Original subtitles

In France a mighty fortress with an extraordinary past.

The story that somebody could take it so easily

it's almost unbelievable.

An argentinian hotel for Nazi sympathisers.

When the einhorn's create their special little bit of Nazi Germany.

That is the shape of things to come.

In Hawaii, Elvis Presley's home away from Hollywood.

You have Elvis Presley staying not just to make movies

but then going back with Priscilla Presley

and their new baby Lisa Marie.

And the opulent mansion of a Mexican crime boss.

He also trafficked in weapons

and it's alleged that he practiced torture

and extra judicial executions.

Decaying relics. Shadows of lost worlds.

Ruins haunted by the past,

their secrets waiting to be revealed.

In the highlands of Argentina,

there lies an estate built for the rich and powerful.

You've got these beautiful mountains

and you have nestled in there this beautiful large old building.

You go in to this place and it's absolutely sumptuous.

And it's clearly targeted at a rather upmarket clientele.

But details that tell the story of this place are now missing.

If you look up at this arch

you can see that there used to be something er,

that has clearly been knocked off.

It looks like there was a hasty change to this arch.

Wonder what was there.

Everything here is at the heart of a controversial theory.

Did an infamous tyrant fake his own death

and escape here to seek sanctuary?

Of course this is complete rubbish and not true at all

but the fact that that conspiracy theory exists,

that people think about this gives us a clue to the history

of this building.

In 1897 this land was just an empty Meadow until the arrival of one man.

A German tourist comes in to Argentina

and comes to this region and realises this is beautiful.

It, the air is clean, it's just a wonderful space

and he makes this decision to build a hotel.

His hotel was to be the most luxurious in all of Argentina.

It had 100 bedrooms, it had 38 bathrooms

now that doesn't seem like a lot by today's standards

but you know, at the time 38 bathrooms for 100 bedrooms,

that was a lot, and it was electrified,

meaning you had electric light in every room

and all the common areas.

And it had you know, huge kitchens, refrigerators,

yeah, so that the guests could partake

of all the fruits of Argentina, you know,

some of the best beef in the world.

But not all of the rooms were built for luxury.

Not far away from the gloss and glitz of the hotel

is the gritty side of the place.

Here is a er, an engine room, a generator room,

it's where the grease monkeys who keep the lights on

are all doing the hard work.

But the no expense spared approach wasn't overly successful.

The original owners could never get this hotel profitable enough

to make up for their debt

but they did find someone to buy it from them.

In 1912 the hotel came under new management.

It was bought by a married couple called Walter and ida einhorn.

Einhorn's were very clever in their business techniques,

they had a lot of great ideas,

they worked in the sophisticated circles of the day

the more popular and wealthier crowds

and were able to convince them that Argentina was the place to go

and the hotel Eden was the only place to stay.

Gabriela Sanchez has studied the couples fascinating story.

Germans start to come and stay at the hotel Eden

because it's one up on their neighbours

who only went to baden baden.

The einhorn's had turned the hotel around from a failing business

to a thriving resort.

But it soon began to attract a very specific kind of clientele.

All sorts of prominent Germans, you know, went there

including Albert Einstein who was there in 1925.

But a rumour suggests that another influential German

stayed at the hotel.

A rising star in German politics, Adolph Hitler.

One of the really difficult aspects of the early days of the Nazi party

was that Hitler was the most engaging speaker

the Nazi's had

and he went on speaking tours around Germany

to raise money and gain support for the Nazi party.

The einhorn's were just the kind of forward looking,

modern people with money

who Adolph Hitler was trying to latch on to.

Walter and ida einhorn invested their own money

into Hitler's national socialist party.

Hotel Eden became an argentinian outpost for Nazi sympathisers.

They would sit in the bar at the Eden hotel

and they would drink German wine and eat German food

and talk German talk,

they were German heroes drinking German beer

and listening to the greatest German of them all, Hitler.

The hotel's entrance was even decorated with Nazi symbols.

If you look at old photographs you can see what was missing

and what it was on that great arch above it was a giant eagle

in the German style er,

following er,

the pattern of the national socialist party.

The couple's loyalty was rewarded on their silver wedding anniversary

in 1937.

The einhorn's hold a huge party at the hotel,

they invite all the best guests

and all sorts of important people from the region

and from Germany

to come to the hotel to celebrate their 25th anniversary.

The einhorn's invited the German ambassador to Argentina

as a guest of honour.

He arrived bearing a special gift.

