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Tonight, one of World War II's most enduring mysteries.

A stunning treasure worth half a billion dollars.

Lost without a trace.

It might be the most expensive and beautiful work of art ever made.

It's like it's just vanished.

Now we uncover the top theories surrounding the disappearance of a work

so remarkable that it's known as the eighth wonder of the world.

The castle suffered tremendous damage.

We have to wonder, was the Amber Room destroyed as well?

Stens and Mederer are convinced that the Amber Room is hidden behind the

castle's wall, just waiting to be explored and waiting to produce

Can a new expedition finally reveal its location?

It's a treasure trove of material.

Will we ever be able to find the incomparable Amber Room?

It's September, 1941.

Leningrad, USSR.

Nazi forces invade Russia, moving relentlessly east in a vicious sweep of

destruction. As his troops advance, Hitler gives one important order.

Preserve the priceless works of art in Leningrad's Catherine Palace at all

costs.

Hitler wants to gut Russia, and he wants to steal every work of art he can en

route to conquering the entire country.

The Catherine Palace supposedly houses the most valuable work of art in the

world.

The artwork in question is known as the Amber Room.

It's exactly what it sounds like. It's a room covered in beautiful amber panels.

Some people estimate it to be worth over half a billion dollars.

making it one of the most expensive and beautiful rooms ever created.

During World War II, the German military stole over 600 ,000 pieces of art from

across Europe, ransacking billions of dollars worth of priceless cultural

artifacts. And some say Hitler wants the Amber Room above all else.

Not only does Hitler love art, but he's also a nationalist, and it infuriates

him that there are works of German art outside of German territory.

And the Amber Room is a German work of art that he desperately wants back.

Work began on the room in 1701 in Berlin, which then was part of Prussia.

Frederick I, who rules over the powerful empire in what's now Germany,

originally commissioned the Amber Room.

designed by a sculptor named Andreas Schluter, and it's lavish, and it's

resplendent, and it's expensive, and it's valuable.

Andreas Schluter starts by melting the amber to the point where it is a thick

kind of liquid.

At the time, amber wasn't really used like this, so in addition to being a

beautiful work of art, it's also enormously innovative.

As if that isn't impressive enough, then these 18th century craftspeople encrust

them with jewels and then cover it with gold and silver leaf.

It's also adorned with these four Italian mosaics, making them works of

within a work of art.

King Frederick wants a palace that will outshine France's Versailles, and he

decides that this is going to be the centerpiece.

In 1701, the Amber Room is installed in the Berlin City Palace, but it won't be

there for long.

The Amber Room, unsurprisingly, attracts the attention of another European

royal, Russia's famous czar, Peter the Great.

Peter the Great visits the Berlin City Palace in 1716, and he gets a tour of

Amber Room. King Frederick is trying to forge an alliance with Russia at the

time, and he basically says, if you want the Amber Room, you can have it.

Around the time of Empress Catherine the Great, it's installed in the Catherine

Palace.

And that's where it stays, undisturbed and unmoved for about two centuries.

And even after Russia becomes the USSR and St. Petersburg becomes Leningrad,

Amber Room is just there pretty peacefully until the Nazis arrive.

And here's where the mystery starts.

Because after the Nazi siege of Leningrad, the Amber Room goes missing.

We know that it was in the Catherine Palace.

We know that Hitler sends Nazi troops to go recover it. But that's the last

thing we know. Everything else is just theory.

We think that the Nazis do, in fact, steal the Amber Room from Leningrad. The

most valuable cultural institutions at the time are the old palaces of the

Tsars. And so Hitler sets his sights on those. He's going to tear them apart.

He's going to loot. He's going to pillage. He's going to burn them. He's

to destroy them.

Hitler gives specific instructions not to destroy the Catherine Palace, at

not until the Amber Room is found.

But apparently finding the Amber Room is easier said than done, because when the

Nazis arrive, they don't see it.

