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The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure, by Cathy Scott-Clark, Adrian Levy
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One of mankind's greatest treasures, the Amber Room stood as a symbol of Russian glory for over two hundred years. But after the Nazi invasion, it was never seen again.
Now, in a masterpiece of detection, investigative journalists Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy have at last unraveled the jumble of evidence surrounding the Amber Room's fate. Journeying through the former Soviet bloc, and exploring archives in St. Petersburg and Berlin, they reveal what happened to the most valuable lost treasure in the world-and why the truth has been withheld for so long. Their revelations have broken a conspiracy of lies by the Russians who, for decades, have blamed the Amber Room's disappearance on the widespread looting of Nazi Germany, rather than face the shocking truth.
- Sales Rank: #523736 in Books
- Published on: 2005-07-05
- Released on: 2005-07-05
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.90" h x .90" w x 6.10" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 416 pages
From Publishers Weekly
In 1717, Prussian emperor Frederick I presented Peter the Great with a remarkable treasure: enough wall-sized panels covered with meticulously carved amber to decorate an entire room. Eventually installed in a palace near St. Petersburg, the Amber Room was stolen by the Nazis during the 1941 siege of Leningrad and hidden in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad)—after which little is certain. Levy and Scott-Clark (The Stone of Heaven) devote as much space to their efforts to sift through the sparse evidence as to their reconstructions, and though the story line is a bit muddled early on, when they also try to squeeze in the room's history, they eventually find a comfortable balance. Digging through files from former Soviet museums and the East German secret police, they retrace previous investigations and slowly realize just how valuable the missing room was to the Soviets as Cold War propaganda. Even after the collapse of communism, its potential recovery continues to stoke the flames of Russians' memories of the Great Patriotic War, and the probe raises important (though unfortunately unanswered) questions about the Red Army's activities as the war wound down in Europe. The pair of investigative journalists never quite manages to distract readers from the inevitable failure of their search, so the probable fate of the room, when finally broached, may strike some as anticlimactic. However, the authors do offer an intriguing peek at the inner workings of Soviet bloc espionage—along with a detour into the avariciousness of some contemporary Russians. 50 b&w images, 3 maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–This title might seem at first to be small-scale popular history, telling the tale of one of the more ornate artifacts of the 18th century. Yet the Amber Room is even more noteworthy for its historical importance. Originally designed for and begun by the Prussian royal family, it was still unfinished when they gave it to Peter the Great of Russia; it was completed and assembled in the lifetime of his successor, Catherine the Great. In 1941, the Germans overran the palace into which the room was fitted and it was moved to Königsberg, only to disappear as the Third Reich collapsed and the German city fell to the Red Army. The book details the hunt for the Amber Room, which has involved persons from Russia and both Germanys as well as one well-connected Russian émigré, a host of magazines, various spies, and occasional outbursts of popular enthusiasm. This alone makes for a gripping tale, but as the book progresses it becomes apparent that there is another level to this treasure hunt. The modern-day searchers, the authors and their allies, must deal with the agendas of previous hunters and of the guardians of the archives. Clear maps and average-quality photos are included. This engrossing book combines history, detection, and adventure.–Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Among myriad Nazi crimes, the looting of the art treasures of occupied countries was significant. Some of these treasures have been recovered and returned to national museums; some have found their way into private collections via shady brokers; some have never been recovered, and the most prominent of those is the Amber Room of Russia. Frederick I of Prussia gave these amber panels to Czar Peter the Great. They were apparently seized during the German seige of Leningrad in 1941, and for six decades their fate has remained a mystery. Levy and Scott-Clark are prizewinning investigative journalists who have used declassified files of the KGB and East German Stasi, recollections of insiders, and solid detective work to tell an exciting, intense, and surprising story. It is filled with episodes of cold-war intrigue, cynicism, amoral betrayal, and bureaucratic stalling that degenerates into absurdity. The assertions by Levy and Scott-Clark that they have solved the mystery cannot be verified yet, but they certainly provide us with a thrilling work. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Most helpful customer reviews
51 of 55 people found the following review helpful.
Gripping investigative story
By Julia Flyte
This is the (true) story of two journalists who embark on a quest to find out what happened to the Amber Room.
The Amber Room was a room in Catherine Palace in St Petersburg that was decorated with panels of amber mosaics. During World War 2, with the Nazis heading towards St Petersburg, the Russians packed up as many treasures as they could and sent them across the country to be safely stored. But they were unable to pack up the Amber Room, so they tried to conceal it in situ. This ruse was unsuccessful. The Nazis dismantled the room and relocated it to Konisberg Castle in Prussia. When the war ended, the Russians went to recover the room - but it had vanished. Where was it? Was it still in existence? There was evidence to suggest that it may have been moved again - but to where?
