The Amber Room: how it was created, how it was lost, and where it was searched for

For almost two hundred years, it stood in the palace of the tsars near St. Petersburg, dazzling guests with the glow of hundreds of candles reflected in amber. It was commissioned by the Prussian king, mostly crafted by Gdańsk masters, and presented to Tsar Peter I as a gift. In 1941, German soldiers dismantled it in 36 hours. It was last seen in Königsberg in 1945. Since then, the Amber Room has been searched for in Russia, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, and at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. No one has found it.

This guide tells the whole story: why and how it was created, who made it, what it looked like, how it was looted, what happened to it in Königsberg, and what theories exist about its fate. We also describe the most notable searches in Poland, including the 'golden train' from Wałbrzych, two original fragments that were found, and the reconstruction that can be seen today in Tsarskoye Selo.

The amber room, mirrors, and 550 candles

In its final form, in the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg, the Amber Room was a hall with a floor area of 96 m². The walls were divided into three zones. In the middle, there were eight large vertical panels, including four Florentine mosaics made of decorative stones depicting allegories of the five senses: sight, taste, hearing, and touch and smell on one panel. Museum-Reserve Tsarskoye Selo, Amber Room.

According to an article in the journal “Gems & Gemology” of the American Gemological Institute, twelve main panels covered 68.5 m², and the total wall area was about 216 m². The panels were separated by 18 pilasters with mirrors, and above the cornice ran a canvas 30 meters long, painted to imitate amber. The hall was illuminated by 550 candles, and the floor was made of 15 types of wood. Russell Shor, “Gems & Gemology” (GIA), 2018. The Smithsonian magazine called the Room the “eighth wonder of the world.” Smithsonian Magazine. The often-repeated valuation of 142 million dollars is an estimate without a stated method, so do not treat it as a fact.

The coronation of the Prussian king and the dispute over the designer

In 1701, the Brandenburg elector Frederick III crowned himself king in Prussia as Frederick I. According to GIA, he wanted to commemorate his reign with a room lined with amber that would overshadow the opulence of Versailles. Amber was more than just decoration in Prussia. The Brandenburg court had already commissioned large amber works as diplomatic gifts for foreign rulers in the 17th century, and the panels of the Room became the largest such gift. Large stocks of raw material, including very large blocks, were gathered in the warehouses of Gdańsk. GIA.

The panels were originally intended for the Lietzenburg Palace, the summer residence of Queen Sophie Charlotte, later Charlottenburg. The museum in Tsarskoye Selo believes that the idea may have originated with the queen herself. Then it was planned to place them in the palace in Oranienburg, but neither there nor in Charlottenburg were the panels ever installed. Tsarskoye Selo Museum (Russian version). According to Burkhardt Göres, director of the Prussian palaces, the finished walls were stored in the armory, and after 1713, they lined the hall of the famous “tobacco college” of King Frederick William I in Berlin Castle. IDW, announcement of Dr. Burkhardt Göres' lecture, 2003.

For years, the design was attributed to Andreas Schlüter, an architect and sculptor, the builder of Berlin Castle. So writes GIA. The museum in Tsarskoye Selo now believes that the project was designed by Johann Friedrich Eosander, the favorite architect of Sophie Charlotte. Göres reached the same conclusion by comparing archival sources and engravings. Tsarskoye Selo Museum, IDW, 2003. The dispute remains open.

The Danish master dismissed and the Gdańsk craftsmen who made 95% of the walls

In September 1701, master Gottfried Wolfram, a specialist in amber and ivory from the Danish court, was brought from Copenhagen. Tsarskoye Selo Museum. The work progressed slowly. According to GIA, after six years, about a quarter of the panels were ready. In 1706 or 1707, Wolfram fell into conflict with Eosander. GIA describes the dispute over payment: Eosander ordered the guards to remove the panels from Wolfram's workshop, and he fought for money for years and eventually fled to Copenhagen under the threat of arrest. GIA.

In 1707, the work was taken over by two Gdańsk masters: Gottfried Turau, the elder of the amber craftsmen's guild, and his partner Ernst Schacht. According to an inventory from 1713, they made most of the sculptures, 4 of the 12 pilasters, and most of the panels, about 95% of the walls. GIA. The Berlin Castle Reconstruction Foundation states that they completed the Room by the end of 1711, while the museum in Tsarskoye Selo mentions about six years of work. Berliner Schloss, Amber Room. According to the same foundation, the Room cost 30,000 thalers. Gdańsk had the first guild of amber craftsmen since 1477. GIA.

