The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure [Hardcover]

Adrian Levy (Author), Catherine Scott-Clark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2004

The history of art has produced few works as ambitious and as valuable as the Amber Room. Famous throughout Europe as “the eighth wonder of the world,” its vast and intricately worked amber panels were sent in 1717 by Frederick I of Prussia as a gift to Peter the Great of Russia. Erected some years later, they quickly became a symbol of Russia’s imperial might.

For more than two hundred years the Amber Room remained in its Russian palace outside St. Petersburg (Leningrad), but when the Nazi army invaded Russia and swept towards Leningrad in 1941, the panels were wrenched from the walls, packed into crates, and disappeared from view, never to be seen again.

Dozens of people have tried to trace the whereabouts of the Amber Room, and several of them have died in mysterious circumstances. Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark have gone further along the trail of this great lost treasure than anyone before them, and have unraveled the jumble of evidence surrounding its fate. Their search catapulted them across eastern Europe and into the menacing world of espionage and counterespionage that still surrounds Russia and the former Soviet bloc. In archives in St. Petersburg and Berlin, amid boxes of hitherto unseen diaries, letters, and classified reports, they have uncovered for the first time an astounding conspiracy to hide the truth.

In a gripping climax that is a triumph of detection and narrative journalism, The Amber Room shows incontrovertibly what really happened to the most valuable lost artwork in the world, and why the truth has been withheld for so long.

Editorial Reviews

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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company; First edition. edition (June 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802714242
• ISBN-13: 978-0802714244
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #731,569 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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47 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping investigative story, October 4, 2004

By 

Julia Flyte - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure (Hardcover)

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.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Does not sustain momentum..., July 22, 2006

By 

Cynthia K. Robertson (beverly, new jersey USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure (Hardcover)

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.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars More of the same, September 17, 2006

By 

History buff (Concord, NH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure (Paperback)

These two authors wrote another book (The Stone of Heaven) about their search for 'lost' jade and it, too, was more about them and their search than the titled mineral and its history. After reading 'Stone of Heaven', I felt I had been conned. Sucker that I am, I tried again with 'Amber Room', only to have that feeling confirmed. I was hoping against hope that this book - on a subject for which there is ample historical information available elsewhere - would really be about the Amber Room. Alas, more of the same. Save your money, look up the topic in Wikipedia and know that you have missed nothing by not reading this book.