by Adrian Levy
Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein might be ninety-one years old but in his fawn moccasins and slacks he looks like a youthful playboy. 'You are journalists, I take it? I hope you have brought your tape recorder.'
Closer to, the Baron's full head of hair has a sandy tint and he shaves patchily. The scent of spiced fruitcake wafts around him. 'My pedigree is very important to me, my dears, and I am very proud to be still alive.' Can we come in? 'No.' He bars the entrance and points with an exquisite feminine finger to half a dozen rusting coats of arms bolted around the door. 'First you must understand I am a legend in Russia and the Ukraine. This one on the right is the oldest coat of arms in the whole of Russia, it came down to Mummy directly from Peter the Great. And here, this is the Falz-Fein coat of arms. From Daddy. Died of a broken heart after we fled the Bolsheviks.'
The Baron steers us over the doorstep. 'Now you know a little, you may enter my humble refugee's abode.' He stops again in the hall. The walls are lined with oils, many of which look familiar. 'Here is the last Tsar. Here is his wife,' the Baron gushes over a murky portrait whose original certainly hangs in the Russian Museum in St Petersburg. 'What a beautiful lady she was. What a tragedy. Murdered in that filthy cellar in Ekaterinburg.' The Baron clutches his breast. I gave DNA to identify the Romanov bones. I was the only "foreigner" invited to the funeral when they were laid to rest in St Petersburg in 1990. Such an honour.
'Here is my grandfather Nikolai Alexeievich Epanschin, the General of Infantry and Director of the Emperor's Page Corps.' The Baron trails a protective finger across a line of blurred portraits. We notice the clock on the wall is set four hours ahead. To Ukrainian time.
An hour into the tour we reach the Baron's own generation. We are ushered into his living room. In one corner is a vast nineteenth-century boyar's desk and next to it a well-used exercise bike. 'Everyone wants to give me a special order,' says the Baron with mock fatigue, opening a glass cabinet crammed with citations and medals, a glittering mass of hammers, ribbons, sickles, red stars and even a black iron cross. 'They want me to wear them.' He doesn't say who. 'But heaven forbid! I would look like Brezhnev.'
The Baron leads us to a red leather sofa from which we can see sweeping views over the velvety Liechtenstein valley. How did you meet George Stein, we ask? 'My life has taken ninety-one years to live and you cannot understand my motivations for hunting for the Amber Room unless you understand my background. Allow me this short summary.' He checks to see that our tape machine is whirring. 'L'Equip snapped me up in Paris and sent me to cover the 193 6 Olympics. I saw how Hitler was mad when Jesse Owens won the LOO metres! The Fiihrer was only twenty yards from our press box.' After his stint in journalism, the Baron became a cycling champion, a luge champion and then a racing driver.
'Eventually my friend Porfirio 'Rubi' Rubirosa said to me, "Eduard, there is a time in every man's life when it is no longer appropriate to be flirting with little girls." No more Casanova. I went to see cousin Vladimir Nabokov in New York, where I proposed to my first wife.' In 19 50 the Baron married Virginia Curtis-Bennet, the daughter of Sir Noel, a president of the International Olympic Committee and mandarin at the British treasury. I asked the Archbishop of Canterbury's permission for an Orthodox service with a Russian choir. We married in the Savoy Chapel. It was a sensation, dears. All the royalty came.
Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein reporting at the 193 6 Munich Olympics
'But later, oh, we fought like cats. She tried to convince me that everything English was best, like your chocolate and cars, but it is not so. I told my darling, "Don't be silly. Only Swiss chocolate is the finest in the world. Your cars are tin cans." Eventually a very fine American author, Paul Gallico, rescued me. He took her off my hands. Afterwards they married and moved to Monte Carlo and started hanging out with Princess Grace. After Gallico died, Prince Rainier took my former darling on as Dame d'Honour du Chateau. When Princess Grace died, my former darling looked after the royal children. Quelle tragedie. She is still there and we are the best of friends. Whenever I come down to Monte Carlo I'm very nicely treated. The Prince invites me for lunch.'