Panels 5 mm thick, bronze foil, and ivory pegs

GIA, based on the research of restorers, describes the technique used to make the panels. Oak boards were laid flat and covered with bronze foil secured with iron clamps. Wolfram noted that wood expands and contracts with changes in temperature and humidity, causing the amber to crack and fall off. The foil protected against this and simultaneously reflected light slightly, enhancing the color of the transparent amber. GIA.

Amber was cut with a saw into tiles about 5 mm thick and arranged in a mosaic. They were glued with a mixture of pine resin and beeswax. The glue had a low melting point, making it easy to replace a damaged tile. Sculpted elements were joined with tenons and secured to the panels with ivory pegs. The main panels were over 3.5 meters high, and amber sculptures of roses and tulips stood on the cornice. The Room also used three earlier amber and ivory mirror frames. There. The exact amount of amber used in the Berlin phase is unknown. The popular figure of “6 tons” is, according to GIA, an estimate for the modern reconstruction, not for the original.

Gift for Peter I and 55 grenadiers in return

In 1712 or 1713, Tsar Peter I saw the panels in Berlin and very much wanted to have them. Tsarskoye Selo Museum. After the death of Frederick I in 1713, his son Frederick William I, known as the “soldier king,” halted work and payments for the craftsmen. GIA. In November 1716, during the signing of the Russo-Prussian alliance, he gifted the Room to the tsar along with a yacht. Tsarskoye Selo Museum, Berliner Schloss.

The panels were packed into 18 crates, along with unused fragments and assembly instructions, and sent to St. Petersburg via Klaipeda and Riga. Tsarskoye Selo Museum. On July 2, 1717, Prince Alexander Menshikov viewed them and wrote that it was “a miracle the likes of which he had never seen in the world.” Tsarskoye Selo Museum (Russian version).

Frederick William I collected tall soldiers, so in 1718, Peter I reciprocated with 55 grenadiers and an ivory cup that he himself turned on a lathe. Tsarskoye Selo Museum. GIA provides a different number, 40 grenadiers, while the German portal Planet Wissen even mentions 248 “tall Russians.” The best-documented number is 55.

For years, it was unclear what to do with the Room. The museum admits that it is unknown whether the panels were even installed during Peter I's reign. According to GIA, for several years they stood leaning against the walls in the Summer Palace. GIA. Only in 1743 did Empress Elizabeth order them to be placed in the Winter Palace. Architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli added mirrored pilasters and panels painted to resemble amber, and by 1746 the hall was ready for official receptions. In 1745, the Prussian king Frederick II sent another amber frame. Tsarskoye Selo Museum.

Crates carried by hand and 69 years of work

In July 1755, Elizabeth instructed Rastrelli to arrange a new Amber Room in the Great Palace in Tsarskoye Selo. The panels were dismantled, and a special team manually carried the crates from the capital. Tsarskoye Selo Museum. GIA states that the route was about 24 km long. The new hall was much larger than the old one, so Rastrelli arranged the panels symmetrically, separated them with mirrored pilasters, and filled the missing spaces with gilded carvings and canvas painted to resemble amber by Ivan Belsky. GIA.

In the 1750s, four mosaics made of stones were created in Florence according to a design by Giuseppe Zocchi, which replaced earlier paintings in the Room. From 1758, the amber workshop in Tsarskoye Selo was headed by master Friedrich Roggenbuck from Prussia. In 1763, Catherine II ordered the painted canvases in the lower part of the walls to be replaced with real amber. The work lasted four years and consumed 450 kg of amber, and by 1770, according to the museum, the Room was completed. Tsarskoye Selo Museum. GIA states the year as 1780. Counting from 1701, the work on the Room lasted about 69 years.

Amber that cracked from candles and frost

Amber did not withstand the conditions in the palace well. According to GIA, the building was unheated and uninhabited in winter, causing the wood and glue to expand and contract, leading to tiles cracking and falling off. In summer, 550 candles heated the hall significantly. GIA. The Room was restored in 1833, 1865, and 1893–1897, and a major restoration was planned for 1941. Tsarskoye Selo Museum. A few color photographs of the original have survived, including autochromes taken in 1917 by Andrei Zeest. One of them shows a model of the equestrian statue of Frederick the Great in the middle of the hall. Autochrome by Andrei Zeest, 1917.

