(ambient music) ♪ (explosions) (dramatic music) ♪ (female narrator) The biggest sea battle of all time is raging.

♪ German and British dreadnoughts are locked in combat.

♪ "Dreadnought" means this ship is fearing nothing.

These were the defining-- the cutting edge of new technology at the beginning of the 20th century.

(explosion) (female narrator) The ships are heavily armored with immense firepower, the deadliest ever built, and they are designed to be unsinkable.

♪ (female narrator) Yet the dreadnoughts cannot deliver a conclusive victory for either side.

Shortly after the end of World War I, the German fleet is interned in Scotland.

♪ Meanwhile, in Versailles, the Allies are fighting over these valuable spoils of war.

(female narrator) Under the watchful eye of the British guards, the German admiral secretly issues a momentous order.

(indistinct shouting) Nobody is prepared for what happens next.

(indistinct shouting) ♪ ♪ (splashing) ♪ (female narrator) One hundred years later, the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet still poses many questions.

♪ (water rushing) (Emily) Scapa Flow is a big bit of water, but it's a sheltered harbor.

So the diving here doesn't-- you don't have the same challenges you would in the open ocean.

The wrecks are deep by some people's standards, but they're not that deep, so they're accessible, and it's a very concentrated area of World War I shipwrecks.

Underwater, the Markgraf is the most intact but also the deepest of the German fleet that we dive, and it's 10 meters darker, and she just seems even bigger than the other two just because she's so much more intact.

We've got about 145 meters long, just under 30 meters wide, around about 26,000 tons' displacement, of if you put her on the bathroom scales, that's what she weighs.

So, fingers crossed!

(splash) (ambient music) (oxygen tank hisses) (bubbling) ♪ First of all, you just think the wreck diving is great, without really understanding the history.

As I stayed and I learned more and I discovered more on the wrecks, and then you start putting the history with it, and that was me.

They're just a fantastic thing to explore.

(dramatic music) ♪ And whether you're into war history or not, the actual warfare side of what we have here, I think you don't have to focus on that.

The architecture alone is like nothing else.

We do not build a ship like these anymore.

♪ (female narrator) The German fleet was born out of the many hopes and desires of a rising force on the continent.

Crucial in all of this, the naval obsession of one man: Kaiser Wilhelm II himself.

♪ (female narrator) In 1897, German politicians are convinced that a large fleet will lead Germany to a well-deserved place in the sun.

(female narrator) Wilhelm takes a personal interest in the building programs.

The Kaiser's naval enthusiasm is spreading fast.

The German Flottenverein, a kind of fan club for the Navy, has more than one million members.

This is the start of a dangerous arms race with the British.

Yet when the war starts, the valuable ships are not deployed.

♪ (female narrator) The British conceive a strategy that blocks off the entire North Sea.

Every passage of entry is now closed off, even for merchants.

Civilians are on food rationing.

The Kaiser's prestigious fleet is rusting away in port, useless.

(explosions) ♪ (female narrator) Europe is down on its knees.

The First World War has claimed 20 million lives on all sides, many of them lost in brutal battles along enemy lines that barely moved.

(somber music) ♪ The soldiers are tired of this war.

♪ In Germany, critical voices gain traction.

What exactly was the point in building this overly expensive fleet?

Has it contributed anything at all to this war?

♪ (female narrator) Without consulting any German politicians, the Navy gives orders to leave harbor for England.

A huge mistake.

The crews, sailors, technicians, and stokers refuse to engage with a certain death warrant.

Instead, they put out the fires in the boiler rooms and take to the streets.

The Navy has triggered the November Revolution.

(crowd shouting, whistles blowing) (tense music) ♪ (female narrator) Workers and soldiers head for Berlin.

The country wants change and is on the verge of chaos.

The Kaiserreich is facing the abyss.

♪ The Kaiser abdicates and flees into exile.

Philipp Scheidemann proclaims a German Republic.

♪ (crowd shouts, cheers) ♪ (female narrator) The new government negotiates an armistice.

As one of the conditions, the mighty German fleet has to be interned until the end of the upcoming peace negotiations.

(dark music) ♪ Within seven days, all ships must be disarmed.

Guns, ammunition, and technology are now being dismantled and carried off ship.

The newly established soldiers' councils coordinate the workers, but who will lead the ships into internment?

(dramatic music) With many of the old leaders gone, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter is offered the job.

