The Amber Room

The famous Baltic amber - a fossil resin, used for the production of jewelry and jewelry, as well as in pharmaceuticals.

Over the short-lived in historical terms 65 years that the Amber Room is listed ... Some dedicated search for the legendary room service hours, while others - personal leave and vacation. There were those who believed search of ... No, this is not a figure of speech. ... Other searchers immediately begin to believe that those who are not lucky, do not except too close to unraveling the mysteries of succinic. And from this exalted man is easy to conclude that along with people wanting to re- famous room was the light of day, there are other people whose efforts are directed towards the opposing goal. Because if these people do not, you have to believe in the existence of supernatural forces, although the ghosts in the confusing and contradictory ... Or interfere with spiteful, or ghosts, no third option - perhaps the most misunderstood rozyskniki ... Maybe, just hidden well?.

The beginning of the path and change the apartment.

Traces of ... But before we turn away from that date and begin to walk on the trail branched versions of the current seat of the Amber Room, it is necessary to talk about how she actually got into East Prussia, and why the Germans called their miracle Russian national treasure.



Grenadier Shverid Redivanoff from Moscow. One of those fifty-five ...

In the XVII century, there was a guild of craftsmen Königsberg amber Affairs. Among the many items made from ... Perhaps these frames and prompted Andreas Schluter (Andreas Schluter, 1664-1714), architect and sculptor, and was confidant of the Prussian royal court, the creation of the Cabinet of the Governor, the walls of which are lined with amber. In addition, Schluter knew how great stocks ...

The prospect of becoming the owner of a unique Cabinet liking Frederick I, and here in 1701 in a special open studio work has begun to boil. The problem before was a grand masters - not just oblitsevat amber rather large area, but also decorate their amber- reliefs, engraving, miniature carvings. Apparently, so 12 years after the start of work at the time of the death of Frederick I, the Cabinet was not yet ready. However, before the end had very little, but the successor of Frederick, despising luxury and extravagance, Friedrich Wilhelm I, the device Amber Cabinet has not approved, the funding stopped work, and the masters dismissed. Amber panels have taken their place in the storerooms, where they got only 3 years later. We got on the orders of the king, in order to donate to Peter I, who arrived in Berlin on a visit. The Russian Tsar was left in debt and in turn gave the King of Prussia 55 Grenadiers. And Amber 's office ordered an unfinished pack carefully and with proper precautions to ship in St. Petersburg.

The main decoration of the royal palace with Amber Room was Elizabeth. Post a present King of Prussia in the Winter Palace, the Empress asked Bartolomeo Rastrelli. It was not easy - in fact the original amber panels were created for an entirely different premise - now had to fit them into a new architectural space, making additions and changes, to restore it, what has managed to make his mark time, to purchase the missing Amber. After 10 years - to 1755 - Queen Elizabeth visited another idea: move the Amber Room of the Winter in a specially designed front room of the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, which was done by using ... Again, Rastrelli took the already familiar work on the placement of panels. Over time, the Amber Room began to accumulate favors from the ...

The second transfer.

During the October Revolution, the Amber Room happily escaped the removal and / or selling abroad ( have done so much with how the ... But in 1941 it was less fortunate - the rear of the museum along with other values ​​of the amber panels have not sent. Why not? . But there are versions (in the ...



Restoration workshop, where painstakingly recreated Amber Room. Photos (Creative Commons license): Robert Breuer.

The first version, the idealistic. In June 1941, few thought that the German troops reach the Pushkin (in 1918 Tsarskoye Selo was renamed the Children's Village, and in 1937 - in Pushkin), so the outbreak of war in the Catherine Palace, measures were taken to protect the exhibits from the bombs, . For this most valuable of the exhibits were transferred to the basement, the palace windows were sacrificed boards, large vases filled with sand or water. But the Germans and their allies were in Pushkin in mid- September 1941.

Version two, banal. Do not have time! .

Third version, ... The Amber Room is subject to periodic restorations since the Rastrelli. In 1941 were scheduled regular maintenance work on a masterpiece in good condition (this time scale ), but they have not been conducted. As a result, when trying to remove the panels from the walls, amber mosaic of rain fell on the floor (panels dried up, and glue ... In order to avoid shedding, Amber tried to glue the tissue paper, but it did not help. There was a dilemma: either to destroy ... They chose the latter.

But this would seem to explain all the versions seen significant controversy - the Germans were able to remove it, room! . It turns out that to remove the panel from the wall without destroying a masterpiece, yet it was possible. Direct confirmation of this are the five kinds of rooms with photographs taken by new owners, ... The pictures can be seen that the Amber Room was exhibited, not all, besides it has lost one of the mosaics and some decorative elements, but it's still there.



Here is the new Amber Room. The main difference - the color. They say the old room to the beginning of the war was already quite dark? . Recreated the room, as the old original, has a shade of golden- glow. Photo: jeanyfan.


Back home.

The original Amber Room, as well as thousands of other artifacts from museums in Kiev, Minsk, Moscow and Leningrad, was supposed to go to Hitler 's favorite city of Linz. There's ... In addition, Hitler was very fond of amber, and believed in a variety of its exotic properties. But as it turned out, two more people - the director of art collections Königsberg Museum of Art Dr. Alfred Rode and the governor (in essence, the owner ) of East Prussia, Erich Koch - loved amber, and in particular the Amber Room, no less than Hitler. Koch launched a campaign to ensure that a masterpiece of ... And got his.