So extraordinary is the story of this life that if it were not for the grand piano that prominently displays the photographic evidence, Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein could pass as a slick confidence trickster. But here he is as a young hack in the Berlin Olympics press box with swastikas flying around his head; dining with Princess Grace in Monte Carlo; and then walking across the piste in the 1960S with British royals, Prince Philip and Prince Charles; even in a clinch with Joan Crawford.
The Baron's mobile phone trills a fragment from Swan Lake. It is the office of Mr Yushchenko, the Ukrainian Prime Minister, and he fields the call in halting Russian before hanging up and finally turning to the subject of the stolen art. I began looking for art stolen from Russia in the 19 50s. I found a Gobelin tapestry from the tsar's family that had been looted from the Livadia Palace. I outbid the Japanese for it, at a sale in Bonn. Mon dieu, mon dieu, what a welcome the Russians gave me when I returned it to the palace.' The Baron's eyes prick with tears: 'Dum, didum, didum. Thousands of people there to see me give back what had been stolen. Little me, a poor refugee living in Liechtenstein!'
And what of George Stein, we ask?
'Yes, yes, I'm coming to him. After I found the Gobelins I got a call from a Soviet writer stationed in Bonn. He was a working for Literaturnaya Gazeta. Mon dieu, Julian Semyonov.' The Baron strikes his forehead in horror. He is talking about the Soviet crime writer whose letters and articles about George Stein we have read in the Stasi files.
'The first time Julian Semyonov came here he stayed fifteen days. Sat there, where you are, on the red sofa, drinking half a bottle of vodka for breakfast and then falling asleep until lunch. Julian cost me a fortune, creeping around the house looking for gluggables. I never touched a drop or smoked a single cigarette in my entire life. When Julian woke up, all we talked of was the Amber Room. He said he needed my help to find it. In 1975 he introduced me to George Stein, who had returned the Pskov icons to Moscow. I thought Stein was a little crazy but we had a common interest. He had a theory about a mine in Volpriehausen, near Gottingen. Irreplaceable amber buried in that pit. So exciting. George Stein said: "I know where the Amber Room is. Give me some money and I'll go and find it for you.'" So after the West German government had turned him down, George Stein had sought out a private source of finance to pursue the story planted by the Stasi.
Was it worth it, we ask?
The Baron walks over to an enormous antique carved oak chest, a family heirloom from the Ukraine that is filled with a jumble of paperwork. 'Our archive,' he declares. 'Myself, Julian and George, we decided to form a little committee. To look for the Amber Room. George had all these wartime documents that suggested that the Amber Room might have been concealed in Volpriehausen in West Germany and we were so excited, because until then all the searches had been beyond our reach - in Russia and the GDR. Now we could search for buried treasure in the West too and, my dears, we worked so hard.'
The Baron hands us a photograph of Semyonov, a bull-necked man with a bushy black beard. I like to think I played a small part in his career.'
Was Semyonov KGB, we ask?
'My dears, I wouldn't be so rude as to ask and he never volunteered. Let's just say he went on a lot of foreign holidays.
Julian Semyonov
'Amber Room fever hit the West in the 1970S and journalists, detectives and writers flocked to join our little committee: Georges Simenon, the Beige who lived in Paris making a fortune from his character Inspector Maigret. Simenon was a friend of Julian Semyonov's too. We also had darling "Red Countess" Marion Donhoff, the Grand Dame of the East Prussian resistance. Somehow George Stein had convinced her that their fathers had been great friends in Konigsberg.
'So, through Marion we had the influential Die Zeit on our side. There were others circling on the periphery. A little Englishman from the intelligence services, MI6, perhaps he was called Eldr
idge. Or was it Aldridge? Oh, I don't know.' The Baron's eyes are gleaming like a child's on Christmas morning. 'It was all done with our own money, a lot of money, crazy money. For a time the Amber Room held such a fascination for all of us. It was like a drug. And I poured money in.'
