Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is
Speaker 1: Stuff you should know, a history mystery type episode. But
Speaker 1: that's not copyright infringement. Where did you hear about this?
Speaker 1: Because this was your selection that Dave helped us out with.
Speaker 1: And I had never heard of this and it's great, Actually, Chuck,
Speaker 1: it was a listener request from not too long ago,
Speaker 1: from the beginning of January. A listener, longtime listener, she says,
Speaker 1: name Laura Pietro Maca Pietroica, one of those two. She
Speaker 1: wrote in and suggested it, and I'd heard of it before,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know virtually anything about it. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: we won't ruin any of the deeds, but we will
Speaker 1: just broadly say that the Amber room was called the
Speaker 1: eighth Wonder of the World at one point, and it
Speaker 1: was a h a masterpiece of Baroque art made from
Speaker 1: amber and and panels on a on a wall. So
Speaker 1: it was a room made of these beautiful, beautifully crafted
Speaker 1: amber walls, amber and wood. And there's a mystery and
Speaker 1: that it uh, it kind of disappeared and that no
Speaker 1: one knows where it ended up for sure. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: actually considered one of the great mysteries of World War Two. Uh.
Speaker 1: We also want to thank um Dave relied on the
Speaker 1: work of Adrian Levy or Levy and Catherine Scott Clark,
Speaker 1: investigative journalists for The Guardian, who also wrote a book
Speaker 1: called The Amber Room. You know it's coming colon the
Speaker 1: fate of the World's greatest Lost treasure. Uh, so big
Speaker 1: thanks to Dave and for their work. But we should
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about Amber because it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: We we could probably do a short stuff to pair
Speaker 1: it with this, but we won't, right, And if your
Speaker 1: name's Amber, you're gonna of this episode because we talked
Speaker 1: about how great Amber is the whole time. So just
Speaker 1: pretend we're talking about too, That's right. If anyone has
Speaker 1: seen Jurassic Park, you know that dan O d na
Speaker 1: uh was found um stuck in Amber and through that
Speaker 1: little short film that Steven Spielberg saw fit to make
Speaker 1: to help explain it, which I think at the time
Speaker 1: was probably necessary. Uh. Most of us know a little bit,
Speaker 1: and that is that Amber is fossilized pine resin from
Speaker 1: the pine tree. Yeah. Um. And there's the world's biggest
Speaker 1: deposit of amber. Uh is in the Baltic area northern Europe, Um,
Speaker 1: southern Scandinavia, which is still Europe, but you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And by the way, Germany UM is on
Speaker 1: the Baltic Sea. It's not landlocked so um. But it
Speaker 1: all comes from pine resin. When a bug would like
Speaker 1: chew into a pine tree, the pine would secrete this
Speaker 1: kind of res any stuff to to not only like
Speaker 1: get rid of the bug, um, it would also kind
Speaker 1: of create a seal over that that part of the
Speaker 1: tree that had just been exposed um after the bark
Speaker 1: was chewed off, and that a band aid exactly, It's
Speaker 1: a tree made band aid. And that resin would sometimes
Speaker 1: harden enough that it would fall off of the tree
Speaker 1: or maybe the tree would fall over, and the resin
Speaker 1: would survive um enough to make it into like a stream,
Speaker 1: a river or something like that. And if it made
Speaker 1: it all the way to the ocean and was covered
Speaker 1: with sediment in time before it degraded, it would the
Speaker 1: process of it becoming amber, which is fossilized tree resin
Speaker 1: would begin, that's right, Uh. And then eventually also saw
Speaker 1: it could be in like wet clay and stuff like
Speaker 1: that and still kind of have the same effect. But
Speaker 1: it seems like the bulk of amber comes from deep,
Speaker 1: deep in the ocean, and it would get dislodged by
Speaker 1: weather in the movement of water and and float. Amber
Speaker 1: actually floats, so it's sort of stuck down there, but
Speaker 1: then it becomes dislodged, it floats to the top. A
Speaker 1: big storm will come through and it just would literally
Speaker 1: wash onto the shore. Wherever it was an abundance in
Speaker 1: the Baltic Sea is certainly one of those places. And
Speaker 1: it was extremely valuable. I think it was, I mean,
Speaker 1: how many times more valuable than gold at the time
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the eighteenth century it was twelve
Speaker 1: times more valuable than gold in in Europe. That's amazing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is one reason why this making an entire room
Speaker 1: paneled in amber was so incredibly opulent. UM. And when
Speaker 1: you polish it, it's also very beautiful. UM. There's um.
Speaker 1: It comes in all sorts of different shades, from like
Speaker 1: kind of a light honey color to um, you know,
Speaker 1: a watery slurry of brown sugar color. I guess molasses
Speaker 1: colored yeah, um, and uh, you make yourself a slur
Speaker 1: of brown sugar wants chuck and take a sip and
Speaker 1: you'll be like, brown sugar, how come you taste so good?
Speaker 1: It is delicious? So the whole idea of paneling an
Speaker 1: entire room in amber could only come from the fever racked,
Speaker 1: greedy mind of a king. And exactly what happened with
Speaker 1: the amber room. There was a king of Prussia. Uh,
Speaker 1: and his name was Frederick the First who came up
Speaker 1: with this idea. That's right. In seventeen and one he
Speaker 1: was crowned the King of Prussia and said, boy, I
Speaker 1: would really love to do something splashy here too, uh
Speaker 1: to make my mark, you know. And he said, how
Speaker 1: about a room lined with this Baltic amber. I don't
Speaker 1: think we mentioned that one of and this will come
Speaker 1: up later. One of the main centers for amber production
Speaker 1: was Karnitz Kernigsberg. Another was Danzig, but Kernigsberg and they're
Speaker 1: both on the Baltic Sea. And so he's like, let's
Speaker 1: let's do this thing. We got all this amber, A
Speaker 1: room full of it lined with it would be pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: And uh so they they said, let's do this in
Speaker 1: the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin. Berlin was part of Prusch
Speaker 1: at the time. And let's pick out a couple of
Speaker 1: folks to get this going. And I'll go with Andreas
Speaker 1: uh Schluter. Yeah, that's right with the uom lout did
Speaker 1: you roll your the R and turn it into an
Speaker 1: L though Schluter No, in Andreas Andreas did I I
Speaker 1: may I may have added flair. Uh Schlucha was a
Speaker 1: Baroque sculptor. He's an architect. He I looked up his
Speaker 1: works and um did a lot of stuff, so it's
Speaker 1: about very well regarded. Uh. And then a carver name
Speaker 1: Gottfried wolf From was who did the work. And these
Speaker 1: guys were like as about elite as you could find
Speaker 1: um in carving amber designing something like an amber room.
