die
in the plumbing corridor

under gunfire by guards
and the Marines.

Announcer:
The prison launch
takes aboard the bodies

of the three leaders
of the mutiny--

Coy, Hubbard, and Cretzer.

Narrator: The deadly mayhem

reminds prisoners
that the harshest torture

is knowing that escape
is all but impossible.

Bill Baker: I thought about
escaping from Alcatraz.
Everybody did, of course.

But I learned very quickly
that if you’re gonna
escape from Alcatraz,

you have to be willing
to give up your life.

’Cause if you don’t make it,
you’re either gonna drown

or they’re gonna shoot you--
one or the other.

There’s no second chances.

Ian Craig:
During the federal
penitentiary era,

from 1934 to 1963,

we had 1,576 federal
prisoners sent to Alcatraz.

There were 14 official
escape attempts.

36 men took part in those.

And we just have five men
unaccounted for

out of that number.

Narrator:
Even if on the off-chance

those five survived,
an escape rate of 0.3%

makes Alcatraz one of
the most escape-proof prisons
in U.S. history.

Narrator: While Alcatraz
proves effective
at locking evil away,

there’s a temple of doom
built to help unleash it
out into the world.

Narrator:
Germany, 1933.

As the Nazi party continues
its rise to power,

Adolph Hitler’s chief deputy
Heinrich Himmler

begins searching
for a base of operations

for his elite soldiers,
the Schutzstaffel,

otherwise known as the SS.

The SS under Himmler
is exploding.

It’s an enormous number
of new recruits
that are coming in,

and they need to be trained.

And Himmler needs
a place to do this.

The Nazis have for
a long time been associated
with the occult,

especially Himmler,
who’s absolutely invested

in medieval
chivalric culture.

Narrator: Himmler’s obsession
with medieval culture

leads to the perfect location

deep in Germany’s
Teutoburg Forest.

The Wewelsburg Castle
is very near a site

where it is believed
that native Germans

were able to defeat
invading Roman armies

in the first decade
of the common era.

This space is so important
to Heinrich Himmler

and the Nazi regime
because it connects it

to a storied
and ancient history.

And this fortress, which is
built in the 17th century

on much earlier
medieval foundations,

comes to symbolize
the heart of the Nazi regime.

Michael Livingston: All of
this is coming together

in this kind of
soup of symbolism

that Himmler distills
into a vision

of this being the heart
of the SS,

and a place to educate
the future leaders
of the great new Reich.

Narrator: Himmler signs a
100-year lease on the castle

and forces prisoners
to help renovate it.

One of the most insidious
aspects of Wewelsburg Castle

is its association with
the death by work program.

And over 4,000 workers

were brought in from
the concentration camps.

Himmler used the enforced labor

of individuals at
concentration camps nearby,

and he then put into practice
what he was teaching,

how to force people
to death by laboring.

Larissa Tracy:
Over a 1,000 people died
in the reconstructing

and building of various
aspects of this castle.

They were either
starved to death,

worked to death,
or they were beaten,
or they were shot.

So this castle is literally
built on the blood of the people

who were interned in those
concentration camps

and forced to work to fulfill
this sadistic Nazi ideal.

Narrator: In 1941,

with construction
of his temple of doom
well underway,

Himmler plans his sadistic
hub of Nazi ideology.

They wanted to create
a sort of academy of Nazism
within this castle.

Kelly Devries: It was
in Wewelsburg that Himmler

would have taught his
philosophy to willing men.

They were going to become
these elite, the ubermensch.

Larissa Tracy:
They would have been educated

and taught in the rooms
of this castle

about the Final Solution
and about their role in it,

and their role in essentially
exterminating anybody

who was not
of pure Aryan blood.

Narrator: After training,
recruits would be led

to the Obergruppenfuhrersaal,
or the General’s Hall.

In the Obergruppenfuhrersaal,

he has a mosaic
of a black sun on the floor,

because he believes
that the astral significance

and the alignment
of the building itself

would somehow endow them
with a sense of immortality.

Cord Whitaker:
In this chamber,

there would have been
a large round oak table,

evocative of the Round Table.

Around the edges of the room,
there are twelve seats

for the twelve knights
of the Round Table.

And of course,
there’s the central seat,

which is for the king himself,

which for Himmler
would have been the Fuhrer.

Michael Shelden: The Nazis
are not inventive enough

to create their own mythology.
They’ve got to borrow it.

It’s especially ironic
that they take

the whole Arthurian myth
from the English

and try to put it in Germany
and make their own version

of a kind of dark Camelot
within this castle.

Narrator: It is here
that members of the SS

would be officially
indoctrinated.

Every cult needs
to have its initiation,

and part of that
is to give these SS men

a death’s head ring,
something that will bond them

as though in a marriage
to the cult,

but also as a reminder
to future recruits,

"You belong to us."

Himmler would go so far
as to have SS members

renounce the
Judeo-Christian holidays

in favor of the pagan holidays
that largely preceded them.

So in order to isolate them

from the lives
they had lived previously,

you got to get rid of those
things like Christmas.

Narrator:
Himmler even goes as far

as to make plans
for the afterlife.

In the north tower,
he has the room constructed

with a domed roof
like a Mycenaean tomb.

Daniel Dickrell:
The crypt, or as Himmler
called it, the gruft,

was the cistern of the castle
that was modified

to become sort of
a symbolic tomb

that Himmler himself
wanted to be interred in.

Larissa Tracy: In this room,
there are twelve niches

set up along in the circle
along the walls

for the urns
of elites of the SS.

And there’s an eternal flame
in the center,

and that flame was meant
to last as long as the Reich.

Narrator: A vile legacy
Himmler and the SS work
towards cementing.

Michael Shelden: Probably
the most important event

that ever took place
at the castle

was the meeting to plan
for the invasion
of the Soviet Union,

Operation Barbarossa.

The people belonging
to this death cult

they were told,
"Go out and kill as many
people as you can."

It was assumed
30 million would die

who were mostly civilians
or political officials or Jews,

and it was the SS’s job
to do this methodical killing

in order to make it so that
you purified the country

as you moved along
in the battle.

Narrator: But Himmler’s dream
of making this fortress

the center
of a new Aryan empire

is ultimately crushed.

March of 1945,
the Allies have landed

and are advancing
across Germany.

And Himmler
runs like a coward

and gives orders to destroy
Wewelsburg Castle behind him.

Larissa Tracy: And of course,
all that happens

is small fires throughout.

Tapestries, flammables burn,
but for the most part

the castle itself
is still standing

and the local population loot it
once the Nazis vacate.

Narrator:
Today, Wewelsburg Castle
is home to a museum

commemorating the victims
who suffered violence

at the hands of the Nazi SS.

Larissa Tracy:
So Wewelsburg Castle,
which was meant to be

the physical stone fortress

that symbolized the heart
of the Nazi regime,

ultimately becomes a place
for young German students

gaining a broader perspective
of their history.

Narrator: The storied halls
of these dark places

remind us that even
though they were originally
designed to protect,

they can just as easily
become bastions of evil.