And you know they get in to some sort of dream state

'cause they've, they've heard that the German ambassador is coming to,

from Buenos Aires with a present for the fuhrer.

The gift was a photograph in a silver frame,

it came with a personal message.

(Read) Mr and mrs einhorn,

to my comrades in battle during difficult times,

for your silver anniversary.

Warm wishes. Adolph Hitler.

For them to receive this gift is going to mean a great deal to them

and it's going to elevate them erm, politically

that Adolph Hitler is going to think so highly of them

to send such a personal gift.

Throughout the second world war,

the einhorn's boasted of their close friendship

with Hitler,

although it might not have been quite as close as they thought.

What really happens is this,

no doubt somebody from the German foreign office

goes over to Hitler's office and says

can we have another one of those autographed pictures

and Hitler's secretary gets the fuhrer

to write a little handwritten note,

they stick it on to one of a million Hitler pictures

and they send it in the diplomatic pouch out to Argentina.

That day, that 25th anniversary day in Argentina was so special

'cause Hitler himself had noticed them.

Great.

But of course their beloved Hitler didn't quite deliver

the Nazi utopia he had promised.

Well Argentina was always heavily German influenced,

they were a natural allies for the Germans in world war two

so of course they do not join the allies

when the war breaks out

so they grudgingly declare war on Germany only in 1945

and very half-heartedly.

Overnight, hotel Eden became an enemy of the state,

the Argentine government seized it as a Nazi stronghold.

The luxury apartments were used as prisons for Japanese diplomats.

Then after the war they give it back to the einhorn's

but you know,

all the life has kind of gone out of the einhorns,

they were big Nazi, big Nazi sympathisers,

their dream has gone away,

they've gotten old, they don't want to put anymore energy into it.

The einhorn's retired and faded from public life.

But Argentina remained a safe haven for Nazis.

In those post-war years

the argentinian president was very sympathetic to the cause

of these former German Nazis er,

and so you end up having thousands of these former Nazis

being smuggled out of Germany, coming to Argentina,

often bringing their wealth with them.

Er, and living in Argentina for absolutely decades.

Even today the hotel is the subject of weird speculation

and mad-cap theories.

Because this place used to be owned by Germans

and because they were a kind of Nazi,

people say that Hitler snuck out of Germany

and came and stayed in this hotel.

This is nonsense.

Hitler died in his bunker by his own hand

and he did not end up in Argentina.

The end.

In guerrero state

a traditional coastal town on the western shores of Mexico,

there's a great architectural relic.

This is a place where you have hotels and residences

with a beautiful sea view.

The bay curls round forming this kind of sheltered utopia.

Above the sands of Zihuatanejo sits an abandoned complex

with echoes of ancient Greece.

Beyond the gates there's this unkept path with eerie headless statues

and fallen columns around it.

You get the sense there's something very sinister in the air here.

The basement is dank and very frightening.

There also appears to be the beginnings of a tunnel,

what possible need would you have for a tunnel down here

and where does it lead?

But above the dilapidated basement is a place of wonders.

You've got 42 doric columns

and this Parthenon-shaped structure

but the place hasn't been wrecked and vandalised,

it's still pretty intact,

there's sort of a nimbus of power that still surrounds the place.

To the side of the entrance,

these snake-like vines creep through these colossal cages.

What could they possibly have been used for?

Rodrigo Campos first came here in the 1980s

when he worked for the local government.

Since it was closed, few people have been allowed inside.

This is the holiday home of Arturo durazo moreno,

a Mexican police chief with expensive tastes.

This became a real go-to spot for high flying decadent set

of Mexico

that could afford to fly in on their helicopters

or dock their private yachts in the bay below.

He would throw these robe parties in which famous actors

and even the president's own mistress

would come to the party wearing just their robes.

But durazo's eccentricities didn't end there,

this was his far flung shrine to the human form.

The upstairs bedrooms were the venues for numerous orgies.

With their mirrored ceilings,

I'll leave it to you to imagine

the indulgencies that the guests enjoyed in these rooms.

It gets darker than that if you look closer you see satanic images,

imagines of violence and they kind of radiate a sinister feel.

The graphic imagery depicts fictional violence

but the building's story began in the aftermath of a real war.

In 1968 a conflict

between the government and guerrilla groups

reached a violent peak with a state-funded massacre.

This paramilitary force opened fire on a large group

of peaceful student protestors in Mexico City

killing hundreds

and forcing thousands to flee in terror for their lives.

