THE AMBER ROOM
Eighth Wonder Of The World
Overview
Imagine an entire room decorated in amber and gold leaf with mirrors as high as the ceiling. Well, if you take a trip to the Catherine Palace in Pushkin, St Petersburg, Russia you won’t need to use your imagination anymore because it is here that you will find a magnificent Amber Room.
However, as beautiful and impressive as this Amber Room is, it is a recreation of the original Amber Room constructed in the 1700’s and installed in the Berlin City Palace until 1716 when it was moved to the Catherine Palace where it remained with its impressive 6 tonnes of amber until World War II when the palace was looted by Nazi soldiers and taken to and installed in the Königsberg.
Hand-coloured photograph of the original Amber Room, 1931.
Corner section of the reconstructed Amber Room at Tsarskoye Selo.
Then in 1944 it was disassembled and crated up again after the Nazi’s received word of the Allied forces closing in on Germany. Königsberg was destroyed by allied bombers in 1944 and all documentation of the room stops here, the original Amber Room lost to history and never seen again. What happened to the Amber Room or where it may be now has been a mystery ever since.
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The Legend
Portrait of Frederick William I of Prussia (1688-1740).
Creation of the Amber Room began in 1701 after being conceptualised and designed by Andreas Schlüter for Sophia Charlotte, the second wife of Frederick 1st King of Prussia. The room was constructed by Gottfried Wolfram, Ernst Schacht and Gottfried Turau over many years.
While it was originally intended to be constructed in Charlottenburg Palace, it was installed in Berlin City Palace until Peter the Great of Russia was given the room by Frederick William I in 1716 after which the room was reworked in Russia at Catherine Palace.
After 10 years and many restorations the room was completed and covered more than 590 square feet and contained 13,000 lbs of amber.
Around the start of World War II the German forces invaded the Soviet Union and in an attempt to hide the Amber Room from the soldiers looting the palaces it was covered with wallpaper.
Unfortunately the Nazi soldiers saw through this disguise easily and the room was disassembled by the soldiers within 36 hours and shipped to Königsberg in East Prussia where it would be stored before being displayed in the town’s castle, the exhibition at Königsberg castle opened on 13th November 1941.
View from the garden of The Catherine Palace.
Overhead view of the Königsberg castle in 1925.
All valuables were by orders from Hitler to be removed from Königsberg and transported as “cultural goods of priority”. However in August 1944, Königsberg was heavily devastated by air raids by the Royal Air Force. Königsberg was then occupied by Allied forces on 9th April 1945.
When the war was over no one ever saw the Amber Room again and here is where we’re told all of the documentation of the room’s existence ends.
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The Treasure
The Amber Room was 55 square meters (590 square feet) of amber, gold leaf and mirrors weighing over 6 tonnes (13,000 lbs).
Estimates have placed the value of the room somewhere between £120-£240 million!
Tsarskoye Selo, Catherine Palace. The Amber Room 1917. Autochrome photograph by Andrej Andrejewitsch Seest from June-August 1917.
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The Clues
Several eyewitnesses claimed to have spotted the panels of the room being loaded on board a German military transport ship known as the Wilhelm Gustloff which was subsequently torpedoed and sunk by a Soviet submarine after it left Gdynia on 30th January 1945.
Official documents from the Russian National Archives show an assessment written by Alexander Brusov, head of the Soviet team charged with locating the Amber Room following the war stated “Summarizing all the facts, we can say that the Amber Room was destroyed between 9th and 11th April 1945.
“Wilhelm Gustloff” is used as a hospital ship, in the port of Danzig in autumn 1939.
Feel and Touch mosaic Made by Louis Siries (? – 1754), sketch by Giuseppe Zocchi (1711-1767). Italy, 1751. Gift of Marie Therese to Elizabeth of Russia.
A few years later Brusov publicly voiced a contrary opinion to that which was in his report.
In 1997, one of a set of four Italian stone mosaics known as “Feel and Touch” which had decorated the Amber Room was found in Germany, in the possession of the family of a soldier who claimed to have been a part of the operation to pack up and transport the Amber Room. The mosaic is now used in the reconstruction of the Amber Room.
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Conclusion
Ruins of Königsberg castle in 1944 after 2nd air raid.
The Amber Room’s eventual fate and current whereabouts, if it survives, are unknown not helped by the fact that in 1968, Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev ordered the destruction of Königsberg castle, removing any chance of conducting any onsite research of the last known resting place of the Amber Room.
This hasn’t deterred people from searching for the legendary Amber Room. There are endless theories for where the Amber Room could have been stashed by the Nazi regime. However, the main problem faced by searchers is that the Nazi’s would often hide valuables in information of strategic importance in undocumented and difficult-to-reach places, and in some cases far outside of Europe making the task of relocating such places extremely difficult.
