The room disappeared without a trace at the end of World War II and its fate is still unclear.
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For more than two hundred years, the Amber Room was the pride of the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, the summer residence of the Russian Tsars near St. Petersburg. In 1942, the room was dismantled by the Nazis and taken to the castle in Königsberg (today’s Kaliningrad). It was exhibited there until the end of World War II.
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Baltictech divers have now announced that they have found a wreck that could tell you where the amber room is now, or perhaps directly hide parts of it.
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The steamer Karlsruhe set out on its last voyage in 1945. It was part of Operation Hannibal, the largest naval evacuation in history, aimed at evacuating 2 million civilians and soldiers from East Prussia and Pomerania before the advancing Red Army. Karlsruhe left Königsberg in a hurry and heavily loaded with more than 1,000 people on board. Soviet planes sank him off the Polish coast. What he was carrying on board was not found.
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“We have been looking for the wreck since last year, when we realized that it could be the most interesting undiscovered story lying on the bottom of the Baltic Sea,” said one of the divers, the well-known wreck finder Tomasz Stachura.
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Karlsruhe’s cargo remained virtually untouched
Divers have found that most of the cargo remained undamaged. “It simply came to our notice then. We found military vehicles, porcelain and a number of crates, the contents of which are still unknown, “said Stachura.
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Replica of the amber room in the Catherine Palace
Photo: Profimedia.cz
The discovery of a shipwreck with unknown contents, which was one of the last to leave Königsberg, gives divers hope that it is in it that the amber room, or at least parts of it, could be hidden.
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“All these circumstances stimulate the human imagination,” said another of the divers, Tomasz Zwara. “This finding could be important for the whole story (amber chambers – editor’s note),” he added.
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Whether we will finally see the solution of the decade-old mystery will be revealed by time and further research of the wreck. The fate of the amber room remains unclear, although of course there are a number of more or less serious theories where it could be found.
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All that was left was a copy and a few items
Many hopes were already placed in the wreck of Wilhelm Gustloff, which also took part in Operation Hannibal and which was sunk by a Russian S-13 submarine. 9,000 passengers and crew were killed in the waters at the time. However, there was no sign of the amber room in the wreckage.
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Other theories suggest that the Amber Room was destroyed along with the castle when Soviet troops took control of the city. Some theories suggest that the amber room is still located in Kalinigrad, because the castle had many underground spaces and many of them have not yet been accessed.
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So far, we can only admire a faithful replica of the room, which has been worked on since 1976 and which was ceremoniously introduced in 2003. And also a few parts of the room, which were found in 1997 in Germany. Apparently they were stolen from Königsboerg before the room disappeared.
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