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Kuchumov was very interested in bunkers - he recalled Brusov's mention of the Hofbunker. Rohde had talked about this hiding place in a letter to his superiors in Berlin, but showed it to Brusov in 194 5 only after this letter was pulled by Brusov from the fire. In 1946 Brusov had told Kuchumov that he feared he had not thoroughly searched the Hofbunker after being distracted by Rohde and a story about lost keys. Was the Amber Room concealed in the Hofbunker? Strauss replied: 'Pictures from Konigsberg Museum were supposed to be stored there. That is all I know.'

Where was the bunker? Kuchumov wanted an address. Strauss blurted out: I think, maybe on Lange Reihe or on a street in Nasser Garden. Precisely where I don't remember.'

We recall a phrase from Soldier Kazakhov's letter in which he wrote to Kuchumov about Strauss: 'they will send the doctor to Kaliningrad along with someone else to investigate this place, because either he really did forget or he is pretending he cannot remember.' It seems possible that Kazakhov was referring to the Hofbunker and Strauss's inconsistency.

On the defensive, Strauss now launched into a list of other potential hiding places in East Prussia. 'The nineteenth-century city bastions are many: Wrangel Tor, Rosegarten Tor, Friedlander Tor. All were used. There was also a room in the main railway station. And the safe of the Reichsbank near the castle.' The fortress at Pillau, had they tried there?

'But I suppose that was unlikely since it was full of wounded soldiers. Lochstadt Castle... what about that castle?'

But what about the Hofbunker, Kuchumov persisted? The other sites that Strauss mentioned had been searched already by the Soviets in 1946 and they had found nothing in them.7

Kuchumov challenged him. Was Strauss concealing facts about the Nazi evacuation plan? Strauss defended himself:

I buried treasure. I helped to bury books from Konigsberg Library and the state archive on the lower underground floor of Lochstadt Castle. Sixty-five feet down. We wrote a message on a big piece of cotton with the help of a captured Russian soldier, 'Russian cultural treasures, open only in the presence of a curator.' Treasures were hidden at Schlobitten Castle too. Nowadays it's in Poland. There we placed furniture and paintings. People from Konigsberg Museum moved them. Possibly they took some things from the museum too.

Strauss began to trail off, perhaps realizing that he was in danger of incriminating himself again. I wasn't there. I got this information from Helmut Hels from Hamburg... no, maybe Mrs Clomp from the Monuments Commission.' More names. More contradictions.

Strauss asked for a break, but Kuchumov returned to the Hofbunker.

Strauss threw back yet more suggestions, names and locations: 'Schlobitten Castle, the home of Prince Alex zu Dohna-Schlobitten. Talk to him. He knows. Professor Voringer from Halle, he told me that things from the university and the most treasured items from Konigsberg Library were moved to Langheim Palace, near Warstenburg. You should talk to him.' More names for Kuchumov's witness list. 'There was talk too of moving icons from Konigsberg churches to Tilsit [Sovetsk, Kaliningrad Province] and of moving other items to Tsiten [Kaliningrad Province] and also an estate on an island at the Samland Peninsula, the name of which I don't remember.'

Think now. Don't stop. You can rest soon. You must know the name. Strauss dried up: 'No,' he said finally. I don't know any more. Not about art from the USSR. I can't remember anything else.'

Here was a man confident enough to contact the MGB, an organization feared by most Germans, and volunteer his services in the search for the Amber Room. He promised precision and details, even a solution, and yet, having been issued a special permit to travel and having been escorted to the closed military province of Kaliningrad, Strauss delivered nothing of substance. While placing himself at the centre of key events, claiming that the Amber Room had survived the air raids of 1944 only after he insisted on its being