The looting in 1941 lasted 36 hours

The evacuation of the collections of the Catherine Palace began in the first days after the German attack on the USSR on June 22, 1941. However, the amber panels were so fragile that it was decided not to dismantle them. They were secured on-site: first with paper, then gauze, and finally with cotton and boards. Tsarskoye Selo Museum. According to Smithsonian, the attempt to remove the panels ended with the amber crumbling. Smithsonian Magazine.

In September 1941, the troops of the German Army Group “North” entered the palace. According to HistoryNet, soldiers destroyed the hall, and one of them pried off the entire mosaic as a souvenir. HistoryNet. “The Art Newspaper” reported in 1992 that the paneling was removed in 36 hours by seven soldiers from the 553rd supply battalion. The panels were packed into crates and transported by truck to the Siwierskaja station, from where they were sent by train to Königsberg on October 14, 1941. The operation was overseen by two officers responsible for “art protection” in the army: Count Ernst Otto zu Solms-Laubach from Frankfurt and Captain Dr. Georg Poensgen from Berlin. The Art Newspaper, 1992. Other sources attribute the oversight to SS formations or the staff of Alfred Rosenberg, who looted artworks in occupied territories. Sources also differ on the number of crates: 27 or 28.

The Room “returned to its homeland”: exhibition in the castle in Königsberg

On November 13, 1941, the Königsberg newspaper reported that the Room was already in the castle. It was assembled there by Dr. Alfred Rohde, the director of the Königsberg art collections and an amber expert. The hall in the castle was smaller than the original, so the long mirrors and some amber fillings were omitted. In spring 1942, the Room was opened to the public. In August 1942, Rohde wrote in the journal “Pantheon” that the Room had “returned to its homeland.” The Art Newspaper. The museum in Tsarskoye Selo quotes him when he called it the most beautiful decoration of Königsberg. Tsarskoye Selo Museum (Russian version). By then, one mosaic was already missing.

In March 1944, after a fire in the castle, the paneling was removed and packed into crates. By the end of August 1944, British aviation destroyed a large part of the castle and the city in air raids. The long mirrors and some lower panels, which had not been packed, burned during this time. However, on September 2, 1944, Rohde wrote that the Room had survived, “except for six base panels.” The Art Newspaper.

On January 12, 1945, Rohde noted something about the panels for the last time. According to GIA, he wrote about a plan to transport them to Wechselburg in Saxony. GIA. On January 14, he told his son that the Room had been moved to “a safe place.” The Art Newspaper. “The Art Newspaper” wrote in 1992: “No one has seen the Amber Room since March 1944.”

April 1945, the ruins of the castle, and Soviet investigations

Königsberg capitulated on April 9, 1945. According to a German building official, the entrances to the castle's cellars were then buried, and the southern wing was destroyed. The Art Newspaper. The castle burned during the fighting or shortly after.

In May 1945, Professor of Archaeology Alexander Briusov from the Historical Museum in Moscow was sent to Königsberg. From interrogations, he concluded that the Room had been destroyed during the capture of the city by the Red Army. The Moscow Times, 2004. In the ruins of the Knights' Hall, copper hinges and other elements were found, recognized as parts of the Room. Skeptoid. Alfred Rohde and his wife died in 1945 from typhus, according to some sources just before a planned interrogation by the Soviets. The Local, 2016.

In March 1946, curator Anatoly Kuchumov, the same one who secured the Room in Tsarskoye Selo in 1941, went to Königsberg. In the ruins of the castle, he found three of the four Florentine mosaics covered in ash, as the stone did not burn. History Hit, 2021. However, Kuchumov rejected Briusov's conclusion and believed that the Germans had taken the Room away. From 1967 to 1984, he led a Soviet expedition that searched for the Room in the Kaliningrad region. According to TASS, the searches yielded no results. TASS. The ruins of the castle were leveled in the late 1960s. HistoryNet.

Fire, Bunkers, Ships, and Mines: Theories About the Fate of the Amber Room

All the theories below are hypotheses. As of 2026, no searches have led to the discovery of the Amber Room.