Marion Donhoff
The Baron pulls newspaper cuttings out of the old chest. By the early 1980S 'the Amber Room committee' was hogging increasing amounts of newsprint, its activities gobbled up by the West German, British and American press, willing it on to find the Russian treasure ahead of the Communists. Komsomolskaya Pravda, 1983: 'Face to Face - an Interview with George Stein'. The Sunday Times, 20 October 1985: 'The Theft of the Amber Room'. Digs in Carinthia. Hunting in the Odenwald, east of Mannheim. Secrets buried in classified US Army files in Washington. Julian Semyonov and Baron Falz-Fein debating the Amber Room mystery over cups of champagne at Maxim's in Paris. The Baron staying over at cousin Vladimir Nabokov's, researching the last months of the war. And the Baron's committee infecting others with the Amber Room bug, spawning feverish speculation about where the treasure lay buried. Magazines. Books. TV documentaries.
Did the Baron know that much of Stein's intelligence was coming from the Stasi, possibly Moscow? We show him some of the papers we have found in the Ministry of Truth.
He shrugs. 'Paul Enke. He told us he was from the Ministry of the Interior. I didn't know for sure that he was Stasi. But we had our suspicions since Enke could never come out of East Berlin. We always had to go there, as tourists through Checkpoint Charlie.'
But what of the Volpriehausen episode, where George Stein relied on a fake telex from 'Rudi Ringel's' father to prove that the Amber Room was buried in the pit? We show the Baron the report of 'Rudi Ringel's' interrogation by Uwe Geissler in E979 that revealed how 'Ringel's' father was in reality an invalided post office guard. The Baron pushes it away. 'I'm an old man now. Talk to the ones continuing our search.' His eyes well up as he embarks on what sounds like a well-rehearsed story. I had to get involved. When I was a little boy, only five, my grandfather the General took me to see the Amber Room and said, "When you are a bigger boy you will remember that I showed you one of the wonders of the world." I never forgot. And when I came to a time in my life where I could help return it, I saw it as my duty. To give back the Amber Room.' He stands up. 'Now I must go to a meeting.'
We show the Baron the Stasi report that accused Stein of doctoring documents to fit his theories.
'No one paid more heavily for following the Amber Room than dear old George Stein,' he retorts.
Is the Baron referring to the death threats, the assault and Elisabeth Stein's death, we ask?
He sits back down. 'So, you know. George's problems began when his wife died in terrible circumstances in 1983 and then, the following year, his mentor in the East, Berlin art historian Gerhard Strauss, dropped dead too. Without Gerhard Strauss, Stein had to deal with Enke directly and those two never got on, dears. So protective of their respective versions of the story, they fought like torn cats. Everyone had a version in those days. Anyway, I must take your leave,' he says, standing up again.
Why did the Soviets close down the Amber Room inquiry and fail to tell anyone else, we ask? We are trying to keep the conversation alive.
The Baron's mood darkens. 'It all collapsed in the summer of 1987. Stein phoned me and said, "I don't know where to go. Can I come over to see you, as I have sold everything." He stayed one, two, three weeks, I can't remember, writing, writing, writing. Then one day I said, "Tomorrow I must go away." It was the start of the Tour de France. I had been invited, personally. Stein said he had a friend in Munich. I drove him to the station. Gave him money. I felt terrible packing him off. Miserable. I told him, "Please be careful." Imagine if it had happened here in Vaduz. What a horror.'
What happened, we ask?
The Baron forces a bundle of documents into our hands and urges us out into the hall. 'Here, this is everything you need to know. So nice to meet you,' he beams and opens the door. As it shuts behind us we notice on the papers the insignia of the Bavarian police force, Criminal Investigations, Ingolstadt. Case: George Stein: 20 August 1987.2
'Villa Askania Nova, Schloss Strasse, Vaduz.' A letter from the Baron to Julian Semyonov. The first document in the bundle he has given us:
8 April 1985, Dear Julian, yesterday I spoke to your daughter and found out that you are in the Argentine. Please call me in ten days on your return. The visit I desired is now coming about and I shall arrive [in Russia] on 27 May, 17.05, with the Swissair from Zurich. I took a visum for three weeks and therefore I will have time to fly with you also to Yalta. Please organize my stay as well as the planned detour to Leningrad for the rededication of the tombs of the Admiral Epanschin. I greet you in order to renew our old friendship and I am very pleased to see you again. Eduard.
The Baron and Julian Semyonov, once close friends, were planning his Grand Tour of the Soviet Union.