Speaker 1: Gottfried wolf From was recommended directly by the King of
Speaker 1: Denmark to Frederick the First, the King of Prussia, so
Speaker 1: became very highly accredited, right. And Schlewter, like you said,
Speaker 1: he had a bunch of stuff under his his belt,
Speaker 1: but he was really good at designing, not just entire
Speaker 1: buildings or whatever, UM, but in like really intricate detailed
Speaker 1: work as well. And so that's what he got to
Speaker 1: work doing, was creating this Baroque room. And Baroque is
Speaker 1: a really um. As Dave puts it, Baroque equals busy.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of ornamentation, there's a lot of designs,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of shiny stuff. The way I would
Speaker 1: put it is that Baroque is maximum maximalist to the
Speaker 1: max essentially. Yeah, if you if you check out photos
Speaker 1: of uh, well, I was about to say the original
Speaker 1: amber room, but as we will learn, there has been
Speaker 1: a recreation and it looks like it. So you could
Speaker 1: look at that one if you want to. Oh dude,
Speaker 1: but it's um, it's it's amazing. It's um. There are
Speaker 1: mirrors and candles and these framed panels with little figurines
Speaker 1: carved into it, and little angels and nymphs and horses,
Speaker 1: and it's just the most intricate um grouping of like
Speaker 1: carvings and inlays, like tiny stuff that you need a
Speaker 1: magnifying glass to see. It's really really incredible. Right. So
Speaker 1: Schlewter was the one who designed the room and said
Speaker 1: more nymphs, more angels, you know, um. But Gottfried Wolfram
Speaker 1: was the one who actually made this happen. Who made
Speaker 1: this vision happen? And he was like, Okay, how are
Speaker 1: we going to make entire an entire room out of amber?
Speaker 1: And he came up with a paneling method, a mosaic method,
Speaker 1: where he would take a panel of wood. Uh in
Speaker 1: this case, I believe the original were all oak, of course,
Speaker 1: and these were huge, like like many meters wide, many
Speaker 1: meters tall um and in in imperial that's many feet
Speaker 1: and wide and men feet tall um oak panels, and
Speaker 1: then they would put like I believe, a bronze foil
Speaker 1: between the panel and the um amber. And then they
Speaker 1: would um take pieces of amber, cut them, slice them
Speaker 1: in in like five millimeter thick slices, and add them
Speaker 1: like just stick them together, almost like a jigsaw puzzle,
Speaker 1: but really a mosaic of different amber. And remember amber
Speaker 1: comes in different shades and colors, so each panel had
Speaker 1: like just this riot of different shades of amber. But
Speaker 1: they were also done by artists who knew what they
Speaker 1: were doing with amber and impairing different shades of amber.
Speaker 1: So the whole overall effect was incredibly pleasing. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: that bronze foil, it had a couple of uses. One
Speaker 1: is it helped protect it. That would it was a
Speaker 1: moisture barrier between the wood and the amber and its
Speaker 1: bronze foil. So if it's lined with that and then
Speaker 1: the stuff is put onto it, the most tiny minuscule
Speaker 1: little gaps and little things are gonna have bronze foil
Speaker 1: behind it. So it's just gonna make everything pop. Right.
Speaker 1: They also used UM. They came up with a special
Speaker 1: kind of adhesive just to make this room, just to
Speaker 1: adhere the um the amber to the foil. Right. I
Speaker 1: think I saw ship culk and bees wax and a
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff they tried. Um would not work
Speaker 1: because it would either like turn a certain color and
Speaker 1: like ruin the whole effect. So they came up with
Speaker 1: a special adhesive for it too. Right, So you can
Speaker 1: imagine this like really took a very long time to do. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's very slow. Uh, and you know any project like
Speaker 1: this is going to be slow, much less one this intricate.
Speaker 1: And in this time that it was being done, Um,
Speaker 1: both of these guys got fired. I think schleuder Um
Speaker 1: just sort of uh, it sounds like he just sort
Speaker 1: of fell out of um favor with the royal family.
Speaker 1: And then Oh, yeah he did. He was an architect,
Speaker 1: but apparently it wasn't a great architect and he designed
Speaker 1: a water tow were for the Prussian royal family that collapsed,
Speaker 1: and so he lived in disgrace on the court for
Speaker 1: a few years. Tell that to Frank Lloyd right, moved
Speaker 1: the desk. That was his quote. Uh, Wolform was fired
Speaker 1: as well. You know why he was fired. I don't
Speaker 1: know why he was fired, but I do know that
Speaker 1: he was barred from his workshop for life. They came
Speaker 1: in and said, you're not allowed to work here anymore,
Speaker 1: and they stiffed him. Really all right, I read that
Speaker 1: he was just scrumpy and they hated his guts. Is
Speaker 1: that right? I'm just kidding. So basically, the two people
Speaker 1: that were leading this project, designer and builder, both got fired.
Speaker 1: And then King Frederick died about twelve this years after
Speaker 1: it was commissioned. So along comes Frederick William, the first
Speaker 1: UH to succeed the first Frederick, and said, this thing
Speaker 1: is stupid, it's ridiculous. I don't want to I don't
Speaker 1: want it, like, but it's beautiful and they've been working hard.