♪ (flag snaps in wind) ♪ ("Ludwig von Reuter") I concluded that in this instance, my personal honor must serve the country.

♪ (female narrator) Ludwig von Reuter agrees to the task.

(tense music) ♪ (female narrator) In the early hours of November 19th, an emergency crew of 20,000 men set out to sea.

♪ The are heading for the British naval base in Rosyth, near Edinburgh.

♪ (water crashing) The first stop will be a rendezvous with the British Grand Fleet before the ships are led into internment, where they'll wait for the end of the peace negotiations in Versailles.

♪ Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter is asking the soldiers' councils for restraint.

He orders the red revolutionary flags to be taken down.

For von Reuter, this journey will be a balancing act, with communist sailors on one side and officers loyal to the Kaiser on the other, all of whom are at the mercy of the British.

(Nick) Von Reuter is worried.

If he can manage the political challenges that he's going to face and some of the challenges of negotiation with the British.

(female narrator) The Royal Navy eagerly awaits the arrival of the Germans.

The war sea blockade has been effective but also inglorious.

People in Britain were promised a decisive victory, a second Trafalgar.

♪ (seabirds calling) (female narrator) The British are planning a spectacle.

Even the French and the Americans are sending their dreadnoughts to join this PR opportunity.

(ship's horn blares) 450 ships will take part in this unique event, the biggest naval parade of all time.

♪ (Nick) Here's a defeated navy that's coming to us.

We don't really want to say it's a navy that's coming for internment.

This sounds far too technical.

It's a navy that's coming to surrender to us, and the Royal Navy has again delivered victory.

(waves crashing) (dramatic music) ♪ (female narrator) Eight a.m.

The horizon fills with smoke.

The spectacle is about to begin.

♪ The Grand Fleet has taken on the Spitfire formation to guide the German ships into the bay near Edinburgh.

♪ ♪ (female narrator) The German ships are now part of a gigantic media event that is intended to visualize Britain's victory over the Germans for people all over the world.

(newsreel announcer) Mighty dreadnoughts manned by sturdy men.

(explosion, cheers) England holds the seas.

♪ (echoed cheering, applause) (somber music) (female narrator) For the Germans, this is a deeply felt injustice.

(tense music) ♪ Approximately 200 miles north of Edinburgh, the Orkney Islands sit right at the passage between the North Sea and the Atlantic.

(waves crashing) During the war, the British used this place as a gateway to control the entire North Sea all the way up to Norway.

♪ It is here that the Royal Navy is taking the German ships.

♪ The islands enclose a natural bay, Scapa Flow.

♪ Once a major hub for the Vikings and earlier civilizations, the islands are now remote and sparsely populated.

They make a perfect location for the internment of the German High Seas Fleet.

♪ In the islands' center, the enormous bay, measuring 120 square miles.

♪ The German fleet reaches Orkney just four days after their humiliating reception in Edinburgh.

74 ships must take their anchor positions as meticulously planned by the British.

The ships will dot around the small, uninhabited island of Cava.

♪ (Janette) It must have been a magnificent spectacle to see, the German fleet escorted by the British fleet.

♪ Depending where you lived around Scapa Flow, you would--some places, the German ships would have been anchored quite close to land, 'cause the water was deep.

So people would have been able to see sailors moving around, going about their daily business, and if it's a still day, they would be able to hear voices and singing, or music being played on Sunday, sometimes.

(faint accordion music) There would be no added excitement of having the German Navy, it would surely have been a bit of a mystery here in the heart of Orkney.

♪ (female narrator) For those living in the small harbor town of Stromness, hosting the German fleet becomes a unique historic event, even if the sailors are not allowed to leave their ships.

♪ (Janette) So we don't really see the connection with the German fleet as something that's in history.

It's something part of the psyche of the place, really.

(ambient music) ♪ (Emily) Yeah, turn it on its side, so it needs to see the whole... (indistinct chatter) Whether it be the salvages, whether it be recreational diving, it's shaped the landscape of Scapa Flow ever since, so I think people are interested.

-Oh, is there free food?

-You can do whatever you like.

Get a drink, come back, have a look, do whatever works.

(indistinct chatter) They gave the centenary a name a few years ago, called it Scapa 100.

(indistinct chatter) ...if everyone's happy to shift 'round a bit.

(Janette) Good evening, everybody, thank you so much for coming.

Far more people have turned up than we anticipated.

Tonight is the launch of Scapa 100, which will go on for the whole year, with lots of different things -coming up.

-...had already intercepted their radio transmissions.

