THE AMBER ROOM
THE LONGEST LIST OF THE LONGEST
STUFF AT THE LONGEST DOMAIN NAME AT LONG LAST
Where is the treasure from the Amber Room?
In the early 1700s, a room was constructed that was so
magnificent and spectacular that it not only became a wonder of its time, it’s
something that still talked about, and hunted for, today. Construction of the
Amber Room began in 1701 and combined the efforts of many craftsmen from both
Germany and Russia. It was first designed upon the request of Sophie Charlotte,
the wife of Friedrich I, the first King of Prussia. It was ordered to be
installed at their home, Charlotttenburg Palace but it would not call the palace
its home for very long. Peter the Great came for a visit to the Palace in 1716
and showed great interest and admiration for the room. The king’s eldest son,
Friedrich Wilhelm I, then gave it to Peter the Great in a gesture that would
form an alliance between Prussia and Russia alliance against Sweden. In 1755 it
was moved once again to the Winter Palace, on the orders of Tsarina Elizabeth of
Russia, until she then ordered it to be taken to Catherine Palace. Frederick II
the Great sent her additional amber for her to fill in additions on the original
room and to improve it in some areas. This was only the first of many changes
that the room would undergo and once it was completely constructed, the room
blanketed over 55 square meters and contained more than six tons of amber.
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union during World
War II, the Soviets tried to hide what was now their treasured possession.
However, moving it seemed impossible as the amber had greatly dried out over
time and broke to pieces when it was handled too aggressively. In an attempt to
hide it quickly, they covered the amber with plain wallpaper in hopes that it
would fool the Nazi Army. However the Amber Room shone even beneath the
wallpaper and German troops quickly found the treasure underneath. When it was
found, a number of Nazi troops took the room apart, piece by piece, under the
watch of two experts. It took them 36 hours to take the room apart and the
pieces were stored in crates, which Rittmeister Graf Solms-Laubach ordered the
27 crates to be taken to Konigsberg, East Persia so that it could be put on
display in the town’s castle.
After Hitler had declared that goods could start
being moved, eyewitnesses started to report that they had seen the crates
sitting at a railway station, seemingly waiting to be transported somewhere.
Other rumors claimed that the crates had been placed on the ship Wilhelm
Gustloff, which while en route, was destroyed and sunk by a Soviet submarine.
Some also thought the precious pieces had been taken to Weimar, which was going
to be the location of a propaganda center.
What happened to the Amber Room was thereafter to
remain a mystery as it would never be seen again. Pieces of the room’s décor
have been found but never the actual amber-paneled walls. It is thought that
room had remained intact until after the war but the locations of those panels
still remain unknown. Some do believe that the room was lost to the number of
bombings that had happened in the area, while others believe that it was lost in
the Baltic Sea on the ship that was sunk by a submarine. Some think that it
might be buried in the mines of the Ore Mountains or in a subterranean bunker in
Konigsberg. Many, many searches have been done in hunt of the Amber Room,
especially by the Soviets who are keen to find this precious piece of ancestry,
but no real evidence of the room’s existence has ever turned up. In 1998, there
were two claims of discovery in regards to the Amber Room. One came from a team
in Germany who had been searching for the room. They claimed that they had found
it in a silver mine. The second team was from Lithuania, who claimed to have
found the room in a buried lagoon. The claims went unfounded when both failed to
turn up the Amber Room. In 1997 a piece of Italian stone mosaic was discovered
in the home of a soldier who had helped dismantle the room originally. This
mosaic was known to be part of a set of four that was kept in the room but was
not part of the actual room’s structure.
Although many lost treasure stories spark interest
and curiosity as to their current whereabouts and whether or not they are still
in existence, in the case of the Amber Room, those who claim that the room was
destroyed are usually met with great resistance and in some extreme cases, even
anger. The book titled The Amber Room: The Fate of the World’s Greatest Lost
Treasure, concludes in saying that the room was most likely destroyed in the
fires that ruined Konigsberg Castle. Those that conducted the research for the
book were not the only ones of this opinion, as Alexander Brusov, the person who
was first in charge of finding the room for the Soviets in 1945, also came to
the same conclusion. Brusov issued a statement years later claiming that he
believed the room to still be in existence but it’s thought this change of mind
came from Soviet authorities, who forced him to issue the statement so that they
would not be blamed for the destruction of the room. The rest of the set of the
Italian stone mosaics, the other three to complete the set that the soldier had
taken, had been found among the remains of the castle after it had been burned
and so, this heavily suggests that the room was also destroyed in the fires.
It’s thought the Soviets so adamantly argued that the Amber Room was still in
existence because they did not want people to know that the Soviets themselves
had actually destroyed the important room, which was also a work of art. The
existence of the Amber Room was also used as a propaganda tool during the Cold
War.
The most widely believed theory on the Amber Room
is that it was in fact, destroyed. According to this theory, the pieces of the
room that the Nazi troops had taken during the war were found in the cellars of
the palace, which is where the soldiers had taken them after seizing them during
the war. It’s believed that the Soviets found these pieces after the war but did
not disclose this as they wanted the Germans to continue receiving the blame for
losing the pieces of the room. This story seemed to prove to be even truer when
access to the castle, the site where it was said that the Amber Room was being
held, was made nearly inaccessible by the Soviet government, and that historical
digs and archaeological searches were not even permitted there. In the 1960s
when the Soviets suddenly blew up the entire site, permanently prohibiting any
access to the site, it seemed that this was also to try and hide the fact that
the Amber Room was no longer being held there. However, this is not to stop some
treasure hunters from that endless search for the room.
The town of Deutschneudorf, which lies near the Germany-Czech border, claims to
hold at least a portion of the room. The site is located in approximately the
same spot that held the room while it was still known to be in existence and
probe reports have claimed that there is a large amount of gold or silver in the
area. The mayor of the town has spoken out publicly about how the town is
certain that this discovery is the Amber Room. The discovery was made on
February 20, 2008 when electromagnetic pulses were being sent out among the
ground and this led to the discovery of an underground 20-ft. man-made cavern,
which is thought by some to be where the room is. The site is currently
undergoing many studies and surveillance so that it may be investigated further.