There's this one room, pretty nondescript, and the soldiers notice a

of plaster on the floor.

They also notice a little bubbling in the wallpaper right near the seam.

One of the soldiers just slides the fingernail right under the wallpaper,

there's a little bit of sheepskin or some other covering right behind that.

just beyond that... There's the glow.

We start shouting, it's here, it's here.

And his comrades come charging down the hall.

They rip off the wallpaper and there it is, the Amber Room.

The room had been hidden by head Soviet art curator Anatoly Kuchimov.

The original plan is for Kuchimov to pack up as many works of art as possible

for safekeeping and bring them deeper into Russia.

and away from Nazi hands.

Kuchimov does an analysis of the Amber Room, and he realizes that these panels

are very delicate, and they've become brittle over time, so there's really

one move left to make.

Kuchimov covers the Amber Room from floor to ceiling in thick wallpaper,

the Nazis won't look too closely.

But in this last -ditch effort, the Germans uncover the ruse.

And unlike Kuchumov, they have all the hands and time that they need to pack

this thing up very carefully and slowly. They spend about two days dismantling

the Amber Room and packing it into crates.

But where does the Amber Room go from here?

The Germans take the Amber Room, along with a number of other important Russian

cultural artifacts, and transport them to Konigsberg Castle.

Hitler's ultimate plan is to build a museum, the greatest museum in the

world, and it was going to be in his hometown of Linz, Austria.

Eventually, the Amber Room would go there, but while the museum was being

the Amber Room would wait in Konigsberg Castle.

On November 13, 1941, a local newspaper announces an exhibition featuring

the Amber Room at the castle.

So that's the best evidence we have that the Amber Room ever actually went to

Konigsberg. But we don't have any photographic evidence of that, and so

not really even sure if that ever happened.

Now here's the really unfortunate part. While we don't know what happened to the

Amber Room, we do know what happened to Konigsberg Castle, and it's not good.

In August of 1944, Britain's Royal Air Force heavily firebombs Konigsberg.

After that, the Soviets march in and take Königsberg.

But as part of the operation, they bring in a large quantity of heavy artillery

and they shell the city.

By the time of their final occupation of Königsberg on April 9, 1945, 90 % of

the city lies in ruin.

The castle suffers tremendous damage.

So we have to wonder, the Amber Room destroyed as well?

This would be so embarrassing if the Soviets had actually destroyed the Amber

Room.

So they send a team to Konigsberg Castle, led by Professor Alexander

because they have to be sure.

He's able to make it into the castle cellar, where he discovers the charred

remains of three out of the four Italian mosaics that were part of the Amber

Room. Brusov thinks the room is toast, and he says as much in a report. He

writes, summarizing all the facts, We can say that the Amber Room was

between the 9th and the 11th of April, 1945.

Brusov's report won't be the last word on this mystery.

When the Nazis steal the famed Amber Room from Russia, where do they take it?

According to some, it's moved to the Konigsberg Castle.

where it's ultimately this drawer.

But there at the castle, among the wreckage, there's only a small

the amber room that's found.

This leaves some to wonder, really?

A whole room, and this is all that's left? A room that took crates and crates

pack away?

This has many theorists thinking, there's got to be another explanation.

What if the Germans moved the Amber Room before the Soviet invasion of 1945?

We have orders given by Adolf Hitler himself on January 21st and

January 24th, 1945.

The tide of war has changed.

He knows that Allied forces are moving in, so he issues orders that all looted

material in Königsberg Castle be moved.

Some speculate that a high -ranking Nazi commander named Erich Koch follows

these orders.

He was in charge of all civil administration, including police and

operations in East Prussia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

This is a territory that includes Konigsberg, so anything that happens at

Konigsberg Castle is happening under his authority.

Then, in January 1945, Koch flees.

Koch manages to stay on the run for four years until he's captured by the

British. In 1950, he's returned to Poland, where he's forced to stand trial

war crimes, at the end of which he is sentenced to death.