Burned in Königsberg

The best-documented hypothesis was presented in 2004 by British journalists Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy in their book "The Amber Room." They believe the Room was burned in the castle in April 1945 during a fire caused by soldiers of the Red Army, and that Soviet authorities were aware of this and perpetuated the myth of the missing Room. The authors reviewed Russian archives, over 18,000 pages of Stasi documents, and spoke with over a hundred witnesses. AP via NBC News, 2004, The Moscow Times. Leonid Arinsztejn, a 19-year-old lieutenant in the Red Army in 1945, saw fragments of the amber panel in the Knights' Hall, and a few days later the castle was burning. However, he denied that the Russians set it on fire. The then Russian Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoy considered the book's thesis an attempt to rewrite history and discredit the Red Army. AP via NBC News.

Gauleiter Koch and His Changing Versions

Erich Koch, the Nazi governor of East Prussia, whom the court found responsible for the deaths of at least 72,000 Poles and over 200,000 Jews, was sentenced to death in 1959 in Warsaw. The sentence was not carried out. He died in 1986 in a prison in Barczewo. Dzieje.pl (PAP), the trial of Erich Koch. According to the IPN, Koch repeatedly suggested that he knew where the Room was hidden and proposed a trip to Königsberg to the Soviet side, but there is no information in the archives that this took place. Dzieje.pl (PAP), 2025. His versions changed: at one time it was a bunker on the outskirts of the city, at another time the cellars under the church in the Ponarth district, and then the ship Wilhelm Gustloff. "Wokrug svieta," text by Paul Enke.

At the Bottom of the Baltic Sea

From 1973 to 1975, Polish divers explored the wreck of the ship Wilhelm Gustloff and found no traces of the Room. "Wokrug svieta". In the fall of 2020, the Baltictech group discovered the wreck of the steamer Karlsruhe north of Ustka, which had set sail from Piława in April 1945 and was sunk by Soviet aviation. CBS News, 2020. Subsequent dives showed that the crates contained military equipment, porcelain, and personal belongings of passengers, but not the Room. Since November 2022, the wreck, like the Gustloff, has been a war grave subject to a diving ban. RMF24, 2022.

Hidden in Germany

In Germany, searches for the Room were conducted in over 130 locations. t-online, 2022. In the GDR, the Stasi searched for it: Colonel Dr. Paul Enke checked over 150 alleged hiding places. Wissen.de. An amateur from West Germany, Georg Stein, a gardener who previously helped find and return the treasury of the monastery in Pechory near Pskov to the Russians, searched for the Room for years. In August 1987, he was found dead in a forest in Bavaria. The police ruled it a suicide, but some media report it as murder. t-online, "Wokrug svieta". In 2008, the mayor of the Saxon municipality of Deutschneudorf announced the discovery of a chamber in the mountainside, which was said to contain gold. The director of the museum in Tsarskoye Selo commented: "We hear that someone has found the Amber Room three or four times a year." AP via NBC News, 2008.

Searches in Mamerki and Dziemiany

At the former headquarters of the German land forces in Mamerki near Węgorzewo, the head of the local museum, Bartłomiej Plebańczyk, commissioned ground-penetrating radar studies in 2016, which indicated a small room beneath one of the bunkers. A witness spoke of German trucks with crates. AP via Times of Israel, 2016. In July 2017, drillings under bunker number 31 found no empty space. Plebańczyk stated: "Now we know for sure that the Amber Room is not in bunker number 31." However, interest in the search increased the number of tourists by 30%. Dzieje.pl (PAP), 2017.

The latest searches are ongoing in Dziemiany in Kashubia. Jan Delingowski, a former radio officer of the merchant fleet, relies on the testimony of a former cellmate of Koch about truck convoys from Königsberg. In July 2025, the Pomeranian conservator of monuments agreed to the studies, and the AGH ground-penetrating radar showed a large anomaly. Prof. Sławomir Porzucek from AGH stated: "There is definitely something there, but is it the bunker we are looking for? No one knows." Notes from Poland, 2025. The first excavated anomaly turned out to be a drainage installation around the shelter. TVN24, 2025. In January 2026, a drill encountered concrete, tar, and metal at a depth of about 4 meters. So far, nothing has been found. RMF24, 2026.

The "Gold Train" from Wałbrzych: 99 Percent Certain and Neither Train Nor Tunnel

The most publicized treasure search in Poland in the 21st century concerned the "gold train." According to legend, in the last months of the war, an armored train with gold, valuables, and works of art left Wrocław, then Breslau, and never reached Wałbrzych. It was said to have disappeared in a tunnel near Książ Castle. Notes from Poland notes that there is no clear evidence that such a train ever existed. Notes from Poland, 2025.

