The Amber Room

by Adrian Levy

  The Freie Welt and Kaliningradskaya Pravda articles contained identical idiosyncrasies and errors. They both called Rohde's daughter Use, claiming she left Konigsberg in 1944, when her name was Lotti and she had stayed in the city until 1945. They both used the same awkwardly worded retraction made by muddle-headed 'Barsov'. Both contained the identical revelations that Alfred Rohde had been murdered and the Amber Room had survived the fall of Konigsberg. It would be easy to dismiss these articles as spurious if we had not then discovered that the same story was also carried by Soviet Russia on 21 June 1959 and by the Soviet newspaper Front six days later, as well as by all the regional editions of Pravda.

  After all the years of silence following Professor Brusov's interview with TASS on 13 July 1945, with not so much as a word said about the fate of the Amber Room, an entirely new story had tumbled out. And when all the versions of it, published in the Soviet Union and the GDR, are placed side by side, it strikes us that what we have before us is a deliberate campaign to end any lingering speculation that the Amber Room was destroyed in the Knights' Hall of Konigsberg Castle in April 1945. The public focus was being drawn away from loss and towards the Nazis accused of evacuating the Amber Room from Konigsberg Castle to no one knew where. With the spectre of traitors in their midst, all good comrades would have to rally together and help track down these Nazis, so that the Amber Room could be restored to the Soviet Union. There had to be a purpose behind such a campaign.

  We need help, ideally from one of those responsible for the story. It first broke in Kaliningradskaya Pravda, but when we call no one there has heard of Vladimir Dmetriev. A contact in Moscow, who has assembled a database of journalists, says that no one by the name of Vladimir Dmetriev has ever been registered. That makes Vladimir Dmetriev more than likely a pseudonym and the thought suddenly occurs to us that Dmetriev might be Anatoly Kuchumov, the man sent to reopen the Amber Room search, a key opponent of Professor Brusov. It would have been in Kuchumov's interests to discredit his predecessor's findings. For the first time we notice that Kuchumov's name was absent from all of these articles about his 1949 Kaliningrad mission (articles that are pasted into his scrapbook).

  But Kuchumov is dead. Gerhard Strauss too. Freie Welt closed down in 1991. We are not scheduled to go back to Russia for another ten days. However, since the Stasi controlled all publications in GDR times, we contact an information trader from former East Berlin who, we have been told, sells contacts with old apparatchiks.

  Could he broker a meeting with a former editor of Freie Welt, we ask? 'No,' the information trader says, 'but there's someone else who might be able to help.. I do have contact with a former Stasi lieutenant-colonel who worked in propaganda. Pay up and I'll get you an introduction. Maybe he knows something about it.' The information trader hangs up.

  It is said that if you put the right number of coins in the box these days in Germany, former Stasi officers pop up. And yet when the Stasi lieutenant-colonel calls us, we are still surprised to be talking to him. It is a brief conversation, devoid of any niceties. The man demands a pseudonym. We settle on Herr 'Stolz'. He asks the topic of discussion. We keep it tight. We say we want to talk about his specialism - state propaganda. He asks for our address. We give him the room number at the Berlin Swissotel. Overlooking the Swissotel's glass atrium from the eighth floor, we watch a middle-aged man in a black felt beret pacing the lobby in black zip-up boots. He observes the minimalist scene with its stained pine, marble and chrome, stopping to press the plush cream furnishings and stooping to sniff the pink lilies, all the time keeping an eye on everyone who emerges from the lifts.

  Once in a while he sits down on the sofa beside the lobby bar, his black boots easing themselves into the luxurious pile, his suede gloves sliding over the smooth leather seat covers. And then off he goes again. The flowers. Rising and sitting. Stooping and sniffing. This must be 'Stolz'.

  We ring down to reception and a few minutes later he is at our door, his milky blue eyes studying our faces, while a gloved hand strokes an immaculate Walter Ulbricht beard.

  Only when our room door is locked does he signal that he is ready to talk. Can 'Stolz' tell us anything about Gerhard Strauss's articles in Freie Welt} Hunched on the bed facing the window, his back to us, 'Stolz' is monitoring the shoppers milling along Kurfurstendamm. Suddenly he looks over his shoulder. 'Freie Welt was a textbook case,' he says. What does 'Stolz' mean by a 'textbook case'? He ignores our question but takes off his gloves and his black felt beret. We notice that his rosy cheeks and thin pink fingers have an expensive spa sheen as he launches into a lecture about the art of propaganda and disinformation.