During this period

people on the state payroll practiced disappearances,

kidnappings, torture, illegal imprisonment

and even extra-judicial executions.

One of the architects of this war lived on top of the hill

in his Greek palace.

This is the Parthenon

of the Mexican thug

and infamous chief of police Arturo durazo moreno,

otherwise known as El negro or the black.

El negro was the childhood friend of Lopez portio

the long-serving president of Mexico.

When he was a kid he got bullied in school

and El negro was his protector

so of course when Lopez portio becomes president of Mexico

he makes El negro the chief of the Mexico City police.

El negro was able to capitalise on the chaos

to enjoy the perks of his new job.

The Parthenon became his lair.

This guy was earning $1,000 a month as chief of the Mexican city police,

this place was built at a cost of $35 million, you do the math.

So where did the money come from?

Extortion, corruption, intimidation,

embezzlement, that's where.

His powerful friends kept him safe

and he's reported to have pocketed

around a billion dollars whilst he was in charge.

Now this is a guy who is said to have lit his cigarettes

using hundred dollar bills.

Durazo turned the Mexico City police force in to a mafia.

They even helped build his mansion.

He needed about 1,000 labourers to build this

so he just told 1,000 Mexico City cops,

hey, you're gonna build my dream home

and they worked at government expense to build this place.

Durazo's coastal retreat became the hub of his criminal activities.

Cocaine was the glamour drug of the 1970s and El negro stepped in

to supply this sought after powder

and it made him very rich very quickly.

When you look around this place

you start to see evidence

that this guy really was you know, a big narco in Mexico.

There's this little compartment under the pool

that can be explained as being for pool maintenance

but it's obviously a place where he could hide out.

There's a tunnel that leads under the palace and out to the sea,

this was for trafficking cocaine on to boats.

El negro's syndicate came down hard on criminal competitors,

his methods certainly produced results.

During his time as the head honcho of the police in Mexico,

the crime rate dropped substantially.

On his watch, criminals had a serious incentive

not to cross the line.

In January of 1982

several tortured bodies of columbian bank robbers

turned up on the banks of the tula river

and it became painfully obvious

that it was really torture and intimidation and violence

that was keeping the criminal element in check.

People began to ask more serious questions about durazo

and his methods.

Later that year El negro's friend, president portio,

was replaced by Miguel de la Madrid.

In 1982,

president Miguel de la Madrid was elected

and El negro lost his position as chief of police.

The new president began

what he called moral renovation and a war on corruption.

For El negro the game was up.

To avoid arrest durazo fled the country.

He just abandoned this place,

like the Parthenon leaves like dozens of expensive automobiles

and he goes off to the United States

hoping that, you know, he won't be charged there.

In the meantime

the Mexicans are putting together a list of his crimes.

El negro was charged with tax evasion, extortion,

smuggling and possession of illegal weapons.

After two years on the run

he was finally captured,

put on trial and sentenced to 25 years in a Mexican prison

and the Parthenon was abandoned.

El negro served only eight years in prison before he was released.

He died in 2000 but his brutal reputation

is still not forgotten by many Mexicans.

And we have to ask ourselves, you know,

the question that the romans often ask themselves

about giving people power,

you can choose watchmen to watch over us

but who watches the watchmen?

Today El negro's Parthenon

is a towering memorial to a time of dirty war

and corruption.

Its walls maybe uncomfortable reminders of the past

but the local government here hopes it will one day be repurposed

to properly serve the local community.

In the French countryside

an unusual concrete structure rises from the ground.

The landscape is broken by this strange five sided shape,

there are these bizarre metal protuberances coming up,

some of them look like helmets.

As you come close to this construction,

you can see massive poured concrete fortifications.

You can't build this in the middle ages,

you can't build this in the renaissance.

This building,

this construction is all an artefact of the industrial revolution

and of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The walls hold clues to it's fascinating past.

You can see there are remains of battle all around.

Clearly a huge fight took place here but the question is who won.

It's situated just 20 miles from the border

with another European super power.

This spot

is clearly going to be

key terrain in any conflict

between Germany and France.

This fortress was once known as the most powerful in the world

but in February 1916

it was captured by a commando team like no other,

during one of the most infamous battles of world war one,

the battle of verdun.

The fighting around verdun was one of the most drawn out episodes

of the first world war.

The battle lasted for 11 months.

The German plan was to tie down thousands of French troops

fighting at historic verdun.

The most vital fortification here was fort duhermont.