But here's the strange thing.

His death sentence is pretty quickly commuted to life imprisonment. Plenty of

Nazis are executed for their war crimes. There's no real reason for Koch to be

spared. His crimes are just as bad as any other Nazi, and he's unrepentant

it. He's truly a vile person.

Is Koch spared because he has valuable information?

Koch's sentence is commuted after a long period of interrogation by Soviet

authorities. And we think that during this interrogation, Koch reveals that

Amber Room has survived.

And he knows where it is.

According to Eric Koch, Adolf Hitler ordered that the Amber Room be packed up

and moved in January 1945.

He reveals that they packed it up into 24 wooden crates and trucked it 60 miles

from Königsberg to a more fortified Nazi stronghold at Lomeriki, Poland.

Keep in mind that throughout this interrogation, he continues to badmouth

Jews and the Soviets, and he's also singing the praises of Hitler and the

It's not like he was trying to tell the Soviets what they wanted to hear. That

lends a credibility. That makes this more of a believable possibility.

This is also a testament to just how important the Amber Room is to the

that they're going to spare a top Nazi in exchange for a tip, basically, just

keep the hope alive of recovering the Amber Room.

But when the Red Army arrives in Murky in the 1950s, they meet an incredible

challenge.

Mimerki was the center of the German command on the eastern front, and it was

massive complex.

And Mimerki hides a few secrets itself.

Above ground, the Germans build about 200 buildings, and the entire fort

about 600 acres.

But guess what?

Underneath the ground, it's even more impressive.

There are miles and miles of underground bunkers and tunnels.

It's a hidden maze, and that's because of the fact that during the course of

war, the Nazis backfill. They fill in some of the tunnels that they had built

earlier in the conflict.

Then, with the passage of time, Mother Nature works her magic, making this

underground complex an extraordinarily difficult place to search.

The Russians spend years searching Mamurki with no results.

So after two decades of searching...

The Soviets are so desperate, they take Koch out of prison in 1970 and bring him

to Murky to try to find the Amber Room.

He points at a particular bunker where he thinks the Amber Room was taken, but

it's not there.

To that you could say that maybe Eric Koch's memory had lapsed, or he's just

trying to survive. Because after all, if the Soviets do find the Amber Room,

they have no more reason to keep Eric Koch alive.

Playing the Soviets the way that he did, Eric Koch manages to stay alive for

almost another 20 years until he dies of natural causes in 1986 at age 90.

Even so, the search for the Amber Room continues.

These days, Mimerki is overgrown and falling apart, but parts of it are run

museum by a Polish man named Bartek Labanczyk, and he fully believes that

Amber Room is still there.

They even have a replica of the Amber Room inside of the museum.

And every year, Bartek excavates a different bunker in Mimerki.

It's all he can afford to do, one a year, but he's going to keep going until

finds the Amber Room.

So far, they have found tons of Nazi and Soviet artifacts, but it's estimated

that only 1 % of the entire compound has been searched. That means that there

could be tunnels and bunkers.

Still in that complex, just waiting to be explored and waiting to produce

discoveries. These tunnels and chambers have been unexplored in over 70 years.

So each dig could be the one that turns up the Amber Room.

For decades after World War II, a global army of treasure hunters searched for

the lost Amber Room.

It's become the obsession of thousands of people across Europe, across the

Americas. People have even gone looking for the Amber Room in Japan.

While some believe it could be in Poland, two German historians think they

the truth.

Eric Stenz and George Mederer see this news story coming out of the Czech

Republic in 2007.

A former cook.

who used to work in Czechoslovakia's Friedland Castle when it was under Nazi

rule, tells a fascinating tale.

Back near the end of the war, the cook says that she sees hundreds of SS

soldiers arriving at the castle, bringing in crates.

Every night for two weeks, they carry these crates into the cellar of the

castle, and then they're gone.