'Ashhausener Strasse, Stelle, Hamburg.' A letter from George Stein to Julian Semyonov:
10 November 1985, My dear Julian! I have been very surprised that you have surfaced so suddenly but anyhow have a good time in Geneva. I am enclosing an article from The Sunday Times on the subject the 'Theft of the Amber Room'. The contract for the filming of "The Amber Room" I also enclose. It has been decided by the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation that shooting should begin in early 1987. The plan is to produce an evening-long documentary and later a feature film. The basis of the film will be my archive with circa 2,300 documents. On the basis of my negotiations with the central archive of the GDR in Potsdam, we pursue clues that lead to the FRG... We must talk about these matters several times... the first chance for such a contact would be Friday a.m. at 7.45, with kindest regards, your friend George!!!
Having learned from the Baron that Semyonov was back in touch, Stein immediately began bombarding the Soviet crime writer who had made him famous in 1973 With wild Amber Room theories, fed by documents from the Stasi.
'Ashhausener Strasse, Stelle, Hamburg.' Another letter from George Stein, the same day:
10 November 1985, Dear Baron von Falz-Fein, please show Julian... a copy of the article written by Anthony Terry [The Sunday Times]... Please send back the original contract from the Aktive Film Company... I am not sure if Julian wishes to help. He was trying to make some films about the subject [of the Amber Room] himself. Could you sound him out?... We must discuss these questions in detail before you meet Julian... He is a nice enough chap but he is just not reliable. It would be favourable for an increase in my finances as well. With the kindest regards, as ever, sincerely yours, George Stein.
Always the showman, Stein's greatest fear was losing control of the Amber Room story and particularly to the already famous Soviet crime writer Semyonov. But in the end it was not Semyonov that he would fear.
There is a significant gap in the bundle of correspondence, presumably the period in which Stein's Amber Room documentary was being filmed, before this flurry of press releases in 1987:
Deutsche Press Association, ARD [Channel One television] and NDR [Norddeutscher Rundfunk]. 16 April 1987. Headline: Amber Room taken to the USA on 15 May 1945. George Stein reveals that the room was transported via Grasleben [mine in Helmstedt, eighty miles north-east of Volpriehausen] - to Wiesbaden [US central collection point] - and then Antwerp [sea port] - finally arriving in the USA [secret depository].
Bayern 3 TV: 16 April 1987. A 90-minute documentary screened tonight will show how the hunt for the Amber Room led by hobby-Historiker George Stein has revealed that it was taken to the United States.
Die Zeit. Hamburg: 18 April 1987. Mystery of Amber Room Now Solved?
Stein had been passed documents by the Stasi that showed how the Amber Room had been taken by US forces and smuggled to America, a revelation that, although surely a fake, created a press frenzy.
'Hamburg-Eppendorf Psychiatric Hospital.' A letter from George Stein, 13 May 1987. Less than one month afte
r the German media aired Stein's controversial American theory, he was in a psychiatric hospital.
My dear Baron! I am lying here for the last three and a half weeks exactly. Why, you shall find out today. On 15 April [the day before Stein's TV documentary was broadcast], I received an ultimate demand from the Inland Revenue for the amount 400,000 DM. My children have been induced to clear the house in Stelle. It is now standing empty and will be auctioned in the near future by the state. The Amber Room affair is at an end and that probably was the main aim of the 'State Action'. We were nearly at the final stage. Revenge for the little matter of the monastery treasure [Pskov] is also playing a role in this affair. I myself own nothing except the clothes I am wearing.
'The Amber Room files are locked up in the empty house. Friends are trying to rescue these and take them to safety... I have no money at all. Somebody has given me the stamps for this letter. In spite of all this I retain courage and hope. Please inform all our friends, you know who I mean. Please do not forget me. I often think about all of you... My children despise me and they don't visit any more... With kind regards, George Stein.
P.S. How do I get out of here? Can our friends help?'
Stein was in a manic state, on the verge of bankruptcy, and we wonder if he was seeing clearly, fearing that the West German government was trying to silence him about the Amber Room before he made his controversial revelation. But we are beginning to understand what contributed to Robert Stein's state of mind. We read on, as fast as we can.