Where the Legend Comes From: Testimony During Interrogation and a Retired Miner

Historian Tomasz Bonek describes in his book "Hitler's Lost Gold" that after the war, a former German policeman, Herbert Klose, arrested by the UB, invented a story during interrogations about the treasure being transported from Breslau to appear useful and avoid a sentence. According to Bonek, bank documents show that there simply was no gold in Wrocław during the war. The search for gold was personally approved as early as the 1980s by the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Czesław Kiszczak. Dzieje.pl about Tomasz Bonek's book.

The Wałbrzych version of the legend was maintained for decades by retired miner Tadeusz Słowikowski. He claimed that shortly after the war, a German told him about a siding leading under Książ Castle. For years he dug in the railway embankment and found nothing. RMF24, 2015. In 2015, he stated that he was "100 percent certain" that the train existed. AFP via Times of Israel, 2015.

August 2015: Finders Demand 10%, Deputy Minister is "over 99 percent" Sure

In August 2015, Pole Piotr Koper and German Andreas Richter reported to the authorities through a law firm that they had found the train near the 65th kilometer of the Wrocław–Wałbrzych railway line and demanded 10% of the value of the find. TVN24, 2015. On August 28, the Deputy Minister of Culture and General Conservator of Monuments, Piotr Żuchowski, stated that he was "over 99 percent" convinced that the train existed. He said he had seen an image from the ground-penetrating radar, and the location was provided by a person who "on their deathbed passed on information with a sketch." However, he cautioned that only reaching the train could provide unequivocal evidence. Dzieje.pl (PAP), August 28, 2015.

A frenzy erupted. Media from around the world reported on Wałbrzych, a part of the forest nearby burned, and the forestry department prohibited entry. RMF24, 2015. The voivode and the mayor of the city tried to calm emotions. The mayor of Wałbrzych, Roman Szełemej, said: "We only saw an imprecise, approximate map. The documents are illegible." There, someone even listed the "gold train" on Allegro, with the Amber Room in the description of the contents, and the auction exceeded 10 million PLN before the service removed it. Spider’s Web, 2015. By the end of September, the military and sapper units checked the area and found nothing dangerous. Dzieje.pl (PAP), 2015.

AGH Scientists: "Perhaps the Tunnel Exists, but the Train Does Not"

In November 2015, the area was independently examined by a team from AGH led by Prof. Janusz Madej and the finders' team. On December 15, Prof. Madej announced: "According to our research, perhaps the tunnel exists, but there is no train in this area." The finders insisted that they had detected a tunnel. Dzieje.pl (PAP), December 15, 2015. Even the operator of their ground-penetrating radar said: "There are some anomalies, there is something strange there, but I cannot say that it is a train." Radio Kraków, 2015.

August 2016: Excavations for 140,000 PLN

In August 2016, Koper and Richter began excavations at their own expense. Over 60 people worked, including sappers, geologists, and archaeologists. Bankier.pl (PAP), 2016. The layer of silt, which was initially associated with German fortifications, turned out to be glacial remains. Dzieje.pl (PAP), 2016. On August 24, the spokesperson for the searchers, Andrzej Gaik, announced: "There is no train, there is no tunnel." About 140,000 PLN was spent. Gaik added that "hope dies last." AP via CBS News, 2016. Interestingly, Gaik had previously dug in the same embankment years earlier with Słowikowski. AFP via Times of Israel.

The Train That Brought Tourists

Wałbrzych, a former mining town, gained from the legend. In August 2015, Książ Castle was visited by nearly 5,000 people in one weekend, compared to just over 2,000 the year before. Forsal, 2015. In 2016, ticket sales to Książ Castle increased by about 40%, and to the Old Mine by nearly 180%. RMF24, 2016. The city spokesperson said: "In my opinion, the gold train has already arrived in the city." IOL, 2016. Andreas Richter joked: "The train is still underground, but the city already has gold." NBC News, 2015.

New Searches with a Dowsing Rod

In 2025, a new group of searchers, "Gold Train 2025," announced that three wagons were standing in a buried tunnel. The location was indicated using dowsing, a method described by the media as pseudoscience. National Geographic Polska, 2025. In early 2026, the conservator of monuments agreed to soil testing. GeekWeek (Interia), 2026. As of November 2026, no findings have been confirmed.

Was the Amber Room in the Train?

