Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.
Quick – grab a pen and write this down. We’ve recently stumbled upon something that’s sure to make us both very rich. We’re gonna need you to send us money though, you know, to get us started. Not a lot of money mind you, just a few hundred dollars. We guarantee to at least double your money sometime before you die.
It’s not a Ponzi scheme either, in case that’s what you were thinking. You’ll be funding an expedition – a treasure hunting expedition. More specifically we’re looking for the Amber Room – a four walled room that was dismantled and stolen by Nazis sometime long ago.
Honestly – does their treachery know no bounds?
If you do lend us money for the trip, by the way, let’s not put anything in writing. Our word is good.? Also please never ask for any of our contact information.? Good?
Good.
Now let’s get to the explanations. Wikipedia explains the room to us:
“The Amber Room… in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg is a complete chamber decoration of amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors. Due to its singular beauty, it was sometimes dubbed the “Eighth Wonder of the World”.”
That sounds nice, doesn’t it? The thing was built by two countries – Russia & Germany between 1701 – 1709. They were working together like fast friends – probably sharing sandwich bites on lunch break and laughing when one or the other accidentally got a smidge of gold leaf on their cheek. We’re sure it was a fine time had by all.
Then, 200-ish years later, things changed. Germany decided it was breaking up with Russia – and they wanted their letterman jacket back. Of course, in this example the letterman jacket weighs several tons, is made partially of gold and doesn’t have any lip stick marks on the collar or smell of bubble gum.
Rense.com tells us how it happened:
“The last time they were seen was in 1941 at Koenigsberg, then the main town in East Prussia but now the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Nazi soldiers took the curved amber panels there after stripping them from Tsarskoye Selo, the summer residence of Russian tsars. But the panels disappeared in 1945 at war’s end.”
Does that really surprise anybody? The Nazis took pretty much anything their German jeeps roared past. Like the Spear of Destiny for instance – remember how they kifed that one? A very greedy lot if you ask us.
And when they took the Amber Room, they took it for good – it hasn’t been seen since. Like any good treasure-related mystery, though, there are plenty of theories as to where the room is now. Here are a few – also from Rense.com:
“Assuming the panels were evacuated from Koenigsberg in time, other theories place them on a wreck in the Baltic Sea, in mines deep in east Germany’s Harz mountains or even in some dusty corner of a Bavarian castle.”
Although the Amber Room in all it’s splendor sees to have vanished without a trace – at least one piece of it has surfaced. As Wikipedia states:
“…in 1997 one Italian stone mosaic that was part of a set of four which had decorated the Amber Room did turn up in western Germany, in the possession of the family of a soldier who had helped pack up the Amber Room.”
‘But where’s the rest of it,’ you ask impatiently. Lot’s of people have claimed to find it – but nobody has produced it. Some say it was melted down and forged into a very large toilet – form fitted for Eva Braun’s stank butt. Others say we made that up.
The fate of the Amber Room is considered by many to be the greatest lingering mystery of WWII. It may have been destroyed or it may be out there somewhere – probably in the back of a 7-Eleven we think.
If you stumble upon it, let us know, won’t you?