  We interrupt. Can he be more specific? Can 'Stolz' tell us about Freie Welt} The Amber Room?

  He picks up his beret and starts to pull on his gloves. I don't know anything about the Amber Room. Have you brought me here under false pretences?' he snaps. I thought I had come here to talk about me. My expertise. My career in the disinformation unit at the Stasi's foreign affairs directorate.'

  We try to calm things down. Talk him back. He is almost at the door. We do need your expertise, we say. We are interested in your career. But we also need to understand the Freie Welt articles, what they really meant. Would he like a coffee? 'Stolz' goes quiet. We point to the room's personal chrome Gaggia machine and push a small black button marked ESPRESSO. A lush coffee oozes out. 'OK,' says 'Stolz'. The former Stasi officer is hypnotized by such sophistication and he sits back down at his perch by the window.

  'You're never going to understand Freie Welt until you understand the nature of disinformation,' he says, savouring the espresso shot.

  'Our textbooks were Lenin. Of course.'

  We nod.

  'And Sefton Delmar.'

  Who was Sefton Delmar, we ask?

  He tut-tuts. 'Sefton Delmar was the genius behind the science of disinformation. I am surprised you have never heard of him, as he was a famous journalist with your Daily Express.' He's deviating again, but we do not interrupt this time.

  'Stolz' explains how all Stasi operatives in his directorate were ordered to study Delmar's two-volume autobiography, Trial Sinister and Black Boomerang, in which the former Daily Express Berlin bureau chief revealed his double life.13 In 1940 Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) had employed Sefton Delmar, a fluent German speaker, to devise methods of weakening the morale of the Wehrmacht. Delmar set up a phoney German radio station, Soldatensender Calais, perfect in every way apart from the fact that it broadcast from Ashdown Forest in Sussex and its presenters were British intelligence officers.

  Delmar's radio persona was a belligerent Prussian diehard, an army officer known to German listeners as Der Chef, who was deeply loyal to the Fatherland but outspoken on certain policies. 'Stolz' recounts how in one of the first broadcasts, Der Chef bitterly attacked Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, who, a few days previously, had made his flight to Scotland. Stolz becomes animated: I have studied the transcripts. Delmar was a subtle master. Der Chef stormed, "As soon as there is a crisis, Hess packs himself a white flag and flies off to throw himself and us on the mercy of that flat-footed bastard of a drunken old cigar-smoking Jew, Churchill!" 'Don't you see,' 'Stolz' says, putting down his empty cup. 'The message was plausible. What was false was the source.'

  Is 'Stolz' saying that Freie Welt (which we know to be a genuine GDR publication) ran a phoney story about the Amber Room, one that had been generated in the Soviet Union?

  'No,' 'Stolz' says. 'It wasn't the story that was false. The story was partially true, although some details may have been exaggerated. It was the source of the information that had been disguised. New evidence had been unearthed that confirmed that the Amber Room had been evacuated from Konigsberg to a secret location, but there were conflicting stories about its precise location.

  'A major investigation was being planned. But to be certain, the authorities needed to identify anyone out there who knew about the Amber Room, who was connected with it, and who had go
ne to ground after the war. They needed assistance in testing and honing their hypothesis. Thousands of GDR citizens had been convicted of being Nazi collaborators, of looting, of war crimes, and the Stasi was still hunting down people. No one would come forward voluntarily if the request was made by the state, but a respected East German academic like Strauss, a former citizen of East Prussia, a man already connected with the Amber Room story who was not afraid to say so in public, gave people the confidence to write in. And thousands of letters arrived in response to the Freie Welt articles.'

  What did the letter-writers reveal?

  'It was not my responsibility. All I know is that Freie Welt was dealt with at the very top, by the Committee of the Minister for State Security, Comrade General Erich Mielke, and that soon after the Stasi formed a highly secret study group to find the Amber Room. I know this because I used to be in contact with its chief, Oberst [Colonel] Seufert.'

  Did Oberst Seufert ever hint at what new evidence the Stasi was working on, we ask?