The Amber Room appeared in this story from the very first days, but only as speculation. The media wrote that the train might have carried "perhaps even the Amber Room." RMF24, 2015. According to "The New Republic," the finders themselves suggested that the train might conceal the Room. The New Republic, 2015. Deputy Minister Żuchowski did not mention the Room. There is no document or trace that the Room was in the train, nor even evidence that the train itself existed. Note the common mistake: the film "The Gold Train" by Bohdan Poręba from 1986 does not concern Wałbrzych, but the evacuation of Polish gold in 1939. We write about this true story in the guide "Poland's Gold 1939".

Mosaic from Bremen and a Commode: Two Found Originals

In 1997, a retiree in Bremen attempted to sell a Florentine mosaic "Touch and Smell," one of four from the Amber Room, through a notary. He claimed he received it from his father, a German soldier from the Eastern Front. The authorities in Bremen confiscated the mosaic, and the notary was prosecuted for attempted fraud. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2000. Experts believe that the mosaic was taken by soldiers guarding the Room before it was removed, so its discovery says nothing about the fate of the rest. Wissen.de.

In April 2000, the mosaic returned to Tsarskoye Selo along with the second original found in Germany: a Russian commode with inlay from the late 18th century, which stood in the Room. Tsarskoye Selo Museum. In return, Russia returned 101 drawings taken from the city gallery after the war to Bremen. University of Geneva, ArThemis database. To this day, these are the only confirmed original elements of the Room's furnishings that have been found after the war.

Why Fragments Returned to Russia and Not to Poland

Readers often ask why the discovered mosaic went to Russia, given that the Room was mostly made by masters from Gdańsk. The answer is simple: the Room never belonged to Poland.

• Ownership: It was commissioned by the Prussian king, and in 1716 Prussia gifted it to the tsar. For over two hundred years, it was the property of the Russian state and stood in a palace near St. Petersburg.
• Place of Plunder: The Germans took it in 1941 from the territory of the USSR. According to the general principle of returning looted works of art, the item returns to the owner from whom it was taken, which means to Russia as the successor of the USSR.
• Creators Are Not Owners: The Gdańsk masters Turau and Schacht did their work on commission and for the money of the Prussian king. The nationality of the craftsmen does not make the work the property of their country.
• The Mosaic Itself is a Florentine work based on the design of an Italian artist, added to the Room in Russia. It has no connection to Gdańsk.

Reconstruction That Took Longer Than the Construction of the Original in Berlin

In July 1979, the authorities of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic decided to recreate the Room. Work based on the design of architect Alexander Kiedrinski began in 1983. In 1994, the first lower amber panels were installed, and in 1996 the first recreated Florentine mosaic, "Sight." Tsarskoye Selo Museum. According to HistoryNet, the team initially consisted of only five people. HistoryNet.

About 6 tons of amber from the Kaliningrad region were used. State funds ran out, and the German gas company Ruhrgas contributed 3.5 million dollars. The total cost is reported differently, ranging from 8 to 11.5 million dollars. TASS, The Seattle Times (via Washington Post), 2003. The reconstructed Room was opened on May 31, 2003, by Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg. Putin stated that this masterpiece had become "a symbol of new relations in the united family of our great Europe." There, the reconstruction lasted 24 years, longer than the work on the original in Berlin.

The "Curse" of the Amber Room is a Media Myth

The popular press often mentions the "curse of the Amber Room," which was said to kill treasure seekers. Usually, Alfred Rohde, who died with his wife of typhus in 1945, Georg Stein, found dead in 1987, and a Russian intelligence officer who allegedly died in a car accident in 1992 are mentioned. The Local, 2016. No credible source documents a connection between these deaths and the searches. The story of the intelligence officer is known only from popular press, and we have not been able to confirm his identity or the circumstances of his death.

Myths about the Amber Room

What We Don't Know for Sure

• Who designed the room: Andreas Schlüter or Johann Friedrich Eosander.
• How much amber was in the original and how many crates the Germans took away in 1941 (27 or 28).
• Where exactly the crates were located in Königsberg between 1944 and 1945. Sources indicate the ground floor of the southern wing, the basement, or the Knights' Hall.
• The intended destination for the planned evacuation in 1945: GIA mentions Wechselburg in Saxony, but we did not find this in other sources.
• What really happened in April 1945. The hypothesis about a fire in the castle is the best documented, but nothing can be verified anymore, as the castle ruins were demolished.