The story is told from the point of view of the two authors, as they sift through archived data in both Russia and Germany, and also try to track down any surviving witnesses to that time. It's very easy to read and surprisingly gripping. Not a dry history book at ALL.
I found the book fascinating from two perspectives. Firstly, it was interesting to learn about the Amber Room itself, and also about life behind the Iron Curtain in the post-World War period. But equally, it's an intriguing story of investigation - red herrings, false trails, surprise discoveries - that reminded me in some ways of reading "All The President's Men" (otherwise a vastly different book).
Sometimes it loses pace - but I suppose that mirrors the experience that the journalists themselves had. Sometimes I also got confused with all the Russian names (particularly one central character who is referred to by different names at different times), but there is a handy "who's who" at the beginning of the book.
Is the mystery solved? Yes and no. While there are no definitive answers, the authors draw a convincing conclusion about what probably happened.
If you are interested in Russian history, or just want to know what it's like to be an investigative journalist, I recommend this book.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Does not sustain momentum...
By Cynthia K. Robertson
After reading a fictional account of Russia's famous Amber Room, I decided to read a nonfiction account of the search for this missing treasure in The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure by Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy. While The Amber Room started out to be a very promising and interesting book, the second half was a disappointment.
Scott-Clark and Levy provide us with a detailed history of the Amber Room, starting with the Prussians who created this work of art. King Frederick William I of Prussia had no interest in his father's creation, so gifted the Amber Room to the young tsar Peter the Great. Peter never reassembled the room in Russia, and it wasn't until his daughter Elizabeth became empress that she finally found a place for it. After shifting it around between palaces, it ended up in the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. During World War II, the Nazi's confiscated a large quantity of Russian art including The Amber Room. They installed it in Konigsberg Castle, where it remained until the Allies started bombing Konigsberg late in the war. When the Allies took control of Konigsberg, the Amber Room was gone. At first, it was thought destroyed by the bombing of Konigsberg Castle. But then clues were found that indicated that the room was packed up and evacuated as the Allies neared.
Scott-Clark and Levy are investigative reporters and they spent quite a bit of time in Russia and Germany looking up old documents, interviewing key characters and tracing leads. In both countries, secrets abound and official documents are hard to come by. Many who possess knowledge are reluctant to talk. Unfortunately, since the Russians, the Germans, the KGB, the Stasi (the German version of the KGB) , and independent individuals were all involved in the search for the Amber Room over a period of 50 years, the story gets very confusing at times. Also, the authors claim that their book "shows incontrovertibly what happened to the most valuable lost treasure in the world." This claim is totally false--it's just speculation.
I found the first half of The Amber Room extremely fascinating. I just wish that the authors could have sustained this momentum throughout.
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
Art History as Thriller
By RET
In the early 18th Century, Prussian ruler Frederick I presented Tsar Peter the Great with a truly unique treasure: meticulously carved amber (then worth twelve times its weight in gold) that had been expertly assembled into enough wall panels to decorate an entire room. The beauty and value of the amber aside, as a work of craftsmanship the Amber Room was remarkable: imagine trying to repeat the same feat entirely from a single type of gemstone! The panels were assembled and re-assembled by the Romanovs, eventually finding a home in the Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg. There it remained until the Nazis stole it at the opening of the siege of Leningrad in 1941. The Nazis "returned" their ill-gotten prize to its city of origin, Königsberg (now the military enclave of Kaliningrad). It is from Königsberg where the Amber Room disappeared at the end of the war.
This is where authors Levy and Scott-Clark ("The Stone of Heaven") begin their book, exploring the efforts of various German and Russian parties to determine the fate of Russia's greatest lost treasure. Taking the reader through the spadework of securing and reviewing archival materials from former Soviet and East German archives, the result is a highly entertaining work of non-fiction that thoroughly illuminates both the mystery of the Amber Room and the issues involving works of art stolen by various parties during the Second World War. The missing amber panels became something of a Cold War propaganda football, being pushed back and forth between the Soviets and the West (West Germany in particular). The result is that "The Amber Room" reads very much like the kind of non-fiction thriller that would involve Cold War espionage, except that instead of military secrets or mole hunting, the book is about missing art. It is filled with tales of betrayal, intrigue, cynical careerism, and bureaucratic stalling that are often absurd, but always frustrating.
Like a real thriller, Levy and Scott-Clark include a real twist in theirs. As it follows the various investigations, the book seems to be leading towards a particular explanation, but ultimately the authors turn the story back on itself and return to the first theory regarding mysterious fate of the Amber Room. While their theory cannot be proven yet, their thought-process provides a certain dramatic edge to this work where espionage meets art history.
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