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't want to see this thing. Pack
Speaker 1: it up, get it out of here and take it
Speaker 1: to Berlin. And that's what they did until Uh, well,
Speaker 1: i'll tell you what. Let's take a break. And I
Speaker 1: just said until and that's a great cliffhanger. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: an ellipse. So we'll get to that writer for this alright, Chuck,
Speaker 1: there was an ellipse that we ended on. You said
Speaker 1: until until what until Czar Peter the First of Russia
Speaker 1: comes for a visit. This was in seventeen sixteen, I guess,
Speaker 1: three years or so after the amber panels mid project
Speaker 1: were statued away in Berlin, and was really into this thing.
Speaker 1: And he's like, I really like these this amber room idea,
Speaker 1: and I think I could make use of it. So
Speaker 1: Frederick Williams said, sure, you can have it. Give me
Speaker 1: forty of your grenadiers or grenadiers. I looked these guys up.
Speaker 1: It's it's exactly what you think. It's people that were
Speaker 1: the best at throwing hand grenades. And also I think
Speaker 1: just generally some of your top largest, strongest soldiers. But
Speaker 1: I mean these are like not just hand grenades. These
Speaker 1: are early seventeen hundreds hand grenades. So I can't think
Speaker 1: of too many more dangerous jobs in the army at
Speaker 1: the time than that probably, you know. So he took
Speaker 1: forty of those in exchange for the amber panels. It
Speaker 1: took about half year to ship them over there to St. Petersburg,
Speaker 1: and then they unboxed these things. And this is where
Speaker 1: it gets very frustrating and and non creative, because they
Speaker 1: of course found that these were built for a certain
Speaker 1: sized room, so they didn't necessarily automatically just fit in
Speaker 1: one of these palace rooms. So instead of trying to
Speaker 1: work with it and saying, maybe you should just put
Speaker 1: some additional paneling around, or we can fit it in somehow,
Speaker 1: he just said, I guess they can't be used here, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just packed him up into storage. This is the
Speaker 1: guy who got them out of storage, took them to Russia,
Speaker 1: took six months to ship them, finds that they don't
Speaker 1: fit the room, like he just didn't think at all,
Speaker 1: and then pack them up for another twenty five years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like not buying a house because you don't like
Speaker 1: the ceiling fan in the bedroom. But that no, that's
Speaker 1: like buying the house and just leaving it abandoned because
Speaker 1: of the ceiling fan. You're right, So he had a daughter,
Speaker 1: luckily named Empress Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was like, I really
Speaker 1: like this idea. I'm gonna make it work. She was
Speaker 1: a real go getter as far as Russian royalty went,
Speaker 1: big time, and she hired UM an Italian sculptor named
Speaker 1: Alexander Martelli, because at first, when she decided to to
Speaker 1: build the amber room out in her palace, she found
Speaker 1: that there was no one locally who had anywhere near
Speaker 1: the skills needed to complete this. So she searched far
Speaker 1: and wide for somebody with enough amber work experience UM
Speaker 1: to do this in Alexander Martelli was the guy, and
Speaker 1: he actually finished creating this in seventy and his story
Speaker 1: would have ended there. But Elizabeth was like, I actually
Speaker 1: wanted to try a different I want to move this
Speaker 1: to a different room man. And Martelli was like what,
Speaker 1: and she said, yes, we're gonna move it over here.
Speaker 1: So Martelli ended up staying on board for more decades
Speaker 1: more from what I can tell, like recreating this room.
Speaker 1: And every time that it was recreated, Elizabeth will would
Speaker 1: be like more more nymphs, more angels, more candelabras, stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and so Martelli had a lifetime of work
Speaker 1: basically moving the amber room around the um Winter Palace
Speaker 1: for for Empress Elizabeth. Yeah, and continually building it out.
Speaker 1: I think in the Catherine Palace it was named after
Speaker 1: her mom um it was the place where it ended
Speaker 1: up was three times the size of that original room
Speaker 1: in Prussia. So not only are they having to keep
Speaker 1: rebuilding and adding to this thing, but they need more
Speaker 1: and more amber. I think they needed an additional six
Speaker 1: tons of amber. And a part of me wondered if
Speaker 1: it was just like I don't know, if this was
Speaker 1: if she really enjoyed the act of designing and and
Speaker 1: doing like house stuff, or if it was like an
Speaker 1: obsession to get it just right, or if it was
Speaker 1: like my dad said, it couldn't even be done, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it in every room in the house.
Speaker 1: I don't know that there's a weird obsessive quality to
Speaker 1: moving it so many times, and it does kind of
Speaker 1: smack of the Winchester Mystery House a little bit, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, good point one other thing. Okay, So Elizabeth, Um,
Speaker 1: I guess she never actually finished it. Um she had
Speaker 1: her niece or her niece stepped up, Katherine the Second
Speaker 1: or Katherine the Great who who said? Um? Who said
Speaker 1: I'm gonna actually finish this in the the Katherine Palace
Speaker 1: after I guess her grandmother? Um, and that's where it
Speaker 1: ended up. No, Katherine, would that have been Katherine the
Speaker 1: second grandmother? I think it would have been her great aunt,
Speaker 1: right if this was Elizabeth's niece. Okay, you're right, sorry
Speaker 1: about that. So, um, No, it could have still been
Speaker 1: her her grandmother. It could have been Elizabeth, could have
Speaker 1: been Katherine's parents like niece too, and they would have
Speaker 1: shared the same grandmother, just a generation apart. I will
Speaker 1: say this. I am the last person to comment on
Speaker 1: this because I am. I get so confused when it
Speaker 1: comes to lineage, so don't listen to me at all. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're just gonna say that they shared the same grandmother. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's get her on the horn. A Michelle, how how
Speaker 1: are they related? She'd be like the second cousins twice removed,
Speaker 1: like she can figure that stuff out. It just astounds me.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a great answer to second Cousins twice removed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's got everything you need in there. I think so.
