The Amber Room_ The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure - Cathy Scott-Clark [3]
Dramatis Personae
Larissa Bardovskaya Head curator at the Catherine Palace in the St Petersburg suburb of Tsarskoye Selo, Bardovskaya was responsible for writing the official account of the mystery of the Amber Room for a summary catalogue published by the Russian Ministry of Culture in 1999.
Professor Alexander Brusov Professor of archaeology at the State Historical Museum in Moscow and brother of Valery, a famous Soviet modernist writer. Brusov led the first search for the Amber Room in May 1945 and reported that it had been destroyed.
Empress Catherine II of Russia German-born princess who seized control of the Russian throne in 1762. Catherine the Great restyled the Catherine Palace and vastly augmented the Amber Room. Visitors would describe it as the 'Eighth Wonder of the World'.
Professor Wolfgang Eichwede Director of the Research Centre for Eastern Europe at Bremen University. Wolfgang Eichwede mediates between Germany and Russia over the return of war artefacts stolen during the Second World War.
Empress Elizabeth Daughter of Peter I. Elizabeth became Empress of Russia in 1741 and within two years began supervising the construction of her father's Amber Room. In 1755 it was moved from St Petersburg to the Catherine Palace.
Paul Enke Stasi agent who used the code-name of Paul Kohler. Enke was a researcher at the GDR's State Archives Administration in Potsdam and began the Stasi's inquiry into the fate of the Amber Room. In 1986 he published Bernsteinzimmer Report, the most popular and influential book on the search.
Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein White Russian exile living in Liechtenstein. Von Falz-Fein bankrolled the search for the Amber Room in West Germany and returned looted art to Russia and the Ukraine, from where his family originated. Von Falz-Fein's 'Amber Room club' included Julian Semyonov, George Stein and Georges Simenon, the creator of Inspector Maigret, among its members.
Frederick I Crowned 'King in Prussia' in Konigsberg in 1701. Frederick realized the Hohenzollerns' aspirations of transforming Prussia into a monarchy and funded the creation of the Amber Room.
Frederick William I The Soldier King. Frederick William I was the son of Frederick I and ascended the throne in 1713. Uninterested in the Amber Room, which he considered too costly, he gave it to Tsar Peter I as part of a diplomatic treaty in 1716.
Uwe Geissler Stasi informer working inside the 'Kripo', the East German criminal police. Geissler was used by the Stasi to cross-examine potential eyewitnesses during the GDR's Amber Room inquiry. He investigated the top-secret source 'Rudi Ringel'.
Otto Grotewohl President of East Germany from 1949 to 1964. Grotewohl cemented ties with the Soviet Union at a time of great unrest in the Eastern bloc. He received from the Soviet Union millions of German cultural treasures looted by the Red Army during the Second World War.
Alexander Kedrinsky One of the Soviet Union's most famous architects and restorers, Kedrinsky led the project to rebuild the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace, which was unveiled on 31 May 2003.
Erich Koch The Reich's Commissar of the Ukraine and Gauleiter of East Prussia. Koch evacuated his private collection of looted art to Weimar in 1945. Later (while being held in prison in Poland) he hinted at having played a part in saving and concealing the Amber Room.
Anatoly Kuchumov One of the Soviet Union's most famous curators. Kuchumov headed the investigation in 1946 that established that the Amber Room had survived the war, having been concealed in an unknown hiding place by the Nazis. His 1989 book The Amber Room would become the second most famous publication on the subject.
Erich Mielke Minister for State Security. The head of the Stasi from 1957 to 1990, Mielke became obsessed with finding the Amber Room. He pumped millions in hard currency into 'Operation Puschkin', a special task force that excavated in the GDR throughout the 1980s.
Martin Mutschmann Gauleiter of