Polish Museum Claims to Have Located the Elusive Amber Room that Was Stolen by Nazis

Ancient Origins

After 60 years of hunting for the missing Amber Room, a magnificent treasure stolen by the Nazis, a museum in Poland suggests that they know where is it located. This is the second time within a year that rumors have run rampant about the treasure being located in Poland.

The Mamerki museum near Węgorzewo, in north east Poland, is one of the most interesting forts related to World War II. The area is still full of secrets (and perhaps a hidden treasure.) According to TVN24, this place has also been connected with the legendary Amber Room, which was created for the Russian tsar Peter the Great in the 1700s.

The original Amber Room, 1931. (Public Domain)

The museum in Mamerki (in German: Mauerwald) recently reported that they have discovered an unknown room measuring 3 meters (9.84 ft.) long and 2 meters (6.56 ft.) wide. Using geo-radar, they say that they’ve found a secret hidden place located inside an old wartime bunker.

The geo-radar reading the museum says shows the existence of the hidden bunker. (Mamerki Museum)
The Amber Room was stolen by the Nazis and was allegedly on its way to becoming one of Adolf Hitler’s greatest treasures when it was lost. The Amber Room originally contained 450kg (992.08lb) of amber decorated with gold, pieces of art, jewels, and mirrors. It was located in St Petersburg from the times of Peter the Great, until the day when the Nazis dismantled it and decided to transport it to Königsberg Castle (Kaliningrad) (which was controlled by them at the time). It was during this transport that it was said to have accidentally disappeared. Strangely enough, the documentation connected with the transport was lost too.

• The Disappearance of the Amber Room of Charlottenburg Palace
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The suggestion that the Amber Room may be hidden in Mamerki is just one of the hypotheses related to the Amber Room’s location, but the researchers are convinced that it is much more. As Bartlomiej Plebanczyk from the museum told MailOnline:

''We think there is a very good chance that the Amber Room is here for a number of reasons. Of course there were no such devices as ground-penetrating radar in the 1950s, so examining and finding hidden spaces wasn't possible. Inside may be elements of the Amber Chamber, but also other looted art. But there is no doubt that the room was created specifically for the purpose of treasure.''

Evidence for the hypothesis comes from a former Nazi guard who told Polish soldiers in the 1950s, that during the winter of 1944 he saw trucks driving up to the bunker. The trucks were said to have been heavily-guarded and they left their large cargo in Mamerki. At the time, the Polish bomb squads looked for proof, but they didn't find anything. The mysterious room  where the treasure is thought to be, will be opened during the next few weeks.

The bunker in Poland where the Amber Room may be located. (TVN24)

In 1982, the Russians started to build a replica of the Amber Room. After 20 years, visitors to Catherine Palace, near St Petersburg, can enjoy the beauty of this incredible place once again. Nonetheless, the obsession of treasure hunters in discovering the real Amber Room is still prevalent. During the last 60 years, many of them have lost their lives or suffered from health problems by searching for it.
In August 2015, Ancient Orgins reported that treasure hunters claimed to have identified a legendary Nazi train packed with gold and other treasure, hidden in a long-forgotten tunnel in the Polish mountains. It was said that the train may also contain the long-lost Amber Room. However, it seems to be unlikely that the train will be explored in the near future. Some of the experts suggested that this location may not even contain a train at all.

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Apart from this, there are many other possible hypotheses about the current location of the Amber Room. Some researchers believe that the Amber Room has never left Kaliningrad, and it is buried in the ruins of the city.

Königsberg Castle, 1925. (Public Domain)

Another idea says that it was transported on one of two ships - the Steuben or Wilhelm Gustloff. Both of them sank in the Baltic Sea during World War II. Yet another hypothesis claims that the Amber Room is located in a hidden place somewhere in Russia.
In the 1990s, newspapers in Poland and Russia quoted eyewitnesses who swore that they saw the real Amber Room in a house of one of the noble Russians. This rumor has never been confirmed.  Finally, some people also believe that they can find the Amber Room in Germany. For example, an amateur group of treasure hunters hopes to find it in the city of Wuppertal.