Speaker 1: But Catherine the Great was the one that finished the
Speaker 1: whole thing right in seventeen eighty, after almost eighty years
Speaker 1: after the whole thing was was conceived of, that's right,
Speaker 1: and finished it um with her own flourish, which was,
Speaker 1: I want four stone mosaics depicting the senses. We'll have
Speaker 1: one for sight, one for taste, one for hearing, and
Speaker 1: one for touch and smell. It's kind of like you
Speaker 1: know those signs, handwritten signs, where like the letters get
Speaker 1: kind of bunched up at the end because they started
Speaker 1: with not enough room. That's how touch and smell ended
Speaker 1: up on the same mosaic, like every sign made by
Speaker 1: an elementary school student. Basically. Yeah, and also stone threw
Speaker 1: me off initially until I went and looked this up
Speaker 1: stone meaning colored marble. Did you see those mosaics? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it was amazing. They are amazing. It looks like a
Speaker 1: painting um. But no, it's a mosaic made from different
Speaker 1: colored stones. And she had four of these mates. So
Speaker 1: it was like the amber room was already over the top,
Speaker 1: and then every single time Elizabeth moved it it got
Speaker 1: more and more over the top. And then Catherine the
Speaker 1: Great was like, here's the finishing touch. These four stone
Speaker 1: mosaics that's right, and I'll hire a Florentine artists named
Speaker 1: Giuseppe Zoki to finish this thing. I think it was
Speaker 1: finally finally done in seventeen eighty years after it was
Speaker 1: originally commissioned in Prussia. And uh, I mean it's amazing.
Speaker 1: You gotta go look at pictures. They had um and
Speaker 1: fifty wall mounted candles in the amber room. So you've
Speaker 1: got this warm candlelight glowing around this already warm because
Speaker 1: you know amberuss is that very warm, like you said,
Speaker 1: sort of plenty hued color, and then that bronze foil
Speaker 1: like it's just it looks like just this glowing tanned
Speaker 1: uh Man sterpiece. It was really really pretty. The other
Speaker 1: thing about it, too, Chuck, is like that was when
Speaker 1: you entered the room and we're maybe standing in the
Speaker 1: middle of the room, we're just surrounded by the warmth.
Speaker 1: If you walked up to any wall, um, you would
Speaker 1: just be blown away by the detail of the what
Speaker 1: was what turned out to be a mosaic. It was
Speaker 1: almost like an Impressionist painting where from afar it's this
Speaker 1: seamless hole almost and then as you get closer you
Speaker 1: realize it's just a bunch of smudges, smudge paint like
Speaker 1: paint smudges essentially, and that was the same way with
Speaker 1: the Amber room. It was this cohesive hole and then
Speaker 1: as you got closer you saw it was all different
Speaker 1: mosaics of of amber um. And again it's really hard
Speaker 1: to get across what what price you could have put
Speaker 1: on this room. It was the definition of priceless just
Speaker 1: from the sheer amount of like tons of amber that
Speaker 1: went into creating this room and how expensive amber was
Speaker 1: at the time. But then also like the craftsmanship, the intricacy,
Speaker 1: the the uniqueness of it. There was nothing like it
Speaker 1: in the entire world. And it sat tucked in um
Speaker 1: the Amber room room at the Summer Palace, the Catherine
Speaker 1: Palace for a good almost two centuries. Even after the
Speaker 1: Russian Revolution of nineteen seventeen, the Bolsheviks were like, we're
Speaker 1: leaving this alone, like this is there's nothing that's a
Speaker 1: greater symbol of the decadence of the monarchs that we
Speaker 1: are overthrowing in the amber room. But it's so amazing,
Speaker 1: we're just going to turn it into a museum. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh so you know who decided to mess with this,
Speaker 1: the Nazis. Uh in nineteen seventeen, after the Russian Revolution,
Speaker 1: it was turned into a museum. Catherine Palace was in
Speaker 1: the Amber room was obviously a key part of that museum.
Speaker 1: And in Hitler uh launched Operation barb Barbara sorry, Barbara Rossa. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: When um, they invaded the Soviet Union, and everyone knew
Speaker 1: like Hitler likes art, and he likes to steal art.
Speaker 1: He used to fancy himself a painter even, and he
Speaker 1: likes to to pillage, especially stuff that he thinks were
Speaker 1: originally German. Um, he thinks he wants back and like
Speaker 1: we said, this was born in Berlin, in Prussian Berlin,
Speaker 1: so he thought he had a claim to this thing.
Speaker 1: And as this invasion of the Soviet Union is going on,
Speaker 1: they're packing away, you know, because his reputation preceded himself.
Speaker 1: They're packing away art. They're trying to get you know,
Speaker 1: get rid of everything. They can take it to Siberia
Speaker 1: and sort of put it in a you know, a warehouse. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: they knew that the Amber room. It was like, this
Speaker 1: is something he's definitely coming for, so let's let's remove
Speaker 1: these panels. And they tried to and apparently the amber
Speaker 1: was brittle and it and it shattered, and they said, well,
Speaker 1: we can't do anything, so let's just cover it up
Speaker 1: with like, you know, tapestries and stuff and maybe they
Speaker 1: won't notice it. Yeah. And apparently it took the Nazis
Speaker 1: about two hours to find it um once they entered
Speaker 1: the Catherine Palace and occupied it. Um. And when that,
Speaker 1: when word got out there, they packed it up within
Speaker 1: thirty six hours. Um. Yeah, successfully packed it up in
Speaker 1: twenty seven crates and they put him on a train
Speaker 1: to Krunigsberg Um, which was the Amber capital on the
Speaker 1: Baltic Sea, formerly of Prussia now of Germany of the
Speaker 1: German Empire. I guess um. And it was actually reassembled
Speaker 1: and displayed in the Kernigsberg Castle, which is like a
Speaker 1: straight up castle from the thirteenth century along the Baltic
Speaker 1: That was just an amazing beautiful castle. And we know
Speaker 1: that that actually happened, so we could we can trace
Speaker 1: the Amber Room to Koenigsberg Castle. It made it from
Speaker 1: Russia to Kernigsburg because there were newspaper announcements telling of
Speaker 1: how this um it was being reassembled and would be
Speaker 1: open for displayed to the German public. Yeah. And that
Speaker 1: was it. I mean, it wasn't some temporary staging ground
Speaker 1: there like here's where it's gonna live and uh, like
Speaker 1: you should have seen this move this thing. I don't
Speaker 1: know why they couldn't do it, because we did it
Speaker 1: pretty easily. But it's stay and put until July when
Speaker 1: the Royal Air Force the r a F came in
Speaker 1: with a pretty drastic bombing campaign on Kernigsberg, including the castle. Um.