Denzen Mederer immediately thinks that these are the crates that could hold the

Amber Room.

When Adolf Hitler orders the Amber Room's evacuation from Konigsberg, if it

moved to Mameriki, it's still dangerously close to the front lines. It

make sense for it to be moved to Friedland Castle, which is much deeper

German territory.

So they go to Friedland Castle, down into the cellar.

They see these two large areas that have been walled off with modern bricks and

cement.

They think this seems suspicious.

They go to the Czech authorities, who tell them initially that the cellar in

castle doesn't even exist.

But of course, they were just there. So this feels like a ridiculous bluff.

At this point, Denz and Mederer feel like they're getting the runaround from

Czech authorities.

But they press on, and they have photographs of the cellar and the walled

areas. So they go back to the Czech authorities, who basically have to say,

you mean that cellar?

Nothing to see there. There's just books from a Berlin library behind there.

Unsatisfied with this response, Stens and Mederer ask permission to keep

searching Friedland Castle.

Surprisingly, the authorities say yes, and they allow them to continue their

investigation. However, they forbid them from bringing in any kind of special

equipment that would allow them to see past these modern walls in this old

cellar.

Is it possible the Czech authorities have something to hide?

There is one incident that suggests that the Czechs are trying to keep a secret

from the rest of Europe, and it dates back to before the war.

In 1938, as part of a notorious treaty called the Munich Agreement, this region

of Czechoslovakia was ceded to Hitler by Britain, France, and Italy to avoid

war.

It's considered one of the greatest betrayals in history.

Six months later, Hitler violates the pact and invades the rest of

Czechoslovakia.

The Nazis and the Munich Agreement are still a sore subject in all of the Czech

Republic, but particularly in the region where Friedland Castle is located.

Stens and Mederer are convinced that the Amber Room is hidden behind the

castle's walls.

And their theory is that the Czechs are hiding it because of the Munich

Agreement back in 1938.

The Germans betrayed them, and all of Europe was in on it.

After the Nazis are kicked out, the Czechs decide not to give the loot back.

They wall it up and hide it, sitting on these national treasures as an act of

revenge.

Stens and Mederer continue to pressure the Czech authorities to reveal what's

behind those walls.

And the Czech authorities continue to resist.

While they still haven't revealed what's behind those walls, they insist it is

not the Amber Room. And they say Stens and Mederer are just a couple of deluded

treasure hunters trying to spin fantasies.

But what if the Amber Room is not behind any walls?

Once again.

Let's assume that the Nazis did pack up the Amber Room into 24 crates and remove

it from Konigsberg Castle under Adolf Hitler's orders. The thing is that at

point in the war, in January 1945, when Hitler gives that order, the Nazis are

expecting to lose a lot of territory in East Prussia.

And so they're not going to just move back a few miles. They need to trigger

overall broader evacuation.

And that becomes Operation Hannibal.

So Operation Hannibal.

is an attempt to evacuate all of East Prussia via the Baltic. We're talking

German army, civilians, anything they can evacuate.

And some eyewitnesses think they also attempt to rescue the Amber Room.

Thousands of people descend on the harbor of Gottenhaben, where the

luxury liner Wilhelm Gustloff is standing by to provide an evacuation.

People are just cramming into this area. They're desperate. There's no turning

them back.

They eventually get on the Wilhelm Gustloff. I'm talking about 10 ,000

and they think this is Noah's Ark. This is their salvation. This is going to get

them to safety.

The boat departs on January 30, 1945.

But the Soviet Navy is waiting for any transport moving back and forth on the

Baltic. And within hours of departure, the Wilhelm Gustloff is torpedoed and

sunk.

So we wonder, what's the amber room inside of it?

With a death toll of more than 9 ,000 killed, the thinking of the Wilhelm

Gustloff is the greatest maritime disaster in history, greater than the

and the Lusitania combined.

But was the Amber Room actually on board?