  'No. I told you I was not involved. I worked for a different directorate. But I do recall strict instructions about informants who came in with leads about art thefts. We were to pass them immediately to the office of Generaloberst Bruno Beater, Mielke's deputy during the 1970s. Particularly if they concerned the Amber Room. Generaloberst Beater apparently took the issue of the missing Amber Room very seriously. Sometimes we would get questions back from Beater's office. But I did not deviate from my orders. I only asked the questions I was ordered to.'

  Was Strauss then working for the Stasi, we ask, or perhaps a Soviet security agency? The story he wrote had originated in the USSR after all.

  I couldn't possibly say,' says 'Stolz'. I never met Strauss but I knew him by reputation. The Herr Professor Doctor was well respected among the upper echelons of the SED Politburo.'

  Can 'Stolz' put us in touch with Oberst Seufert, General Beater or anyone else connected with the Stasi's Amber Room study group?

  No response. From a leather folder 'Stolz' produces a slim volume with a cheap cellophane cover decorated with a drawing of the Amber Room, tinted yellow and white: Bernsteinzimmer Report. 'Have you seen this? The author was the GDR's foremost Amber Room expert. Amassed a lot of information.'

  Paul Enke's book on the search for the Amber Room, published in 1986

  'Stolz' throws the book on to the bed and turns back to look down on Kurfurstendamm. Bernsteinzimmer Report, published in 1986 by a man who might or might not have been a Stasi agent, is the most famous German book about the Amber Room mystery. But it is long out of print and this is the first copy we have actually seen.

  Was Paul Enke part of the Stasi study group, we ask? 'Stolz' isn't listening. He's at the mirror, moulding his black felt beret back on his head. We flick through the book to see in the flyleaf a handwritten inscription: 'To my Comrade ['Stolz'], with thanks, Paul Enke.' You know the author, Paul Enke, we say? No response. Can we at least speak to Enke directly?

  'Stolz' stifles a little laugh with a gloved hand, brushing the leather against his lips. I don't think so,' he murmurs. 'Enke's dead. Quite unexpected. A relatively young man. We were all very shocked. Bernsteinzimmer Report had only just been published.'

  'Stolz' holds out his hand. 'Give. I need it back. Must go. Have to pick up my daughter from the airport.' And with a waft of cheap soap, he is gone although we have held the book just long enough to see the name of its editor, Giinter Wermusch, and the quote that begins Paul Enke's story, something he had taken from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: 'Some of the splendour of the world has melted away through war and time.'

  8

  We ring round the second-hand bookshops in Berlin that specialize in publications from the former GDR, but none of them has a copy of Paul Enke's Bernsteinzimmer Report. One outlet in Ackerstrasse, in former East Berlin, suggests we contact Enke's editor directly. 'Giinter Wermusch. He is still alive,' he says.

  But there are several G. Wermuschs in the phone book. Eventually we connect to this weary voice: 'Wermusch, ja bitte?'

  A hacking cough interrupts our prepared speech. The man at the other end sounds consumptive or very old. He drops the receiver. Hack, hack, clunk. We call back again, mention a name and wait for his answer.

  'Paul Enke? Scheisse. Nein, nein.' Clunk.

  We try again: 'Hello?'

  Silence. Then Wermusch manages a few words: 'Sprechen sie Deutsch? I don't speak English. Not since 1992.' Clunk.

  One final attempt from us: 'Guten Tag, we have flown from London

  Hack, hack. Then Wermusch hoarsely whispers: 'Ach. Nah. What did you say your name? OK. Who told you about me? In three days' time you come. 5 p.m. Nur eine halbe Stunde, ja?' Clunk.

  We return to the Ministry of Truth, where we have applied for files on Paul Enke, Oberst Hans Seufert and the Stasi's Amber Room study group. They are not ready. Two days later we are contacted to say that a single personal file has been located. It will take longer to find and release any files from the study group, the Ministry of Truth functionary says, and we will not be allowed to see Seufert's file without his permission. He is still alive.

  Paul Enke, KSII404/82, is waiting for us on a white plastic table in a sterile reading room. This personal file on the author of Bernsteinzimmer Report is a brick of paperwork. With Enke dead, Wermusch reluctant and the book out of print, getting hold of it is better news than we could possibly have hoped for and there is plenty to read. Enke's book jacket carried no biography. There was no author photograph. No explanation as to how he had become, as the blurb claimed, ' . . . involved in the inquiries and investigations about the fate of the Amber Room ...' Judging by the length of what we have before us, Enke was obviously significant to the Stasi and we open his file, unsure whether we are about to read of a lowly informer and weekend Amber Room fanatic or discover between the pages a forensic investigator at the heart of a state-sponsored inquiry.