Speaker 1: Although it didn't like destroy the castle, it was damaged
Speaker 1: pretty badly. Um, but it seems like the well, we
Speaker 1: don't know. The big question is did the Amber Room
Speaker 1: survived that bombing. And there's a bunch of different leads
Speaker 1: that kind of guide us down a particular road that
Speaker 1: says it it probably did. Um. One of which was
Speaker 1: a gentleman named Alfred Road, who was an art historian
Speaker 1: in Germany and the director of the Kernigsberg sol Museum
Speaker 1: for the Nazis. And he said, and this is after
Speaker 1: the war, but he said, under interrogation by the Russians that, um,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of art in there that was
Speaker 1: looted from Russia. The Amber Room was in there. I
Speaker 1: personally oversaw its installation. So he said it was definitely
Speaker 1: in there, but he said four weeks before that bombing,
Speaker 1: he said that they evacuated it to a safer place. Right,
Speaker 1: So the bombing happened the Amber Room. According to Rhode,
Speaker 1: who was the guy who literally was in charge of
Speaker 1: installing the Amber Room and Kurnicksburg Castle, UM had it
Speaker 1: removed and then afterward brought it back to Kurnicksburg Castle.
Speaker 1: I don't know where they stashed it. That would be
Speaker 1: a really great question to answer, like in the interim, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, UM, but it was back at Kurnicksburg
Speaker 1: Castle after the bombing raid. UM it was locked in
Speaker 1: a tower and you would think, okay, well it was
Speaker 1: safe them because after UM, the Soviet army ground their
Speaker 1: way into East Prussia, which included Kernigsberg during a three
Speaker 1: month campaign that UM where Germany saw fifty thousand soldiers
Speaker 1: die and just East East Prussia alone. UM. The Soviets
Speaker 1: took the city on April nine, and photos that were
Speaker 1: taken shortly after the surrender show the castle is still standing.
Speaker 1: It's still intact. The problem is a month later, May
Speaker 1: ninety five, when the KGB sent specialists to go look
Speaker 1: for looted Russian art. Um. They were specifically looking for
Speaker 1: the amber room and found that the castle was ruined.
Speaker 1: It was scorch it had been burned to the ground,
Speaker 1: probably by Russian troops. So this is I mean, this
Speaker 1: is kind of where they ended up as far as
Speaker 1: not knowing where this thing ended up. I mean, the
Speaker 1: official line I guess was that, well, no, it's you know,
Speaker 1: we found some charred remains of bits and pieces of
Speaker 1: this thing. I think they found fragments from three of
Speaker 1: the four stone mosaics by Zoki that Katherine the Great commission.
Speaker 1: And so the official line is like this this thing
Speaker 1: burned along with the rest of Kernigsburg Castle in a
Speaker 1: and that's you know, it's it's it's nowhere anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And that, um, very tellingly is where Catherine's got Clark
Speaker 1: and Adrian Levy ended up. And remember they wrote this
Speaker 1: really exhaustive book in their investigative reporters. So if they're saying, yes,
Speaker 1: it probably burned up in the castle, then it probably
Speaker 1: burned up in the castle. Uh, And that would mean
Speaker 1: cases closed. Right. But but this is, like I said,
Speaker 1: one of the great unsolved mysteries of World War two,
Speaker 1: which means there are a lot of other competing theories
Speaker 1: out there based on the idea that, no, it wasn't
Speaker 1: in the castle at the time of the Russian troops
Speaker 1: burned the castle to the ground, Right, And I guess
Speaker 1: we should take our last break. Yeah, and we'll touch
Speaker 1: on those theories when we get back, right. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: there's a few things that people say, this doesn't smell right,
Speaker 1: the idea that the amber room was in the castle
Speaker 1: and was burned up. Um. On the one handsome people
Speaker 1: point out and there are people who are like dedicated
Speaker 1: to this mystery is just like any mystery on the internet,
Speaker 1: but they have been since long before the internet. Um.
Speaker 1: Some people point out that the KGB apparently didn't think
Speaker 1: it was destroyed in the castle because they kept searching
Speaker 1: for it for decades more. It's a pretty good argument.
Speaker 1: Another person points out that they would be um, there
Speaker 1: would have been a really remarkable smell of literal tons
Speaker 1: of amber burning um insense like amber burning all at
Speaker 1: once when Kurnigsburg Castle was was lit on fire. It's
Speaker 1: not quite as strong as the KGB argument, but it
Speaker 1: makes sense too. Then, on the other hand, you have
Speaker 1: friends of Rhodes who are saying no, this guy I was.
Speaker 1: I was a friend of Rhodes and he showed me
Speaker 1: a big charred lump of amber in the castle after
Speaker 1: it was destroyed. So you have people from both sides
Speaker 1: without any real evidence, conjecturing um that it was or
Speaker 1: it wasn't destroyed in the castle. The ones that are
Speaker 1: the more interesting, I think are the ones that say Nope,
Speaker 1: it wasn't in there, right um. I mentioned that they
Speaker 1: found pieces, charred pieces of three of those four stone
Speaker 1: mosaics uh. In the late nineties there was a tip
Speaker 1: to the German authorities that there was an art dealer
Speaker 1: trying to sell that fourth, like fully intact fourth mosaic UH,
Speaker 1: and that they that led to a dude named Rudy
Speaker 1: Vorst who was the son of an s S officer
Speaker 1: that was assigned to transport the amber room by train
Speaker 1: to Kernigsberg from Russia. So I mean, that's how did
Speaker 1: that pan out? I mean that sounds pretty first and
Speaker 1: to me it does. Did he just have the one panel?