Evacuees there report seeing the 24 crates containing the Amber Room being

loaded aboard the ship.

The Russians believe any number of valuable stolen goods are on the Wilhelm

Fuslav, including the most valuable one of all, the Amber Room.

Several months later, the Russians conduct a dive.

They find bodies, equipment, and crates, but no Amber Room.

But they find something suspicious.

It looks like someone has gotten there first, because there's this large panel

that's been removed from the hull of the ship, and behind that is this big cargo

hold that could have held the two dozen or so crates holding the Amber Room, and

it's been emptied out.

They think a theft has taken place, because most of the wreckage is pretty

undisturbed. So it really looks like someone who knew what they were doing

in and looted this specific area.

For the dive team, this discovery is bittersweet. Because on the one hand, it

means that the torpedo didn't destroy the Amber Room.

But where is it?

The Wilhelm Gustloff is now classified as a war grave, making future

illegal.

If the shipwreck contains more clues to the Amber Room's whereabouts...

They will remain hidden forever.

For over 50 years, the search for the Amber Room started with one question.

Where did it go after the Nazis stole it? There was no reason to challenge the

belief that Hitler's army took the artwork to Konigsberg Castle for display

until a radical new theory emerged with a shocking twist.

What if the Nazis stole the wrong Amber Room?

In 1995, a Russian historian named Vladimir Latsky reveals this new

research that he's done and potentially a new finding.

Latsky claims to have uncovered proof that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin created

ruse to trick the Germans.

According to Lapsky, it starts out not as a trick at all. It starts out as an

act of goodwill, because in 1939, the Germans and the Russians aren't enemies

yet. They're close neighbors, and they actually have really good reason to try

to keep the peace after the devastation of World War I.

They signed the Molotov -Ribbentrop Non -Aggression Pact, which has also been

called the Hitler -Stalin Pact.

It's technically a partition of Poland by the two countries.

but it serves to try and slow Germany's rapid progression toward war.

To commemorate signing the pact, Stalin orders a copy of the Amber Room to be

made for Hitler.

Stalin intends to give it to Hitler when he finally visits the Soviet Union.

It'll be a nice version. It just won't have all of the precious metals and gems

as the original. It won't be worth a half a billion dollars. It'll be worth

like 10 to 12 million.

Stalin commissions Anatoly Baranovsky, Russia's most famous amber craftsman, to

make the copy.

So Baranovsky actually makes a copy, and in addition to that, his apprentices

make another copy.

But Hitler never receives the gift.

Instead, he breaks the non -aggression pact and invades Russia.

Of course, Stalin knew the reputation that Hitler had.

the reputation for stealing art and treasures and taking them back to

And he knows that Hitler wants the Amber Room.

So according to this theory, Stalin plays a brilliant trick on his former

The theory goes like this.

Before the Nazis were able to get to the Catherine Palace, the Russians were

able to swap the original Amber Room for the reproduction. And that's what the

Nazis steal, the wrong room.

The copies of the Amber Room were made in May 1941, but the Germans don't get

Leningrad until September, and it was during that time that the switch is

Vladimir Latsky says that the Soviets do actually pack up the Amber Room panels

and hide them away, and they leave the Apprentice copy in its place.

So, it's a bait -and -switch, the eighth wonder of the world.

The Nazis were duped. The Amber Room that they took back to Konigsberg.

is the fake Amber Room.

So all of these people who are chasing theories from there, they are chasing

copy, not the original Amber Room.

From the Russian perspective, this story is a phenomenal bombshell because it

would provide relief for Russian authorities because it would be proof

did not lose or destroy the Amber Room.

But if this is true, where's the real Amber Room?

So some believe that in November of 1941, the original Amber Room was packed

and sent to a pro -Soviet billionaire in the United States named Armand Hammer.

Armand Hammer was a pharmaceutical and oil magnate, and he was the son of

Russian immigrants who were big supporters of Lenin. So Hammer's strong

ties lead to this nickname, Lenin's Chosen Capitalist.