(Emily) The war had an enormous effect on what it was to be an Orcadian during those years.

(man) But my first working visit was in 2006, which was... (Emily) There are people still alive that have been almost directly affected by that.

(man) ...3D model, and in this 3D model, we also have the decks, and we have colors... (distant, echoed cheering) ♪ (female narrator) The new year has started.

The world's eyes are focusing on Paris.

Over the coming weeks, a new world order will be decided.

(ambient music) ♪ Numerous countries take part in the negotiations.

Kings, presidents, and heads of state are arriving.

♪ ♪ (Nick) I mean, after all, this was a moment at which three empires have collapsed-- the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the German Empire, and the Russian Empire.

The world order had really fallen apart.

(engine chuffing) (female narrator) The American president, Woodrow Wilson, is proposing a radical concept: a League of Nations to guarantee peace.

(cheering) Wilson is far ahead of his time.

(tense music) The war-torn Europeans are more concerned with reparations for their losses.

♪ The morning of the 18th of January sees the beginning of the Paris Peace Conference.

♪ ♪ (female narrator) Subcommittees are tasked to work out the details of the agreement.

Cartographers are drawing new borders.

A dozen new countries will emerge.

♪ The naval peace terms committee will decide on the future of the interned German ships.

(indistinct chatter) The British had built their empire on supremacy at sea and really regarded Versailles as being a moment on which they were going to make sure that there would never be another naval challenge from Germany.

So Britain was totally behind the idea of reducing Germany's naval strength to nothing.

♪ (Janette) Orkney would have been playing host to the German Navy, and we didn't know for how long.

It turned out to be a lot longer than anybody had anticipated.

♪ We have a lot of smaller objects on display in the Stromness Museum, 'cause we are quite a small museum.

We also have more of the domestic objects, like cups and plates and some more personal artifacts that would have been used every day by the sailors.

One of my favorite objects is this beer tankard, which would have been a personal possession from somebody that was stationed in Scapa Flow, and the translation, roughly, I believe is, "Music and beer, that is my pleasure."

(indistinct chatter) (moody ambient music) (female narrator) As it becomes apparent that the peace negotiations in Paris will carry on for many more months, the interned crews enter a long phase of inaction.

Days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months.

♪ ♪ (indistinct chatter in German) ♪ (Janette) This postcard, picture of a young lady on it, this is dated February 1919.

And you will be able to tell me what the postcard says, but it says, "A tantalizing glimpse for us -of a personal story of..." -Yes.

So this is obviously a postcard from a girlfriend to her friend, a sailor.

It's written, "My dear Martin..." -"If not, you can rip it."

-That's so similar to now, when they are on social media contacting each other, and they wonder if they're gonna like the picture, and if they don't, they won't "like" it... (Stephan) A kind of WhatsApp of that time, even with the content, so it's not going very deep.

(water lapping) ♪ (faint, indistinct chatter) (female narrator) The sailors used the drifter crews to trade in their medals and Iron Crosses in exchange for everyday items, such as soap and milk.

When there is nothing left, they start to trade in parts of the ships.

♪ Orcadians are very practical and like useful objects, and the quality of the spanners are very good, so I think lots of the spanners found their ways into local garages and workshops, and in use by local people.

There's probably quite a few still prized possessions in Maynes Garages.

(gentle clanking) (faint, indistinct chatter) (dark, tense music) (female narrator) These heavily armored ships are designed for battle and not as a permanent home.

To many, they feel more like steel coffins.

Big ships are breeding grounds of discontent.

They tried to make life for the officers, and particularly for von Reuter, a nightmare.

(indistinct chatter) (female narrator) On board, old conflicts are rising to the surface.

A two-class system has been designed by officers to keep the manual laborers at arm's length.

♪ However, since the November Revolution, the tide has turned.

♪ (female narrator) Rear Admiral von Reuter finds it increasingly difficult to issue even the simplest orders.

The soldiers' councils demand a say in all the decisions.

Every order is subject to their approval.

♪ (stones crunching) ♪ ♪ (indistinct voices) (pop, bottles clinking) ♪ ("Ludwig von Reuter") These people on the flagship are communists of the very worst kind.

(shouting, laughter) I have found out firsthand that systematically and with foresight, people trampled, even danced, on top of my room with wooden slippers, day and night.

(roar of wheels) (laughter, revelry) My chief of staff was presented with a mess at night and also during the day, when members of the crew carried out small and large urges above his side window, so that it would penetrate the chamber.