Speaker 1: And that doesn't prove because this is when it was
Speaker 1: on the way to Karnigsberg. No, it doesn't prove that
Speaker 1: the amber room as a whole wouldn't have made it
Speaker 1: to Kernigsberg. It could have everything else could just be
Speaker 1: propaganda or lies or something like that. Um. But I
Speaker 1: think the ultimate thing is it's more like, um like,
Speaker 1: it's it was possible that this stuff could have survived,
Speaker 1: and this is a good example of how it could
Speaker 1: have survived, like some ss Nazi scumbag looting the loot. Basically, Well,
Speaker 1: wouldn't that one still be out there? Though? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: believe it is out there as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll touch on where it is, um towards the end. Oh,
Speaker 1: is that fourth panel a part of the thing that
Speaker 1: I want mentioned? Yeah? I don't think I saw that part.
Speaker 1: Okay that that that clears up a lot for me.
Speaker 1: All Right, great, well, let's talk about some of these theories. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's one called the Wilhelm gust Loft theory. This was
Speaker 1: a ocean liner from Germany, um, and it was bombed
Speaker 1: and sunk in the Baltic Sea in July. I'm sorry, Januar,
Speaker 1: not only that, chuck. It was bombed and sunk with
Speaker 1: eleven thousand people on board. Yeah, wounded Germans, killed people.
Speaker 1: Apparently it's the largest maritime disaster in the history of
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, I mean, would you call that a
Speaker 1: maritime disaster? An intentional act of war sinking? Somebody did.
Speaker 1: I didn't make it. I wasn't saying it's not a disaster,
Speaker 1: but I can like an accidental sinking sounds more like
Speaker 1: a disaster. This sounds like an act of war. I
Speaker 1: totally get your point for sure, you know what I mean. Um,
Speaker 1: So some people said, was the Amber room possibly in that? Uh.
Speaker 1: They have been diving expeditions they have found nothing. Uh.
Speaker 1: In addition to other sunk in German ships that sailed
Speaker 1: around the same time in the same area as these,
Speaker 1: some of those have been uh scoop it up and
Speaker 1: they've said there's nothing down here. Yeah. The Wilhelm goose Laften,
Speaker 1: these other ships were part of this one thousand shift
Speaker 1: ship boatlift evacuation that was like way bigger than dunkirk
Speaker 1: Um and that since they all shipped out from Kernigsberg.
Speaker 1: A lot of people are like, it had to have
Speaker 1: been on one of those ships. We just haven't found
Speaker 1: the right ship yet, or it could have been on
Speaker 1: a ship that made it, because not all the ships
Speaker 1: in this thousand boat boat lift we're sunk, so it
Speaker 1: could have made it somewhere out of Kurnigsberg in that floatilla.
Speaker 1: There's another one called the Jonas Valley theory. And we
Speaker 1: must have talked about the Jonas Valley in the um
Speaker 1: the attempt to Kill Hitler episode. We do one on that.
Speaker 1: We did, we did we we we It wasn't just
Speaker 1: the Nazi speed episode. I think we did one specifically
Speaker 1: on the plot to kill Hitler. Yeah, this was the
Speaker 1: big tunnel complex, uh in the Jonas Valley in Germany,
Speaker 1: sort of in the closing days of World War Two,
Speaker 1: which is basically like, all right, we're digging out these tunnels,
Speaker 1: is going to make our last stand here? Didn't work
Speaker 1: out that way. Americans took it, handed it over to
Speaker 1: the Soviets and they sealed them off. And some people
Speaker 1: say the Amber room was in those tunnels. Yeah, along
Speaker 1: with allegedly Germany's atomic bomb that was never used and
Speaker 1: probably may not have existed. Right, The Jonas Valley and
Speaker 1: also the Vulpor House in mind probably also both made
Speaker 1: appearances in our Nazi Gold episode, which was a good one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you know, these tunnels and mines were uh vast
Speaker 1: areas that they would use to hide things, notably all
Speaker 1: this pillaged art among you know, other stuff, valuables in
Speaker 1: cash and all all sorts of stuff. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: think they said that, um, this could have been in
Speaker 1: one of those minds that was plundered by the British
Speaker 1: uh and Polish workers and apparently locals got in on
Speaker 1: the act and uh. But they were saying that if
Speaker 1: that was the case, then you would see some of
Speaker 1: this stuff that would be people be selling pieces of
Speaker 1: amber or pieces of this installation, and that just didn't happen.
Speaker 1: That's a really great point. Um. There was a mysterious
Speaker 1: explosion that destroyed the Vulper Housing Mind in September of
Speaker 1: nine UM, and everything inside was destroyed. I never saw
Speaker 1: an inventory of what might have been in there. Maybe
Speaker 1: everything had been removed and they were just like keeping sealing, yeah,
Speaker 1: ceiling off. That's great one. But UM, the thing that
Speaker 1: kind of gives legs to this stuff is like these
Speaker 1: like mind shafts holding loot and these huge tunnel complexes.
Speaker 1: They exist like they're real. Like it's entire really possible
Speaker 1: that the amber room could have made it to this,
Speaker 1: So it's not like they're just completely off the Wall
Speaker 1: theories like that, if you don't trust Nazis who were
Speaker 1: interrogated by the Russians after the war, it's really easy
Speaker 1: to guess that the Amber Room was stashed away somewhere
Speaker 1: and it's just sitting somewhere in some mountain side or
Speaker 1: in the basement of a museum or something like that. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's just not the most crackpot adjacent um
Speaker 1: mystery I've ever seen. I can tell you that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the end of the Raiders. Yeah, exactly, wheel
Speaker 1: that lost dark. I don't think anyone, even when they
Speaker 1: saw that movie, said what come on? That would never
Speaker 1: have that happened. I think everyone saw that and said, ah,
Speaker 1: that figures, you know, like stashing some great work in
Speaker 1: here with just a bunch of other stuff. And I mean,
Speaker 1: war is a really great mechanism for art and treasure
Speaker 1: to move from place to place. Um. And in fact,
Speaker 1: Germany had been looking for Heinrich Schleiman's trove of Troy
Speaker 1: gold Trojan gold when he discovered the Lost City of
Speaker 1: Troy in the nineteenth century. Schleiman was as German as
Speaker 1: it gets, I mean, just listened to his name. Yet
Speaker 1: that trove had been plundered by the Soviets, probably in
Speaker 1: World War Two, because it was discovered sitting in boxes
Speaker 1: in the basement of the Pushkin Museum, um like years later,
Speaker 1: I think, not that many years ago actually, So it's
Speaker 1: entirely possible the Soviets have it, maybe don't even know it,
Speaker 1: of some other ally has it, doesn't even know it,
Speaker 1: or the Germans have it and maybe they don't know it.
