Amber Room: 'GMA's' First Stop on Mystery Tour
Missing for decades, Russia's legendary Amber Room is restored to full splendor.
Jan. 30, 2008— -- It was a chamber fit for a queen. A fairy tale of a room, crafted almost entirely of six tons of glowing, translucent amber.
This lavish chamber, estimated to be worth $150 million today, was born from the hedonistic desire of Prussian King Frederic the First, for a room made completely of amber.
In the 300 years since Frederic built the Amber Room for his home at Charlottenburg Palace, it has dazzled kings and queens, trading hands between Russian and Prussian rulers.
During World War II, the Amber Room, dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World," was looted by the Nazis. Today, the fate of the original Amber Room remains one of Europe's great mysteries.
Never fully completed, the room's honeyed panels were sent to Russian Czar Peter the Great as a gift in 1716. The Amber Room soon became a gem inside the Catherine Palace, that rivaled Versailles.
The gesture sealed the Prussian-Russian alliance against Sweden, and over the centuries, it continued to be transferred back and forth, as a symbol of friendship between the two empires.
During World War II, Germany's Third Reich decided that the German-made Amber Room should be brought back to Germany, as a symbol of German greatness.
"It was of supreme importance to repatriate this gift, or rescue it from a subculture they viewed [as] Russia," explained Robert Alexander, author of "The Romanov Bride."
As the Germans approached, the terrified Russian curators were unable to dismantle or hide the Amber Room. The Nazis soon found it, returned it to Germany, and put it on proud display at Konigsberg Castle.
As the tide of war turned, and the Germans started losing ground, they grew worried about the Amber Room's safety, and boxed it up. Except for a few traces, no one has seen it since.
Before he died, the museum director who looked after the Amber Room during the war assured the people of Berlin that the room had survived heavy allied bombings, but gave no further clues.
Photographs taken before the war guided the re-construction.
In the room's centerpiece are copies of four intricate Florentine mosaics that adorned the walls in extravagant amber frames. One of these is the original, stolen from the Amber Room crates during the war, discovered and returned in 2002. The long-laboring artisans were ecstatic to find their copy almost exactly matched!
As the Nazis advanced on Russia, the museum workers, charged with protecting the room, failed to do so.
Were they worried the amber was too fragile to move, or did they think it would incur the wrath of Stalin if it stayed?
All we know is that they covered the walls in cotton and paper — a disguise the Nazis quickly saw through.
The Nazis removed the panels, packed them up and took them away. They had the technology, the equipment, and all the resources, so they brought museum experts to Russia to remove the Amber Room in the middle of the war.