(laughter, indistinct speech) They ambushed the First Officer of the Admiralty and threatened to throw him overboard.

(echoed rapping) (laughter, rapping) (shouting, laughter) ♪ (Nick) At the end of the day, his role is to try and maintain a kind of stability so that there isn't an explosion which allows the British the excuse to board the ships.

He has to keep the lid on the pressure cooker.

(faint laughter, chatter) ♪ (engine puttering) (female narrator) Meanwhile, in Versailles, things are not looking good, either.

There is disagreement on almost all points of the treaty.

Months have passed and produced few results.

Now time is running out.

The naval question clearly isn't the leading question.

That's for sure, but the settlement of the naval issues can cause an immense problem for the resolution and the finding of peace.

(engine puttering) ♪ (female narrator) The bitter negotiations of the naval peace terms committee turn into the sea battle of Paris.

A solution for the interned fleet must finally be found.

And the British were saying, "Excuse me, no," you know?

"We want to keep naval supremacy."

I mean, their thinking was that they didn't want an old traditional enemy to start biting their heels again with a naval threat.

(cheers, shouting) (female narrator) The Americans have different plans altogether.

To shift the balance of power in their own favor, it is crucial that the British cannot have any more ships.

Those countries who were allies now started to fight amongst themselves for a share of the pie.

(female narrator) Other parties are joining the debate.

Belgium, Portugal, China, and Brazil all feel entitled to their own share of the German fleet.

♪ (female narrator) On May 7th, a first draft of the treaty is distributed to the press.

(ticking) ♪ (indistinct chatter) ♪ (female narrator) Von Reuter realizes if this treaty is signed, he will lose his ships.

The German Navy is reduced to a minimum.

The Navy is finished.

Hardly better, if his government refuses to sign, the British will take over the ships with force.

He feels that in both situations, he's at a loss.

♪ (female narrator) The current schedule: On June 21st, the Allies expect the terms to be accepted.

♪ ♪ (female narrator) Von Reuter reduces manpower.

Only the most loyal 1,700 crew remain on board the 74 ships.

(Nick) Put yourself in Reuter's position right now.

He doesn't have any choice.

His only choice is to deny the Allies what they want, which are his ships.

(ticking) The deadline is approaching.

He knows that the Allies will come and try and take the ships anyway.

So the clock is ticking.

(typewriter clacking) (female narrator) After seven months of waiting, von Reuter secretly issues an order: Prepare to scuttle.

♪ To protect his superiors in the Navy from repercussions, von Reuter claims to have reached this decision on his own.

However, confidential letters that were later salvaged from his personal vault suggest a different story.

♪ During the war, the Navy had learned that dreadnoughts are indeed not unsinkable.

Yet scuttling 74 ships simultaneously, without any weapons, will be a new challenge.

♪ Nick Jellicoe is a descendant of an important British dreadnought-era admiral.

He is working on an animation about the final hours of the German High Seas Fleet.

(Nick) We can take this beautiful shot and then change the perspective, flip her around on the model, and start on this, and then dissolve into the model.

It would help us explain, okay, how a ship is really sinking.

So, I think, you know, here we've got...

So this was a very carefully managed maneuver.

So you must think through for each ship how you can actually sink your ship in the fastest way possible, in the most efficient way possible, opening the seacocks to let the water in.

But when you do that, taking off the handles and throwing them overboard, or using acid on the threads so that you couldn't actually thread back, or just hammering them.

It's very dangerous once you start doing this.

As the water rises, all the electrical systems start failing, so you've got people working in the dark, so you're gonna make sure that you have your people outside at the correct time.

Okay.

♪ (male colleague) One, two, three, and go.

(Nick) In Orkney, Midsummer's Day 1919 started like any.

It would end like no other.

(dramatic music) (female narrator) June 21st.

Von Reuter assumes the deadline will expire around midday.

In the last few days, the British guards have been particularly vigilant.

Do they know something is going on?

9:45 a.m.

Unexpectedly, the British battle squadron lifts anchor.

The unit has withdrawn for a torpedo exercise out in the North Sea.

♪ ♪ (Nick) Taking the battle squadron out for a torpedo practice on this day, the 21st of June?

The most significant day in the calendar of this fleet, and you decide this is the day you're going to send a very strange signal?

(indistinct chatter) (soft, tense music, ticking) (female narrator) Being cut off from any source of information, von Reuter doesn't know that in Versailles, the deadline was postponed.