Hammer has this world -famous art collection, and it's alleged that the

Room became part of it.

Maybe it's some sort of collateral in his business deals with Russia.

Others think it ended up back where it started.

In 1979, the Soviet government orders yet another copy of the room.

24 years later, this new copy of the Amber Room is completed.

partly paid for by the Germans for a total cost of $11 million.

It is ultimately installed in the Catherine Palace, and that's where it is

display to this day.

There are some who believe that this is actually the real original Amber Room,

that it was pulled out of storage and reinstalled by the Russian government

decades later.

That would be an incredible story if it were true.

But unless there was a confession by somebody who truly knows, we will never

know.

For 75 years, some experts believe the Amber Room was lost at sea when a German

ship called the Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed.

But early searches of that turned up nothing.

And there's another ship that the Nazis used during the evacuation, and that

ship was thought to be lost until now.

Could the Amber Room actually be on that long -lost vessel, the SS

Karlsruhe?

The Karlsruhe was made in 1905 as a ship with a 218 -foot overall length and

a beam of 33 feet.

It was a part of Operation Hannibal in 1945, which was the seaborne evacuation

of German military personnel and civilians as the Soviet military

And here's the thing. The Karlsruhe departed from Konigsberg.

A lot of people have focused on the Wilhelm Gustloff, which was a much

ship, and that left from Gotenhofen, which was about 100 miles away.

The Karlsruhe was practically within walking distance of Konigsberg Castle.

The ship departs at nearly the same time the Allies destroy Konigsberg Castle in

air raids.

The wreckage of the Karlsruhe has never been found. So in 2020, this Polish

diving team decides...

they're going to go for it because there could be the most interesting story

sitting at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

The team is led by salvage diver Tomek Stetura.

SS Karlsruhe was one of the 247 ships which sank during the Hannibal operation

in 1945.

We were looking for this wreck.

A few months when we realized that maybe on the deck of this wreck is something

important. We didn't want to be too excited, but we had to admit that maybe

Amber Room over there. Because if the Germans want to send something valuable

something important to them, to the West, the cartouche was the last chance

them.

So the ship departs Konigsberg on April 11, 1945.

It was part of a convoy that was headed to the German port of Swinemunde, which

is now part of modern -day Poland.

According to Nazi Navy reports, the ship is carrying 1 ,083 people, mostly

German civilians.

The Karlsruhe also appears to be carrying about 360 tons of other goods

crates.

So the diving team thinks there's a good chance that the Amber Room is among

those crates.

So the reports say that the ship was overloaded, which means it probably fell

behind the rest of the convoy, making it a perfect target for the Soviet Navy.

It's going to meet the same fate as the Wilhelm Gustav.

It's going to be torpedoed. It's going to go underwater.

Everyone on board, everything inside of it goes down with it.

Now, Statura's job.

is to figure out where that happened.

The Baltic is an incredibly challenging place to conduct any kind of an

underwater expedition.

It's because of the fact that you have very difficult temperatures during the

winter months, howling winds, and the howling winds churn up extremely heavy

surf. And these are all things that are enemies of conducting any kind of an

underwater surf.

We had access to the Russian archive, which said that 13th of April 1945,

Russian aircraft tank SS Karlsruhe.

But the problem was that they show five different positions, and the distance

between each other was between 10 to 50 miles.

The problem here is this ship may have actually engaged in evasive maneuvers,

it could basically turn up anywhere.

But the search team had some original documents, and that's because when the

ship sank, the Germans were able to rescue 113 survivors from the wreck.

In addition to that, the British intercepted and decoded transmissions

to the sinking, and the British intercepted a German telegram about the

as well.

All of the evidence points to an area a few dozen miles north of the Polish town

of Ustka.

The ship is about 300 feet down. So this is a dangerous mission. It's an

expensive and resource -intense mission. And it's going to take perfect weather

and a whole lot of luck.

