The Amber Room_ The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure - Cathy Scott-Clark [83]
Doodle sent to Anatoly Kuchumov, depicting clues as to the post-war location of the Amber Room, 1949
The chicken called Strauss is depicted again, standing in the American sector. 'Cluck, cluck' is written over his open beak. Across the top of the page, again in faulty Russian, is written a word that could say 'place' or, if the letters are better formed, could also read 'revenge'. If this is the theme, then the caption makes some sense: 'It is better for my best comrade of Leningrad to go around Berlin through the American sector.' This is where the answer to the mystery lies, according to the cartoonist.
Someone was warning Kuchumov to beware the chicken called Strauss, who was willing to barter the life of others in order to keep hold of a priceless secret.
Someone else believed that Strauss was lying, despite having volunteered to assist the Soviets. And to understand why Strauss would embark on such a high-risk venture, we need another source, an objective one who will not attempt to filter our understanding, one who might also lead us to Friedrich Henkensiefken, Schlossoberinspektor of Konigsberg Castle. It cannot be Stephan Strauss, the doctor's protective son.
We are torn. The material that Our Friend the Professor has obtained from the literature archive in St Petersburg is sensational and we are desperate to see what else they have. However, an official from the Stasi archives has also contacted us to say our application has been approved. We will stay in Berlin for another two weeks while Our Friend the Professor works in the literature archive in Russia on our behalf.
7
The Federal Authority for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR is a mouthful that most people shorten to the Ministry of Truth.
We enter its headquarters through plate-glass doors at 10.30 a.m. Female guards glower behind Perspex screens: applications for passes are to be filled out in triplicate, no cameras, no tape recorders, no ball pens. At 10.50 a.m. we are escorted to the office of the senior functionary who has been assigned to our inquiry.
From the ninth-floor windows, you can see the view clearly: right across the congested five-lane highway of Otto-Braun-Strasse and into pigeon-grey Alexanderplatz, the former hub of East Berlin. Here, on 4 November 1989 half a million demonstrators gathered to whistle at spy-chief Markus Wolf, who had been called to placate the daily public protests at the intrusions of the Stasi.1
The box-like office into which we are ushered has bare walls and is empty save for a large white plastic desk and four white plastic garden chairs. Sitting in one is a woman resplendent in pearls like a Japanese empress, one globe in each ear, a generous string at her throat and a delicate strand around her blue-veined wrist. As she speaks, spitting words like a slingshot, she drums the desk with a silver pen. 'So you have got your passes?' A tick in the book. 'So you have your accreditation?' A tick in the book. 'You have references?' A tick in the book. And so on and so on until she has gone through every single page in the large file of paperwork we have accrued in order to gain entry. The Ministry of Truth has a reputation for being fearsomely bureaucratic, fenced in by labyrinthine legislation. We hope our introductory interview will not be protracted.
The functionary looks at her watch, her pen hovering. 'Unfortunately, you are still not ready to see any files. I must explain the protocol.' It is now EL.15 a.m. Speaking as if to unruly children, she continues: 'Your task is difficult. I am responsible for all files relating to art theft and its investigation, from the Nazi and Stasi periods, a study that requires the examination of more than 1.1 million Nazi-era documents and tens of millions more generated by the Stasi. And there is only me and nine coworkers. Complicated research applications arrive every week from all over the world. As well as yours.'
The Stasi had begun as a smaller mirror-image of Victor Abakumov's MGB, its sponsoring organization which gifted