The Amber Room_ The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure - Cathy Scott-Clark [0]
By the same authors
The Stone of Heaven
THE AMBER ROOM
The Fate of the World's Greatest
Lost Treasure
Catherine Scott-Clark
&
Adrian Levy
Copyright © 2004 by Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
First published in the United States of America in 2004 by
Walker Publishing Company, Inc.; published simultaneously in Great Britain by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd.
For information about permission to reproduce selections from
this book, write to Permissions, Walker & Company,
104 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available upon request
eISBN: 978-0-802-71809-9
Visit Walker & Company's Web site at www.walkerbooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
In memory of Muriel Claudia Worsdell
and
Gerald Anthony Scott-Clark
'There are different truths... foolish truths and wise truth, and your truth is foolish. There is also justice...'
Irina Antonova, director of the Pushkin Museum, Moscow1
'Some of the splendour of the world
Has melted away through war and time;
He who protects and conserves
Has won the most beautiful fortune.'
J.W.Goethe, 1826
Contents
List of Maps and Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Note on Transliteration
Dramatis Personae
Maps
Introduction
The Amber Room
Notes
Bibliography
List of Maps and Illustrations
MAPS
Konigsberg Castle, pre-April 1945
Kaliningrad, c.2004
East Prussia, c.194 5
Germany, c.2004
St Petersburg and environs, c.2004
USSR, post-194 7
ILLUSTRATIONS
The original design for the Amber Room, 1701
The Catherine Palace (Vera Lemus, Aurora Publishers, St Petersburg, Russian Federation)
Alexander Kedrinsky with colleagues from Leningrad's palaces after winning the Lenin Prize in 1986 (Vica Plauda archive, St Petersburg, Russian Federation)
Anatoly Kuchumov with Anna Mikhailovna, his wife, and others shortly before the Second World War (Vica Plauda archive)
Curators pack up Leningrad's palaces after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941
Tsar Peter I (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russian Federation)
The amber workshop at the Catherine Palace Vladimir Telemakov (Catherine Scott-Clark)
Vica Plauda, granddaughter of Anatoly Kuchumov, holding the only surviving colour plate of the original Amber Room (Catherine Scott-Clark)
The Amber Room
Soviet troops re-entering the Catherine Palace, 1944
The ruined Catherine Palace after Nazi occupation
Olaus Magnus's sixteenth-century map of the Samland Peninsula
Seventeenth-century amber fishermen
Pre-war photograph of Konigsberg Castle (Konigsberg City Museum, Duisburg, Germany)
Professor Alexander Brusov of the State Historical Museum, Moscow, and his diary (Avenir Ovsianov archive, Kaliningrad, Russian Federation)
Soviet tanks on the streets of Konigsberg during the final attack, April 1945 (Gunter Wermusch archive, Berlin, Germany)
The surrender of General Otto Lasch, 10 April 1945 (Kaliningrad City Museum, Kaliningrad, Russian Federation)
Amateur painting of the post-war remains of Konigsberg Castle (Avenir Ovsianov archive)
Alfred Rohde (Avenir Ovsianov archive)
Anatoly Kuchumov and colleagues from the Leningrad palaces during the 1950s (Albina Vasiliava archive, Pavlovsk, St Petersburg, Russian Federation)
The St Petersburg Literature Archive reading room (Catherine Scott-Clark)
Prince Alex Dohna-Schlobitten (MPR Productions, Munich, Germany)
Entrance to the Knight's Hall of Konigsberg Castle (Konigsberg City Museum)
Blutgericht, the Nazi restaurant located in the former torture chambers of Konigsberg Castle (Konigsberg City Museum)
Caricature of Anatoly Kuchumov at his desk researching the fate of missing Leningrad palace treasures