Talk:Amber Room

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I think that some information about the finds of a mosaic and a chest of drawers belong in the chapter Disappearance. I don't know the correct dates, it was in the 90's. These findings a returned to the reconstructed chamber. Also the indications of the removal of the chamber from Königsberg should be known. The last traces of the transport were around Weimar.

[edit] Russian Characters

The Russian name of the Amber Room is not legible to me (instead, it shows accented latin characters). It probably is in some other ISO encoding, not in Unicode. Can someone who speaks Russian and has access to a Cyrillic keyboard mapping enter the name in Unicode? Thanks. - Marcika 02:01, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Fixed, by pasting the title of the Russian version of this article. -:o) 5 May 2005

[edit] Gdansk/Danzig

This is getting really tiresome. Since the craftsmen in question are ethnic Germans, I think it's reasonable to prefer the Danzig variant of the name, as that's what they presumably called it. Also, according to Talk:Gdansk/Vote, that city is to be referred to as Danzig "between 1308 and 1945" - i.e. at the time we are speaking of in this article. So I put back the Danzig, but left a note that it's now called Gdansk. Noel (talk) 22:15, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 1001th speculation

Removed:

Recently, lengthy research by a pair of British investigative journalists, including very extensive archival research in Russia, concluded that the Amber Room was likely destroyed when Königsberg Castle was burned by occupying Soviet forces after Königsberg surrendered. (Among other information from the archives was the revelation that the remains of the rest of the set of Italian stone mosaics were found in the burned debris of the castle.) Their reasoning as to why the Soviets still conducted extensive searches is that elements of the Soviet government wished to obscure (even from other branches of the Soviet government) the fact that Soviet soldiers were most likely responsible for its destruction.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ghirlandajo (talk • contribs) 21:02, 15 July 2005.

Have you read their book? They spent several years researching the case, all of which they report. Also, if you will note, I was very careful to phrase that text as a report their conclusions, not simply state them as fact. (I.e. it's a fact that that's what's in the book, and I report that.) Since that paragraph is an accurate summation of their work, and their work was extensive and careful, I see no reason not to report it. Noel (talk) 08:53, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

I got my copy back from my daughter (who'd taken it off to read it), so since you didn't like my phrasing, which was actually a lot less harsh that what's in the book, here's an excerpt (pp. 356) of their conclusions:

"However, the evidence, when we examined it, is clear. Soviet news footage shot inside Konigsberg Castle shortly after the city fell on 9 April, 1945 shows that some rooms in the castle remained intact. German eye-witnesses hiding inside the castle told Soviet interrogators that it was not burned to the ground when they surrendered on the evening of 9 April, or in the early hours of 10 April. Yet when the first official Soviet investigators arrived in Konigsberg, on 31 May, 1945, they reported that the castle was a charred ruin, and the city storage facilities in disarray. Professor Alexander Brusov wrote in his diary in June, 1945 that many of the hiding places, carefully selected by Alexander Rohde, the director of the Konigsberg Castle Museum, were flooded, on fire, and empty, having been opened, torched or vandalized after the German surrender by the Red Army."

"We know that the Soviet authorities were presented with these facts and advised by Brusov that, alongside many other treasures, the Amber Room had been destroyed between 9 and 11 April, 1945. His findings were classified and buried for more than five decades .."

".. A great untruth was born, and it enabled the Soviet people and their sympathizers in Europe and America to continue to believe that the East was the victim of the worst excesses of the West. The real story portrayed the Soviets as rapacious liars, something the leadership feared .."

...

"The world should remember Stalingrad, the 900 Days, the obliteration of so many Soviet cities, towns and villages .. But history is untidy, and as well as being the victim of unbridled German aggression, the Soviet state was a manipulative victor. Having seen their country burned, raped and robbed, Soviet soldiers became vengeful and careless."

As you can see, I toned it down a lot to report on it. (I suspect they were rather angry at the deliberate misrepresentation the Soviet Government had systematically engaged in; then again, that was one of the lesser of the crimes of that government, the worst of which were committed against its own people.)

---

Moving on, here are the bios of the two journalists who did it:

"worked as staff writers and correspondents for the Sunday Times of London for seven years before joining The Guardian as senior correspondents."

They quote extensively from documents which they unearthed in Soviet archives, and the book is fully footnoted as to sources, giving file numbers in the various Soviet archives for each document they quote (the footnotes and source list run to 18 pages of fine print).

They investigated this matter at great length: their first visit to Leningrad was in December 2001, and they had been at work for a while before that (see pp. 6); their last visit to Kaliningrad was in March 2003, and they continued working after that, visiting Bremen in April 2003 to discuss evidence that had appeared in Germany.

In other words, they are mainstream, reputable journalists, and this book is a serious work which meets the standards for responsible scholarship. As such, there is no reason to simply delete a report of their conclusions. Noel (talk) 17:47, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

---

Finally, here are a couple of recent non-laudatory reviews.

"For years, art sleuths have scoured Europe in search of this Russian treasure. But if the authors are to be credited - and I see no reason why they shouldn't be - these experts have been wasting their time. ... What I find truly irritating about The Amber Room is that, under all the authorial embellishment, irrelevant fact and pointless 'colour', there is a cracking story. Scott-Clark and Levy have done their research, there's no doubt about that." Russian treasure story gilds the lily

"The authors of this book are to be commended for their dogged determination and commitment to their project. .. Other reviewers have laid out competently the strengths of the book, but I noted several significant weaknesses: First, neither of the authors speak Russian and only scraps of German .. yet most of their sources and interviews are in these two languages. ... The reserach has some structural weaknesses, but the conclusions are probably sound." Russian history minus Russian language

"At times it is difficult to follow the thread of their story, largely because the authors fall into the trap of thinking there's no such thing as an unimportant detail. .. Relying on the archival secret documents, Scott-Clark and Levy discredit Kuchumov's analysis .. To some observers -- especially the Russians -- their resolution may look like one more conspiracy theory. ... Scott-Clark and Levy argue that the Amber Room stands as a symbol of those [World War II] losses and that, even today, it is not in Russia's interest to accept that its own army destroyed the panels. (It is doubtful there would ever be independent Russian military confirmation of such a charge.) ... In the end, Scott-Clark and Levy have given us a valuable look inside Cold War politics." Opening a locked door

I deliberately picked reviews which were not entirely positive. You will note that although they have problems with the presentation of the material, they don't argue with the conclusions. Similarly, you may not be happy with the tone of the book, and things like their comments about the Red Army, but there's no evidence that their data (e.g. the documents they quote from the archives) is in any way incorrect - and it's on that data that their conclusions rest. Noel (talk) 18:32, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Having received no reply despite making two requests on your talk: page, I'm going to replace that material. If you simply delete it again, I will instantly file an RFC. Noel (talk) 19:04, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I have extensively re-written that section, adding copious source foot-notes giving sources. I have also added commentary from Russian officials who disagree with them (again footnoted) for balance. Finally, I added quotes from a Soviet army witness, who agrees the Amber Room was burned, but disagrees on the issue of blame (also footnoted). Please read the St. Petersburg Times story (which I thought was very well done, a fine piece of journalism - and not just because it says It is not clear that any of the critics have read the book and none of them have presented any evidence that the book is wrong.), as well as the Arinstein interview in the MSNBC piece, before changing the article. Noel (talk) 22:26, 19 August 2005 (UTC)