In June 2020, the Baltic team finally launches their expedition from Gdansk.

We have 300 feet of water, cold, dark water.

This dive is very demanding, and we don't need only to dive. We have to work

underwater.

We have a lot of good equipment.

We have underwater drone. We have multi -beam. We have sonar. And we have 10

very well -trained divers.

This is like amazing moment in the history.

You know, this is the kind of expedition that truly just...

lights up the imagination because there's so much history down at the

the Baltic Sea and potentially the Amber Room.

And it could all resurface for the first time in 75 years.

It's June 2020.

and an expedition led by Tomek Stetura is heading into the Baltic Sea on a

treasure hunt.

Its mission?

Locate the wreck of the torpedoed Nazi steamer SS Karlsruhe and see if the

Room's on board.

We don't know exactly what we can expect on the bottom. Maybe the current will

be huge. Maybe the visibility will be close to zero or the wreck will be

by net.

All of them are very dangerous, so we must be prepared for all conditions.

For 75 years, no one has seen this ship. It's just been lost.

But we know that it carried hundreds of tons of Nazi goods.

So could the Amber Room be among them?

As the divers descend to 288 feet, the search conditions grow more challenging.

In a safe way, we have to use a lot of equipment. We have to use very high

-quality dry tools, special underwater heating systems.

We have to survive more like three hours underwater.

We have 300 feet of cold, dark water. It's not easy dive. And we

have to do it in a very, very safe way.

After a careful 20 -minute descent, the divers pinpoint

the SS Karlsruhe.

This is the first time the ship has been seen since 1945 So

this is the moment after 75 years we salvage cars away from the dark

We saw that the

beautiful wreck if you can say about the break beautiful I have never seen so

many artifacts so many crates so many things on the wreck on the bottom. This

amazing.

It's a treasure trove of material. They find China plates that are in great

shape. They find military vehicles still intact with the rubber still on the

tires.

But what about the Amber Room?

Beneath a large pile of debris, the divers make out what appears to be...

Dozens of field crates.

Now that's the most interesting thing, of course. Here we have crates that

the description of the Amber Room.

Of course, they might just contain ammunition or silverware or sundries.

But what if... Unfortunately, the team is unable to safely transport the

crates.

They'll have to return with additional equipment.

So unfortunately, they can't search the crates on this trip. At those depths,

you really only have about 30 minutes max down there. The last thing they want

to do is potentially damage the Amber Room in the process.

This expedition is step number one, to identify the wreck, to check what is

this. But definitely we need expedition number two, when we can check exactly

what car contains.

Plans are moving forward for a salvage and recovery mission in the next few

months.

To check cargo on the Karstruhe we need to do it on the proper way. On the

proper way that means that we have to spend days or even weeks on the position

that we have to anchor permanently the boat with special equipment for the

divers.

This time they'll be bringing many more resources to the effort.

They'll have divers that can work on a rotating basis. They'll have equipment

that can float large objects.

If they find a crate, they'll need to leave it sealed until they get it to the

surface. The dive team is also going to be bringing a representative from the

National Maritime Museum in Gdansk, Poland, as an advisor.

It's a once -in -a -lifetime opportunity to bring something as rare and as

valuable a cultural resource as the Amber Room to the surface.

This is a mystery on par with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the discovery of King

Tut's tomb.

Is it down there? I don't know.

But I certainly hope it is, because I would love to see this thing finally

revealed. I would love to see this mystery solved.

I couldn't imagine how would we feel when we find hard proof on the

castaway ship that we find Ambaron. This is absolutely out of my imagination,

but perhaps it will be something special and unique, and maybe I remember this

moment until the end of my life.

Could the Amber Room lie in crates at the bottom of the Baltic Sea?

If the dive team is successful and can salvage what's aboard the SS Karlsruhe,

we may soon know the answer to this enduring mystery.

I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for watching History's Greatest Mysteries.