Speaker 1: It's just sitting in on mark crates and in a
Speaker 1: museum somewhere. Like you said, all the Raiders of the
Speaker 1: Lost Ark, we uh, we should ruby that. Finally the
Speaker 1: other day, the writers the Lost Art. Yeah, I was like,
Speaker 1: she's ready and she loved it. Man, that's awesome that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that really says a lot about her. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: she she likes adventure movies and stuff like that. So
Speaker 1: she was she was in from the drop and yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was way in and it was it
Speaker 1: was great. And I told her, I was like, there's
Speaker 1: a few more of these and a couple of them
Speaker 1: are pretty good. Are you watch them? We'll watch them all?
Speaker 1: Are you Are you gonna follow the m p A
Speaker 1: a suggestion and wait until she's thirteen to show her
Speaker 1: raiders are Temple of Doom. Nah, she's fine. She she
Speaker 1: knows that stuff is a movie. She didn't get scared.
Speaker 1: I told her from a very early age that like
Speaker 1: movies is all make believe, and you don't need to
Speaker 1: worry about any of this stuff. People don't actually eat
Speaker 1: huge snakes that they cut the baby snakes out of.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh, should we talk about the Vimar theory?
Speaker 1: This was another you know, kind of like the rest
Speaker 1: of these. It's like, now, this thing was on a
Speaker 1: train this time. Uh, and it was there were a
Speaker 1: bunch of valuable shipped to wine Mar in February. Um,
Speaker 1: it was basically anything that what happened in the first
Speaker 1: like six months of nineteen forty five. It seemed like
Speaker 1: whether it was a ship or a train or a
Speaker 1: tunnel there like it could be at any of these places,
Speaker 1: because this train was carrying very valuable things, very valuable art.
Speaker 1: The Coke collection was in there, the the coffin for
Speaker 1: the Prussian King Frederick William the first even was in there, ironically,
Speaker 1: and it was going to uh the land Museum in Weimar,
Speaker 1: and the director there apparently swore two investigators from Russia
Speaker 1: that the day after it got there, that everything was
Speaker 1: shipped off to an undisclosed location. And some people are saying, like,
Speaker 1: now he was lying. The amber room was there, and
Speaker 1: it's it's hidden, uh, in these bunkers near the museum.
Speaker 1: So I think there are bunkers. But when they checked
Speaker 1: them out in the nineties, there was no amber room
Speaker 1: in there. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't there
Speaker 1: at one point who knows. Yeah, and the coffin of
Speaker 1: King Frederick William the First was like moved around. It
Speaker 1: was discovered in a salt mine in Germany by the
Speaker 1: Allies in so it's entirely possible they packed the amber
Speaker 1: room up once. They could have packed it up. No,
Speaker 1: they picked it up twice. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: they could have picked it up a third time and
Speaker 1: send it off with this stuff again. Though, if you
Speaker 1: find the coffin of Prussian King Frederick William the First,
Speaker 1: why would you also not say we also found the
Speaker 1: amber room. Can you believe it? Why would it have
Speaker 1: been separated out? Who knows? But at the same time,
Speaker 1: why would they have moved m Frederick Williams coffin and
Speaker 1: not the amber room? Yeah? Close dude, I just dropped
Speaker 1: my microphone. I would have if it wasn't wasn't attached
Speaker 1: to this Mike boom arm uh. Dave included some stuff
Speaker 1: here about an amber room curse. I don't really subscribe
Speaker 1: to this stuff. No, But George Stein's death is strange. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were a few people connected to the amber room
Speaker 1: that died, but I don't I didn't find like, typhoid
Speaker 1: fever is not mysterious, a car wreck is not mysterious.
Speaker 1: But George Stein he was. He was an amber room
Speaker 1: hunter and in eight seven he died of what was
Speaker 1: ruled ritual suicide from his stomach being cut open by
Speaker 1: a scalpel. Yes, which is a very strange way to
Speaker 1: take your own life. And um, even stranger he was
Speaker 1: naked at the time, because he was found naked, and
Speaker 1: this forest that he was found in was a few
Speaker 1: hundred miles from his home. He was supposedly going to
Speaker 1: meet another amber room hunter. Um, and why would if
Speaker 1: you were going to do this, why would you travel
Speaker 1: so far and do it in such a bizarre, painful manner.
Speaker 1: So it is at the very least a very strange
Speaker 1: little footnote to the whole thing. Yeah, and it's not
Speaker 1: a curse like, uh, maybe he was snuffed out because
Speaker 1: he knew too much or something here now, mab, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're not promoting conspiracies, of course. I was just it's
Speaker 1: just a conjecture. No, but if you are into this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, we should direct everybody check to the
Speaker 1: new stuff. They don't want you to know book, don't
Speaker 1: you think. Yeah, our buddies, our colleagues Ben and Matt
Speaker 1: and Noel, have a book just like we did stuff.
Speaker 1: They don't want you to go check it out, pick
Speaker 1: it up. Yeah, it's good stuff. They're good guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think we should finish here on this rebuilt
Speaker 1: amber room that we've kind of teased out. Uh. In
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, Soviet authorities commissioned a full scale replica
Speaker 1: in the Catherine Palace, which is, like we said, a
Speaker 1: state museum, and uh, you sent me an article on
Speaker 1: on the process of this. I think they took three
Speaker 1: plus years before they even started on it because it
Speaker 1: was so there was so much pre planning in to
Speaker 1: figuring out how to do this as an exact replica.
