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By Root 1804 0

sight in the moonlight. From photographs we know that, inside, its dark vaulted corridors were hung with antlers, while long crimson banners bearing swastikas fell from the ceiling of a banqueting hall. Several rooms were already filled with museum exhibits from Dresden. However, space was still available for things of 'irreplaceable value'. In a report submitted by Grafe to his superiors (and found by Strauss), he wrote: 'Four heated rooms in the gatehouse of Kriebstein Castle to be placed at the disposal of the municipal art collections of Konigsberg. In addition Herr Rohde would be very pleased if he could obtain the banqueting hall for the storage of larger-scale goods from the Konigsberg collections.'9 Larger-scale goods could also mean the Amber Room, Strauss advised Paul Wandel, adding that Rohde had chosen the location well. Beside Kriebstein Castle was a small factory that manufactured aeroplane parts. It had its own railway siding connected directly to the Reichsbahn.

Having proved the Nazis' intention to evacuate the Amber Room to one of two castles in Saxony, Strauss now attempted to confirm that the transportation happened. However, he advised Wandel that he could locate in Berlin only one letter concerning either castle. It was from a Reichsbahn official to the manager of Kriebstein Castle and was dated 19 December 194 5. It mentioned that two specially chartered train carriages were on their way from the East Prussian capital. Here Strauss stumbled. The carriages could not have contained the Amber Room since the date and location contained in the Reichsbahn letter conflicted with one written by Alfred Rohde on 12 January 1945. Three weeks after the two specially chartered train carriages had left for Kriebstein, Rohde advised his superiors that the Amber Room was still being packed in Konigsberg in preparation for its evacuation to Wechselburg Castle.

Strauss's research was interrupted by his journey to Kaliningrad where he seems to have withheld almost everything he had gleaned from the Soviet files from curator Kuchumov. As an East Prussian who had been based in Konigsberg, maybe Strauss felt possessive, that this mystery was his to solve, and he alone hoped to win the glory and rewards. Or maybe Kuchumov's files have been cleansed.

What we do know from the Ministry of Truth files before us is that when Strauss returned from the failed Kaliningrad mission he was rewarded by his own government. A letter signed by Wandel, dated June E950, praised Strauss for having 'on his own initiative' diligently searched the Soviet zone for missing art treasures, including the Amber Room. Strauss now received an official commission from the GDR government to head a new investigation into the fate of the Amber Room.10 A race was on, two parallel inquiries were under way. One was headed by a senior palace curator from Leningrad and the other by a senior cultural bureaucrat from the GDR.

According to this file in the Ministry of Truth, Strauss began his new investigation by writing to every jeweller in the GDR, asking them to report any noticeable increase in the number of carved amber pieces coming on to the market since 1945. He was looking for evidence that the Amber Room had been brought to Germany and broken down.

Strauss also ordered that every one of the new republic's 921 castles be searched and that all resettlers living in them be interrogated.

Strauss received permission to personally head investigations in Saxony, a place Kuchumov had been unable to visit in 1947 as his time in Germany had been monopolized by cataloguing Soviet art works in the Derutra warehouse in Berlin.

A report written by Strauss for Wandel in June 1950 confirmed that his first stop was Kriebstein Castle, one of the two castles that Rohde had selected in December 1944. Strauss did what Kuchumov could have only dreamed of - he located an eyewitness. He found museum curator Walfried Kunz, who described how, in April 1945, Kriebstein Castle, packed with art from all over the Reich (including Konigsberg), had been stormed by the Red Army.