Now Bernshtayntsimmer (Bernsteinzimmer - so called the Amber Room in German) handed to him ...

Rode Bernshtayntsimmer posted in one of the rooms of the Royal Castle, and, as already noted, showed it to visitors. However, in the late summer of 1944 he was forced to dismantle the room, lay the panel in the boxes and hide them in the basement of the citadel. The reason for that air raids were the British and American air. The bombing turned the royal castle, whose walls kept the memories of the Teutonic Knights, in the ruins, and fires destroyed the castle in the collected works of art. Apparently, in the flames of the fire has burned down and part of the Amber Room.



Amber panels were manufactured in Prussia, and therefore one-headed eagle, the Prussian. Eagle, the design of your shoulders having a pagan symbol of the power of the god Thor ( with three crosses, by the way - a favorite motif of the decorative art of the Prussians X-XI centuries ) - the last echo of the Viking Age. Photos (Creative Commons license): K. Hurley.

This fact was the basis for the version according to which ... Eyewitnesses recall, as in the walls of the ruined castle, pale and lost Alfred Rohde allegedly looked at the honey-colored ...

But it survived and other evidence. Rohde's closest aide, Professor Gerhard Strauss, who later recalled: ... Boxes, which was packed room, stood in the courtyard of the castle. Worried Rohde said that he took them out of the basement, so they have cooled. Castle after burning, and got up in the basement of a dangerous temperature for the tree. ... But I know where to hide Bernshtayntsimmer ...

In addition, preserved, and a letter of the Alfred Rode on September 2, 1944, in which he reported to Berlin in the Kaiser -Friedrich - Музеум (Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, now called Bode Museum ): ... The Amber Room, except for the six elements of basements, safe and sound ...

However, the Amber Room survived the bombing, only to disappear. In March-April 1945 to pack and evacuate the museum values ​​- their own and others' - have become Germans: Allied forces were advancing. Apparently, the Amber Room was hidden, or taken out by the persons concerned, among other treasures. But where?.

The path into the unknown.

This question gave a detailed response to the German Georg Stein, who has spent much of his life searching (and nebezrezultatnomu!) Works of art, the Nazis removed from the former USSR. A few decades Stein carefully studied the documents relating to Bernshtayntsimmer, interviewed witnesses and participants of the events of the last months of the war, numerous hypotheses tested ( and left a file out of a hundred thousand of the most valuable documents relating to the Amber Room ).



City Boathouse, Germany, April 24, 1945. One of the parts identified by the advancing American army stores, trapped by the Nazis prepared to export values. Photo: from the collection of NARA.

The fate of George Stein was tragic. For a long time researcher received abusive or threatening letters, like this:.

Honourable swine, Stein. With all of these Germans were disgusted watching the nonsense that you continue to do....

And in 1987 he was found dead. The police said that it was suicide.

So it is Stein, summarizing many years of searching, put forward four main versions of the possible whereabouts of the Amber Room.

• The first version, ...
• The version of the second, ...
• The version of the third, ...
• The version of the fourth, ...

The first version seems to give some hope that you can find the Amber Room: just try and, if necessary, ... But not all so simple!.

In the Middle Ages, Königsberg was built up as a military stronghold. In the castles and fortresses of Konigsberg, there were over a thousand secluded areas that are adapted to store anything was. (Alfred Rohde knew the location of the basement of the Royal Castle, that up to other castles and estates of East Prussia, it is known that since 1944 Rhodes entered into correspondence with their owners - for example, Count von Schwerin, Prince Don - Shlobitten - for accommodation .



General Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied troops, inspects stolen art objects from the Germans, who were hidden in a salt mine Merkers. Photo: Lt. Moore, from the collections of NARA.

From 1944 to medieval Konigsberg shelters were added new - modern. They were built on the orders by Erich Koch. The ... Bomb shelters, underground utilities, military dungeons, secret bunkers - under building caches used everything that was possible.

But back to the version. Over time, the four versions of George Stein found the so-called subversion and were refined versioned objects ( perspective from the point of view, the search locks, hoppers, silos, test sites ). These days, the total number of versioned objects in the hundreds. Amber Room offer a search in Thuringia ( for example, in a secret underground Nazi facility Olga III), in Saxony (such as mine Vittekind ), locks in the basement of East and West Prussia, and Poland, in the mines of northern Bohemia and Silesia, at the bottom of the Ladoga . And another... elite dachas near Moscow. This is not versioned object, and stand-alone version ( number five ), under which the Amber Room has been returned to the territory of the former Soviet Union immediately after the capture of Prussia, and it got lost in the vast apartment party leadership. However, it is not clear, then why spend money and effort to find a room, and on its restoration (in 2003 the new Amber Room had been started ).

However, any version, even the most unexpected and has a right to exist exactly as long as the Amber Room will not be found. If she ever do will be found. Indeed, since 1945 the Amber Room is looking for soldiers and scientists chosen and impostors, Don Quixotes and the looters, the security services of several countries, political, social and cultural activists, writers from around the world and the nameless adventurers, armchair historians and eyewitnesses of the events of the war years, the combined .



May 31, 2003. Fragments of the Amber Room of Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo. Photo Press Service of the President of Russia.

Every year witnesses burial room is getting smaller: Rode died ( in suspicious circumstances) in 1945, Koch lived to 90 years ( in prison ), but to talk about the Amber Room refused. However, there are documents. And hope.

|.

In search of the legend of succinic.

Over the short-lived in historical terms 65 years that the Amber Room is listed ... And ...







Permanent address.
News from Skypecine. com.