Polish divers of the Baltictech group in October 2020 found the wreck of a ship known as the SS Karlsruhe which took part in Operation Hannibal in which more than one million German troops and civilians from East Prussia were able to escape advancing Soviet forces on board the ship.
However, after the ship sailed from Königsberg in 1945, when the ship was off the coast of Poland it was attacked by a Soviet aircraft and sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
Crates on board the shipwreck believed to hold the lost furnishings of the Amber Room.
The remains of the Amber Room after it was seized by the Nazis, who packed the amber panels in 27 crates and shipped them to Germany, where they vanished and have not been seen since.
The wreck discovered by the Baltictech group holds many crates with unknown contents, some speculate these crates may even hold parts of the Amber Room.
In September 2021 the Baltitech diving crew made a statement claiming that they had so far found nothing more aboard the ship other than military supplies and personal belongings of the crew and passengers. As such, their discovery brings an end to months of speculation that the ship may have contained the lost Amber Room, the fate of which remains unknown.
Sources & References
Information for this article has been provided by various sources and are referenced here:
Primary Source: Amber Room – Wikipedia
SOURCES:
Printed
- Denny, Isabel (2007). The Fall of Hitler’s Fortress City: the Battle for Königsberg, 1945. MBI Publishing. ISBN 978-1935149200.
- Khatri, Vikas (2012). World Famous Treasures Lost and Found. Pustak Mahal Publishing. ISBN 978-8122312744.
- Lucas, James (2000). Last Days of the Reich: The Collapse of Nazi Germany, May 1945. Cassell Publishing. ISBN 978-0304354481.
- Scott-Clark, Catherine; Levy, Adrian (2004). The Amber Room: The Untold Story of the Greatest Hoax of the Twentieth Century. Atlantic Books. ISBN 1-84354-340-0.
- Torney, Austin (2009). The Guide to the All-Embracing Realm of the Ultimate. Torney Publishing. ISBN 978-1448617272.
- Wermusch, Günter (1991). Die Bernsteinzimmer Saga: Spuren, Irrwege, Rätsel (in German). Yale University. ISBN 978-3861530190.
Online
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- “A Brief History of the Amber Room”. Smithsonian Institution. 2014. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
- “Amber Room Hunt Makes Lake the Tsar Attraction”. Scotland on Sunday. 2006. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
- “Amber Room Remnants Found? — Discoveries Delight Russian Art Experts”. Seattle Times. 1997. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
- “Catherine Palace”. St. Petersburg. 2001. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- “Erich Koch, Regarded as One of Cruelest of Hitler’s SS Men, Dies in Prison at 90”. Los Angeles Times. 1986. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
- “Greed, Glory and a Tsar’s Lost Treasure”. The Guardian. 2004. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
- “Mystery of the Amber Room Resurfaces”. ABC News. 2004. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
- “Red Army, Not the Nazis, Destroyed Tsar’s Amber Room”. Telegraph. 2004. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
- “Resurrecting Königsberg: Russian City Looks to German Roots”. Der Spiegel. 2014. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
- “Restoration of the Amber Chamber is Coming to an End”. Pravda. 2007. Retrieved 26 June 2007.
- “Russian Jeweller Recreates the Amber Room In His Workshop”. Russia Beyond the Headlines. 2013. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
- “Top 10 Famous Pieces of Art Stolen by the Nazis”. Toptenz. 2014. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
- “The Amber Room: History, Figures, Facts and Mysteries” (in Russian). RIA Novosti. 2010. Retrieved 25 February 2015.
- “The Amber Room: Long Lost Treasure”. AskMen. 2004. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
- “The Amber Room”. About. 2014. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
Other sources of information:
SKY History: The mystery of the Amber Room: the world’s greatest lost treasure | Sky HISTORY TV Channel
Graphic News: Nazi shipwreck may hold Amber Room infographic (graphicnews.com)
Live Science: Nazi wreck may hold looted treasures from Russian palace’s ‘Amber Room’
Daily Mail: Amber Room treasure is NOT on board sunken Nazi warship, divers say
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ADAM L C
Director of Areas Grey
Adam is an avid treasure hunter, seeker of adventure and the creator of Areas Grey. After travelling for almost half his life and cataloguing over 100 treasure legends along the way. He decided this was simply far too much treasure for one person to chase! As a result he created Areas Grey so he could share his stories, connect with other treasure hunters and put a little more adventure in the lives of the treasure hunting community.
Adam is a Private Investigator and former Wilderness Guide with a passion for history and archaeology. With the skills, knowledge and gear, Adam is always eager to go on the next fortune seeking adventure and connect with fellow treasure hunters along the way.
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