  First are pages of photographs. The earliest, a black-and-white shot, is clipped to a 19 50 Volkspolizei service record. Enke was a people's policeman. It shows him as a dashing young recruit, proud of his gilt epaulettes, his collars stitched with the emblem of the force. The next frame portrays Enke, about a decade later, now dressed as a purposeful bureaucrat in a tight black suit, wearing heavy-framed glasses. We wonder if he became a plain-clothes officer. The last pictures are of Enke in his late middle age with receding hair, his face now puggish. He wears a look unique to the GDR, a garish checked sports jacket, a black shirt, a clashing light tie and a distant expression. This strip, probably taken in the early 1970S in a photo booth, recurs throughout the file.

  Paul Enke, c.i960

  Next is a report by Major Schmalfuss, a Stasi departmental director, who seems to know everything about Paul Enke.1

  Born: Magdeburg, 20 January 19 2 5. Social class: worker. 'In his parents' home, Paul Enke received a Protestant education and consequently joined a Christian youth organization in 1931,' Major Schmalfuss wrote.2

  Left school at thirteen. Apprenticed as a lathe operator. Early political development: 'Christliche Jugend and Hitler Jugend'. The Stasi had uncovered a serious black mark against Enke that would surely impact on his adult life in the GDR, membership of the Hitler Youth. But Major Schmalfuss was satisfied that the blame lay with Enke's parents: 'Due to the inadequacy of positive political-ideological influences [at home], Comrade Enke became a member of the Hitler Jugend in 1935 and volunteered in 1942.'

  Enke was seventeen when he set out to fight for the Fatherland. Schmalfuss wrote: 'Served in fasch. Wehrmacht, FunkmeBer [radar technician] Marinebrigade (1 May 1942 to 8 May 1945), lance-corporal, stationed in Gdingen, Poland; in Kiel, northern Germany; in Courland, on the Baltic coast. He has never been decorated.'

  Enke served through the war in and around the Baltic's amber coast, which might provide a tenuous personal connection between him and the Amber Room. We wonder if he heard about the triumphal arrival of the Amber Room in Konigsberg Castle after it wa
s opened to the public in the spring of 1942.

  The war ended for Lance-Corporal Enke on 8 May 1945 when he surrendered to the Red Army that marched him and hundreds of thousands of others to prison camp. Major Schmalfuss listed Enke's POW record: 'Soviet Camp 27/2 Moscow (May 1945 to January 1946); Soviet Camp 7711 Leningrad (January 1946 to May 1949); Zentralschule 2041, Kursant (June to December 1949).

  Zentralschule 2041. By 1949 Enke must have convinced his Soviet captors that he could be rehabilitated, and while thousands of others languished in camps until 1955, he spent six months on political study leave at the Soviet Central Training School in Kursant. Here, according to Schmalfuss, Enke 'worked as a lathe operator, fitter, blacksmith and bricklayer'. We are becoming a little concerned. The Paul Enke we are reading about was not promising material for a high-velocity secret inquiry in pursuance of the Amber Room Major Schmalfuss did have something positive to say about Enke's days at the Soviet Central Training School, Kursant: 'He had his first contacts with anti-fascists, becoming a member of the Anti-Fascist Committee in Leningrad, and was employed as Brigade and Company Propagandist after short training courses. Comrade Enke's theoretical knowledge of Marxism-Leninism is good.'3

  Enke may not have been bright, but he clearly was cunning. He understood that he would have to change to fit in with the new world that had sprung up around him. Major Schmalfuss wrote: 'Comrade Enke arrived at the realization that the ideological view of life that he held hitherto had been incorrect. This realization and the world view he is holding nowadays are separating him from his parental home but Comrade Enke places the political necessities in the foreground.' Enke had returned from the war a different man, willing to denounce his parents - and his religion. 'Against his parents' wishes [Enke] resigned from the Protestant Church,' wrote Major Schmalfuss. His file is beginning to illustrate a man edging towards the state apparatus.