The Amber Room_ The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure - Cathy Scott-Clark [119]
Enke's theory (and Geissler's account of it) was beginning to make sense. He had a final question for Kuchumov:
Did you see during your searches the name of Koch's aide? Was it Popp or Poppa? I have evidence that this man was trusted and helped hide some of the treasures on Koch's list. My heartfelt thanks to you and your colleagues in Pavlovsk and Pushkin. Be sure that we from our side direct all our energy to help you reach our mutual goal, with Communist regards, P. Enke.
Enke's second letter was written on 22 October 1976: 'My respectable Anatoly Mikhailovich, first of all my wife and I personally thank you for your battle-felt regards on the occasion of our national festival of the GDR [7 October].' Enke was still keen to learn all he could about Albert Popp, the driver of the Red Cross van: I have a question about a man who transported the treasures of Koch in 1945 from Konigsberg to central Germany and hid art pieces so successfully that some are still missing. Could you tell me anything more about this Popp, his date of birth, his real name.' Perhaps Kuchumov had not answered Enke's previous inquiry.
Enke continued, easing his way into more delicate matters:
During vacations with my wife we travelled through Thuringia and Saxony and visited useful people who gave us information. But I have a question for you. It seems that in 1948 Soviet art historian Xenia Agarfornova found part of Koch's treasure, including the silver candelabras (that I spoke of before) and delivered them back to the USSR. Is she a curator from the State Hermitage and did you establish that these candelabras were from the Amber Room? Heartfelt regards and I am sure together we are going to find the Amber Room. P. Enke.
This is the first time that we have seen any evidence that part of the Amber Room (albeit only the candelabras) might have been found in Germany by the Soviets after the war. If what Enke confided in Kuchumov in this private letter was true, it explains why the Stasi was so certain that the Amber Room was in Germany. What it doesn't explain is why the Soviets chose not to tell the Stasi about their discovery of the candelabras.
Kuchumov's replies, if he sent any, are not in the Ministry of Truth. What is here is another report dated E976 from Enke to Oberst Seufert. In it Enke attempted to tie up all the loose ends, and addressed the issue of the evidence given by GDR citizen 'Rudi Ringel'.
His line of reasioning was as follows: Koch had hinted that his treasures were concealed together with the Amber Room; Enke had traced Koch's treasures to Weimar and then into a Red Cross van; if 'Rudi Ringel's' father, the SS Sturmbannfiihrer, had also been involved in the secret operation to evacuate the Amber Room, that placed him together with Albert Popp in the Red Cross van heading in all probability into western Saxony and not, as the Soviets had concluded, in downtown Konigsberg. It was an unconvincing and staggeringly simplistic piece of logic but the Stasi seemed to have accepted it.
To prove his theory, Enke began to prise apart 'Rudi Ringel's' family history, testing the stories told by his mother, sister and brother against available wartime records, looking for connections to Albert Popp, a Red Cross van and the western Erzgebirge. We realize, reading this document, that it must have been at this point that Enke called in Uwe Geissler to help him with the cross-examinations. According to the report, 'Frau Ringel' claimed that on 2 November 1944 she and her children had relocated from bombed Konigsberg to Crimmitschau in Saxony, sixty miles west of the Erzgebirge. Her husband, the SS Sturmbannfiihrer, stayed behind, but on 5 February 1945 he arrived in plain clothes on his family's doorstep in Crimmitschau, carrying a duffel bag, a machine gun, a pistol and some food.
According to local records, scoured by Enke