There's strong

and there's impregnable and fort duhermont was impregnable,

it could house over 1,000 soldiers

and it's walls were eight feet thick

and made of steel reinforced concrete.

Duhermont had been considered

the most invincible defensive position in the world.

But on February the 25, 1916, the fort was captured.

Patricia piatek has come to the place where the German attack began.

A French soldier was Manning his post

and he saw soldiers come rushing across no man's land.

The French soldier tried to hold them off but it was hopeless.

The German attackers made it to the walls.

Just 10 minutes later, fort duhamont had been taken.

A fortification this massive, this impressive,

you would think that this would be a long involved campaign,

all sorts of blood shed

and so the story that somebody could take it so easily,

it's almost unbelievable.

If you ask a staff college audience the question,

what do you need

in order to attack a well-entrenched enemy like a fortress,

the text book answer is you need six to one.

But incredibly,

fort duhamont had been captured by a single German soldier.

The soldier had not only dodged a sniper's bullet,

he'd also single-handledly overrun a machine gun nest

and locked its entire crew in a classroom.

This inevitably poses the question,

how on earth did one person do this?

Well there are several versions of the story.

But as the Germans approached the fort,

the lookout made a crucial mistake.

A French infantryman thought he saw something, shot at it.

Realised that he didn't want to shoot other frenchmen

and put his rifle down.

It gave the Germans the opportunity they needed.

Three soldiers scoured the fort for French infantry,

one was sergeant Felix kuntz

who made a startling discovery inside a briefing room.

The explosion sent a shockwave that extinguished all the lights.

So as soon as the lights go out he dives out of the room,

slams the door, bolts the door,

and the frenchmen are all locked in when the lights come on.

With a large portion of the French Garrison locked in

the briefing room

the Germans were able to completely capture fort duhamont.

It really does seem like an extraordinary military achievement,

taking this vast fort without a single shot being fired

but in fact there's a wider context.

The previous year France had actually redeployed

many of its troops elsewhere,

fort duhamont was in fact an acceptable loss.

When the Germans win fort duhamont,

it is not a great German victory.

It is simply a repositioning of forces

which the Germans mistake for success.

But the truth remains that sergeant kuntz

and his small force had managed to capture

one of the most powerful fortresses in the world.

To make the most of a great propaganda opportunity

a grand German victory parade was essential.

The achievement of the German army in winning this fortress

is something that the Germans really want to use in propaganda

to energise the rest of the German army

to beat the French.

At first sergeant kuntz seemed to modestly play down his role

in the fort's capture.

There was one part of the epic tale that he feared

might spoil his reputation.

Once the French soldiers were locked in to that classroom,

kuntz then came upon a kitchen or mess hall and he was famished,

he was absolutely famished

and so when he came upon this food he takes this moment to eat it.

And kuntz is really worried

that he is going to get in trouble

for having paused to eat

all the good French food

down in the French canteen.

So for years after the first world war

sergeant kuntz doesn't tell anybody

that he was the guy who got in to the fortress first.

Germany held fort duhamont for another eight months.

It's one reason why verdun became the longest land battle in history.

300,000 soldiers were killed at verdun,

all as result of a German strategy that ultimately cost them the war.

The Germans were there to make the French fight and die,

the Germans don't need to take verdun,

they just have to fight verdun.

But they lose the plot,

they tried to win the battle at verdun.

And it's one of the reasons they lost the war.

On the east coast of kauai, Hawaii's oldest island,

an abandoned structure has been reclaimed by nature.

This is a gorgeous place, there's trees, there's lagoons.

But then there's all these buildings that are abandoned,

they're falling in to disrepair and the question is what is this place?

Lush palm trees have taken over this site making it a green oasis.

Tucked away amongst the greenery are what look to be bungalows.

As you enter the structures one of the first things you notice

is the murals

that are very colourful lining all the walls.

The elaborate architecture of this complex makes you feel

that at its height this was probably a beautiful place

but now all that remains is eerie silence.

Fans of the big screen may feel like they know this place from somewhere.

All of Hollywood would stay here you know, Sinatra, John Wayne, Elvis.

As you walk around you can see that it was once quite lavish,

even though today it is in great disrepair.

But even now this rundown place attracts rock and roll fans

from all over the world looking to follow in the footsteps of the king.

All his fans and there are a zillion of them, they all come here.

It has become a mecca for Elvis fans

but something happened to turn it in to a ruin.

The buildings here stand just inches above the waterline

but this swamp is a holy spot.