He raises his first signal.

Prepare to scuttle.

(dramatic music) ♪ Exactly 100 years later, the German Navy and the British Royal Navy meet in Scapa Flow.

♪ It is a culmination of the Scapa 100 celebration.

The dive boat takes center place.

(Jen) It's Jen, Kevin.

Just so we don't confuse (indistinct) as she's coming in, do you wanna just come and sit the other side of us, so she's got room to maneuver?

(indistinct radio transmission) (female narrator) The divers have prepared for this maneuver for a long time.

♪ (indistinct radio transmission) ♪ Civilians from the Orkney Islands, as well as high-ranking officials from both countries, commemorate this final turning point of World War I.

♪ "Paragraph 11, confirm."

With this simple code, Rear Admiral von Reuter sets the wheels in motion, a process that is now unstoppable.

♪ (bell ringing) ♪ Shortly after receiving the orders to scuttle, the crew engage in carefully prepared steps to sink their own ships.

♪ On the large battlecruisers, the crew work their way to the inner core of the ship.

Deep down in the body of the ship, they open the seacocks so that water will enter the hull.

They destroy threads and throw all handles and cranks overboard.

♪ All doors, ventilation shafts, bulkheads, portholes, and condenser hatches are now being opened, wedged so that seawater floods in and cascades through the ships.

♪ Closing them up again has just become impossible.

♪ As the ships are drawn underwater, some of them are tilting, rolling over.

Metal can be heard scratching, screaming, and aching.

(faint shouting) ♪ (metal groans) (Nick) Pandemonium.

Chaos.

The only people who are left in harbor to try and do something about this are the trawlers and a couple of destroyers.

And so they're going madly, running back and forth over the flow, trying to push German sailors back onto these ships.

(shouting, water crashing) (waves crashing, gunfire) (Nick) Machine gunning and shooting left and right.

Eight sailors are shot unarmed.

Not only unarmed, but also probably in their boats under white flags, and that's the disgraceful thing of what happened on this day.

(deep rumbling) (enormous metal groaning) (somber music) ♪ (bubbling) ♪ (dramatic music) ♪ ♪ (female narrator) In his Dutch exile, the abdicated Kaiser learns about the scuttling of his beloved fleet.

He weeps.

In Versailles, reactions are mixed.

The scuttling solves a lot of problems for the British and for the Americans.

The French are fuming.

(female narrator) The French quickly blame the British for encouraging the scuttle as a result of their poor guarding of the Germans.

♪ To compensate for the lost ships, the Allies demand the surrender of other remaining ships and also, most of the German merchant fleet.

♪ After a delay of seven days, the Treaty of Versailles is finally signed.

♪ Scapa Flow falls silent.

The interned crews are treated as prisoners of war and are kept in captivity on the British mainland for another seven months.

(indistinct chatter) The Treaty of Versailles is highly unpopular in Germany and a heavy burden for the young Weimar Republic.

When von Reuter returns, the German Navy glorifies the scuttle.

♪ (female narrator) Ten years after the scuttle, the global economic crisis has spared the people of Orkney.

The salvage of the wrecks is in full swing.

♪ Clever entrepreneurs are making the business of a lifetime.

♪ (tuba blats out a few notes) Almost all ships are brought to the surface and then scrapped.

(water crashing) Salvaging the German High Seas Fleet is the largest operation of this kind ever to take place.

♪ What was scuttled within hours now takes over 17 years to fully resurface.

♪ The German steel is popular.

One of the clients: Adolf Hitler.

(cheering) ♪ Hitler passes the so-called Z Plan to secretly build a new navy.

It is a direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

Yet popular opinion is on his side.

(official speaking German) A new navy is born, and a new world war is on the horizon.

(proclamation in German) ♪ -Sieg!

-Heil!

(band plays patriotic music) ♪ (female narrator) The events of Scapa Flow serve as a model.

In 1942, the Nazis are about to take over French ships in the port of Toulon.

Admiral Jean de Laborde orders a scuttling.

Shortly after, the Nazis threaten to take over Danish ships.

The fleet also scuttles.

♪ (Nick) This story has faded into a footnote in history.

Something that was so large, so significant.

This was, after all, the sinking of a fleet that was at the very heart of why our countries went to war, and it is relevant to what's going on today.

♪ The growth of nationalism is pushing us back to the sinking in Scapa Flow.

♪ (ambient music) ♪ (bright music)