Corner section of the reconstructed Amber Room. (Public Domain)

Featured Image: Tsarskoye Selo, Catherine Palace. The Amber Room as it would have appeared in 1917. Source: Public Domain
By Natalia Klimczak

Work Begins to Retrieve Nazi Gold Train Believed to Contain Lost Amber Room of Charlottenburg Palace

Ancient Origins

Two months ago, headlines were made around the world as treasure hunters identified a legendary Nazi train packed with weapons, gold, money, and archives hidden in a long-forgotten tunnel in the Polish mountains. It is believed that the train may also contain the long-lost Amber Room of Charlottenburg Palace, an early 1700s room crafted from amber, gold, and precious jewels, estimated to now be worth $385 million. This week, engineers will begin surveying the site to determine how the possibly booby-trapped armoured train can be retrieved.
Poland’s Culture Ministry announced that the location of the Nazi train was revealed to Piotr Koper of Poland and Andreas Richter of Germany, through a deathbed confession. The Telegraph reported that two treasure-hunters found the 100-meter-long armoured train and immediately submitted a claim to the Polish government – under Polish law treasure findings can keep 10 per cent of the value of their find. The Polish Ministry have confirmed the location of the train using ground-penetrating radar.
The train is said to be located in an underground tunnel constructed by the Nazis along a 4km stretch of track on the Wroclaw-Walbryzch line. However, its exact location is being kept hidden, not least because it is believed to be booby trapped or mined and will need to be investigated through a careful operation conducted by the Army, Police and Fire Brigade.
The Guardian reports that work is now underway to plan exactly how that operation will be carried out.  Experts will be using magnetic field detectors, thermal imaging cameras and radars to begin a non-invasive search of the ground. Digging and drilling are not permitted until this initial testing phase is complete.

“Since August, the Polish military has cleared vegetation from an area the size of a football pitch,” The Guardian reports. “Soldiers have swept for mines and analysed the ground for the presence of poison gas.”

An underground tunnel, part of Nazi Germany "Riese" construction project under the Ksiaz castle in Poland (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland / Flickr)

Nazi Treasure

Legend has it that the Germans hid their looted treasures from the advancing Soviet Red Army as insurance policies to help fleeing war criminals escape and set up new lives at the end of WWII.
While government officials have said that they don’t know the exact contents of the Nazi train, Piotr Zuchowski, a vice minister for conservation, told Poland’s Radio Jedynka that its contents are “probably military equipment but also possibly jewellery, works of art, and archived documents,” Yahoo News reports. An announcement by the Polish Ministry speculated that it may also contain the missing Amber Room, which was dismantled by the Nazis from Charlottenburg Palace near St Petersburg in 1941.

The Amber Room

The Amber Room was originally installed in Charlottenburg Palace, the home of Frederick I, first King in Prussia in 1701. During a state visit to Prussia, the Amber Room caught the eye of the Tsar of Russia, Peter the Great. Seeing an opportunity to gain the favor of the Tsar of Russia, Frederick I presented the Amber Room to the Tsar in 1716 in order to cement the newly-formed Prussian-Russian alliance against Sweden. The Amber Room was dismantled and shipped to Russia in 18 large boxes, where it was installed in the Winter House in St. Petersburg as part of a European art collection. In 1755, Tsarina Elizabeth had the Amber Room moved to Charlottenburg Palace, where it remained until it was dismantled and stolen by the Nazis in 1941 and sent to Königsberg’s castle museum.
Although the Amber Room was on display for the following two years, the war not going well for the Germans, and the museum’s director, Alfred Rohde, was advised to dismantle the room and crate it away. Less than a year later, Allied bombing raids destroyed the city of Königsberg, and the castle museum was left in ruins. After that, the trail of the Amber Room simply vanished.

A reconstructed segment of the Amber Room (Wikipedia)

The original Amber Room, 1931 (Wikipedia)

Many believed that the Amber Room was safely hidden by the Germans prior to the destruction of the castle museum and thus, there have been many attempts to track down this treasure, all of them unsuccessful.
If the newly-discovered Nazi gold train does indeed contain the pieces of the world-renowned Amber Room, it will see the return and reconstruction of a valuable slice of history.
Featured image: An underground tunnel, part of Nazi Germany "Riese" construction project under the Ksiaz castle in Poland (public domain). Inset: Reconstruction of the Amber Room (Patricio Rodriguez / flickr).
By: April Holloway