Speaker 1: They were working off of their so few actual like
Speaker 1: photo documents or descriptions or sketches of the original amber room.
Speaker 1: But they had a pile of about eighty of them
Speaker 1: that had been UM photograph or eighty photographs that have
Speaker 1: been done and like I think the nineteen thirties of
Speaker 1: the original amber room. But they're black and sat together,
Speaker 1: but they were black and white before they even did
Speaker 1: that part. They they had to like blow up these
Speaker 1: black and white photos and then deduce from the different
Speaker 1: gray scales of the different mosaics what piece was, what
Speaker 1: color or what shade and what you know, what around
Speaker 1: it was a different shade, what what the different shades were.
Speaker 1: That's how faithfully they've recreated the original amber room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that that uh, and it's right here. I don't
Speaker 1: know how I missed it, but that fourth UM mosaic,
Speaker 1: the touch and smell that was recovered I guess through
Speaker 1: illegal sale, uh, was in there. So I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how I missed that, but that that's one of the
Speaker 1: original pieces as part of this recreation. Yeah. So it's
Speaker 1: amazing and you can go see it. Um. It was
Speaker 1: open to the public in two thousand three, after twenty
Speaker 1: five years of construction years. Man, that's correct, that's incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they I'll tell you another amazing thing they did.
Speaker 1: They took one of the original pieces because there were
Speaker 1: pieces surviving pieces of the Amber room that had been
Speaker 1: like this is actually from the original amber room. We
Speaker 1: know it like it broke off during transit or like
Speaker 1: those um conservatives from the palace when they tried to
Speaker 1: remove one of the panels and it shattered. Those things
Speaker 1: were kept. So they actually had UM like one of
Speaker 1: the local crime labs um analyzed the adhesive that have
Speaker 1: been used and that's how they came up with that.
Speaker 1: They used the same adhesive um that's the original one did.
Speaker 1: But like that's the level of detail they went into
Speaker 1: recreating it. It's just my hats off to them. And
Speaker 1: today that amber room, the recreation alone is valued at
Speaker 1: five hundred million, which kind of gives you an idea
Speaker 1: of what the original would be would be worth today.
Speaker 1: Although I've seen also like it would be in such
Speaker 1: bad shape that you would just be like this is it,
Speaker 1: Like this isn't really amazing at all. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: would recommend going and reading the Gemological Institute of them
Speaker 1: Erica's website article on the Amber Room. It's got a
Speaker 1: lot of detail in it. But it talks a lot
Speaker 1: about the recreation process. Too very cool. You got anything else, man,
Speaker 1: I got nothing? Well, big thanks to Dave Ruce for
Speaker 1: helping us out with this one. Uh And since I
Speaker 1: thank Dave Ruce, of course, it's time for a listener name.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this toast watery. So this is not
Speaker 1: a review by me. I still plan on having toast
Speaker 1: water and I will follow up. But this is from
Speaker 1: Carl uh rush out in Texas. Okay. So Carl listens
Speaker 1: to stuff you should know with his son and on
Speaker 1: family family trips when they go to scouting events and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. He said, my wife tolerates it on
Speaker 1: family trips, So Carl, you need to get her more
Speaker 1: on board. Yeah, turn the volume way up for this part.
Speaker 1: That should do it. Uh. So they wanted to try
Speaker 1: the different things we were talking about in the toast episode,
Speaker 1: uh and said, we quickly made a trip trip to
Speaker 1: the grocery story pick up a loaf of Josh's recommended
Speaker 1: Nature's Own Perfect White, which was only available in thick
Speaker 1: slice form. Good stuff. Yeah, we fired up the old toaster,
Speaker 1: which does operate on a bimetallic alloy thermostatic control dropped
Speaker 1: in a couple of slices toasted to perfection, slathered with
Speaker 1: some organic butter, and placed it between two other untoasted slices.
Speaker 1: So this was the toast sandwich that you talked about.
Speaker 1: And he said it was like a mouthful of bread,
Speaker 1: exactly how you think it would taste. Reminded me of
Speaker 1: the rama noodle sandwiches I made in college with less flavor.
Speaker 1: Uh added he added some barbecue sauce and some sliced sausage.
Speaker 1: Just yea gussie it up. I don't. I don't think
Speaker 1: that's a toast sandwich any longer. Well, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: he After the tasting, he was like, I want to
Speaker 1: enjoy this. So that was three slices of bread. Henry,
Speaker 1: his son, thought it was great and devoured it plain
Speaker 1: so just like a kid would do such a it.
Speaker 1: Then we moved on to uh, well know this is Texas,
Speaker 1: I know, but he's British and spirit. Then we moved
Speaker 1: on to toast water. While the meal was in progress,
Speaker 1: we had another toasted slice of bread steeping in a
Speaker 1: pan of just boiled water. Uh. Still too hot after dinner,
Speaker 1: so we took the dog for a walk and allowed
Speaker 1: it's cool three bear style. Upon returning, we decanted the
Speaker 1: khaki colored liquid and wine glasses, toasted each other's health
Speaker 1: and took a swig. My son immediately spat his out. I,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, thought it was great. Really. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think it would make a soothing tea for anyone
Speaker 1: suffering his stomach illness. So move over, vitamin water, bring
Speaker 1: on the toast water. And this is uh from Carl,
Speaker 1: He said, I love the asides, love the humor, love
Speaker 1: the knowledge. From Carl Rush sh helped in Victoria, Texas.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Thank you Carl, Thank you Henry. Thank you
Speaker 1: to a lesser extent, Carl's wife and Henry's mom. And
Speaker 1: if you want to be like Carl and Henry and
Speaker 1: get in touch with us to let us know about
Speaker 1: the results of your s Y s K scientific taste testing,
Speaker 1: we would love to hear about that. You can wrap
Speaker 1: it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it
Speaker 1: off to stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio.
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