This area lies at the mouth of the wailua river

and this river holds a special significance to the people of kauai.

To this day the native people of kauai

believe that this spot is sacred.

This land was once part of the Hawaiian kingdom

until it was bought by a private investor in 1890.

They'd been coming here every day for almost 30 years now.

In the 1990s, Bob Jasper became a frequent visitor.

We are at the most famous abandoned building in the whole south pacific.

Welcome to the coco palms resort.

The coco palms was a hotel,

the dream of a businessman called Lyle lol guslander.

Guslander or Gus as he was known around the times er,

was very smart, very active,

he was known as a little rough around the edges,

maybe a little bit of a tough guy but he was very ambitious.

Despite Gus's great ambitions,

he couldn't run the hotel on his own.

It had 24 rooms,

it had five employees and two guests

so it was a far cry from this luxury resort that Gus had envisioned.

If the coco palms was going to be a success, Gus needed help.

He knew a very intelligent woman named grace busher,

he asked grace if she would come and operate his hotel.

Together the pair set about to transform this little lodge

into what they expected guests' Hawaiian fantasies to look like.

In 1953 grace busher was hired to transform the fortunes

of the coco palms resort.

At the time grace was 43, had no prior hotel running experience,

she was a non-Hawaiian,

originally from Pennsylvania with no background in Hawaiian culture.

What grace lacked in experience she made up for in enthusiasm.

She moved in to the cheapest room at the coco palms

where she faced her first big challenge.

All along the front of the hotel here,

right out here where you see this big ditch

were the tracks and the train would go by here

who knows how many times a day - honk honk honk - blowing it's horn.

Customers began to complain and bookings were affected.

But the train was carrying sugar cane

which was then part of a billion-dollar industry.

Well, this is just irritating grace to death,

so one day at 3.00 in the morning,

grace took a chair out, set it on the tracks,

sat down in the chair and said that's it,

until your boss tells me

you're not going to blow the horn any more at 3.00 in the morning,

I ain't moving.

And that was grace and she got her way.

Grace faced down the sugar company

and won, it was the first in a line of victories

and creative innovations.

When some rooms became infested with frogs,

she rebranded them the frog rooms.

She even devised the famous tiki torch ceremony

which is now a staple of the Hawaiian vacation.

But it was another billion-dollar industry

that left an indelible Mark on the hotel.

This is a very special place.

Written in the cement here are the words pagan love song

filmed at the coco palms.

That starred Esther Williams, Howard keel, Rita maurino

and as far as Hawaii and the traditions,

that did a pretty good job of showing it

and they left something behind for us

which we found etched in the cement.

Pagan love song was the start of a long relationship

between coco palms and Hollywood.

Elvis shot one movie here and that was blue Hawaii

but that was his most successful movie, it was huge.

It not only helped put coco palms on the map,

it helped put Hawaii on the map,

a huge deal for the hotel.

We're going in to bungalow 56,

every time Elvis was here this is the bungalow he stayed in,

he was a creature of habit

and whenever he came back he wanted bungalow 56

and what Elvis wanted Elvis got.

That was grace, she took care of Hollywood,

Hollywood came here and took care of her.

By the time grace retired, nine movies had been shot at the resort.

Guests here including bing Crosby, frank Sinatra

and the Von trapp family singers.

But in 1992

the coco palms faced a disaster that even grace couldn't prevent.

You know, hurricane enicki was out there

but it was 400 miles south of Hawaii

and it was headed west,

nobody's paying any attention to it.

Right.

That thing just took a 90 degree turn and here she comes.

It just, it's as if god

took this perfect 400 mile-across storm -

let me see where's the centre of kauai, it's right there.

He just slammed it right on us and this thing was unbelievable.

160 mile per hour winds swept across the island,

Steven Spielberg even filmed the devastation

for his movie Jurassic park.

Sadly the coco palms was destroyed.

This place sat here empty for 13 years.

So sadly enicki had a devastating impact on this hotel

in the long run.

We're the only island in Hawaii to ever be hit with a hurricane,

we've been hit with three of them.

Today, the coco palms is in limbo as Hawaiians debate it's future.

At the moment there are plans again to develop and refurbish the site

but there are native Hawaiians who do claim the property as their own.

Some might say that it's fitting that nature is reclaiming this spot

where humans tried to build upon sacred land

and that it should just be left alone

but only time will tell what's in store for this place.

The current owners would still like to see it a hotel,

other people have other things they'd like to see done with it,

a park or cultural centre.

Who knows.

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