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00:00the war between Hitler and Stalin cost more than 25 million lives it also saw
00:11the disappearance of vast amounts of treasure including 400 masterpiece
00:16paintings from Berlin the fire in the black tower destroys a huge amount of
00:21art and a famous Russian room oh made entirely of amber this was the last
00:27place the amber in the sea yes two great mysteries and the hunt for missing
00:33treasure at the end of World War two the Allies made a series of shocking
00:43discoveries hidden in trains bunkers and deep underground they found mountains of
00:50stolen treasure that must have been like going into Aladdin's cave Hitler and the
00:55Nazis had looted an entire continent and committed the greatest theft in history
01:01now a team of investigators is opening up cold case files of Nazi plunder still
01:07missing today we're talking about things that are worth tens of millions of
01:10dollars Robert Edsel is author of the best-selling book turned Hollywood movie
01:15the monuments man and an expert Nazi looted treasure hundreds of thousands of
01:21objects are still missing well we have a lot of digging to do joining him the
01:25second World War historian James Holland none of this was really his he just
01:30taken it and investigative journalist Connor Woodman and this is a genuine
01:36treasure hunt we dig a hole in the ground and we find those cases their
01:39mission uncover new clues oh gosh this is it explore Nazi hideouts whoever built this
01:46brick wall really didn't want anyone to get through to the other side find out how the
01:50treasure was stolen and where it might be now what a piece of history
02:07at the monuments men foundation in Dallas Robert Edsel and art historian Dorothy
02:13Schneider are launching the team's new investigation the Berlin Flak Tower mystery
02:19this case involves one of the greatest mysteries of World War two perhaps the
02:23greatest loss of cultural property in modern time Berlin early May 1945
02:32Hitler was dead and the Soviet Red Army's bloody conquest of the city nearly
02:37complete at the end of the war in May 45 a flak tower anti-aircraft tower in
02:45Berlin housed some of the greatest cultural treasures in the world place there for
02:49safe keeping the Friedrich Seine flak tower was a mighty fortress near the
02:55center of the city with reinforced concrete walls four meters thick it was
03:01virtually impenetrable hundreds of masterpieces belonging to the Berlin
03:06museums were placed inside where they should have been entirely safe
03:10but these eyewitness reports claim that not long after the German surrender a series of fires ripped
03:22through the flak tower likely burning its contents to ashes I have this report here it's 441 masterpieces
03:31to be exact including Rubens Caravaggio big names worth billions of dollars
03:37this inventory list prepared at the end of the war captures the enormity of what may be the biggest
03:46tragedy in the history of art for decades it was thought everything on this list was destroyed there's
03:53some of the most important paintings in the world all thought to have been destroyed and yet we know now
03:58today through our research and the research of others some works of art survived and that's the focus
04:04of our case to find out what's out there to solve the Friedrich Seine flak tower mystery the team must go
04:12back to the final chaotic days of the Battle of Berlin historian James Holland comes to the scene of Nazi Germany's last
04:22stand today Berlin is a modern thriving city but if I've been standing out the side the Reichstag here in May 1945 all I'd have seen is complete and utter devastation
04:34the entire city lay in ruins pounded by relentless Allied bombing while in those final weeks of the war a battle raged between revenge-fueled Soviet troops and the remnants of the German armed forces with civilians caught up in the middle
04:51this is a time where normal life had completely broken down it was a time of utter chaos amidst the chaos the flak towers were some of the only buildings left standing
05:06from really early on in the war the RF started bombing Berlin and in response to this the Germans decided to massively strengthen the city's anti-aircraft defenses and center to this were three enormous flag towers and actually you can see on this map really clearly there was one here at Humboldtain another one at zoo and a third one here at Friedrich Seine
05:33where I'm heading now to find out what happened to that art in May of 1945
05:40the massive Friedrich Seine flak tower complex comprises two buildings the gun tower which stood over 220 feet high and was crowned with a battery of anti-aircraft cannons
05:56at a nearby radar tower to detect approaching bombers it was here that Berlin's museum curators brought their treasures for safe storage
06:03James has come to Friedrich Seine to meet Sasha Kyle a Berliner who has spent two decades finding and exploring the city's hidden wartime bunkers
06:19that's right now we're in we're in Fridrich Seine now and I know there was a monstrous flak tower here but where was it
06:26that's right now we're in we're in Fridrich Seine now and I know there was a monstrous flak tower here but where was it
06:31the hill yeah under this hill is this
06:35so that's just been buried effectively yeah create a hill cover it in soil plant some grass job done
06:47was there anything you can still see yeah you can see some pieces on top I can show you
06:54this is one balcony you can say was amazing to see this little bit sticking up it's just this one piece
07:04how amazing on May 2nd 1945 the red army seized Friedrich Seine and its counterpart tower at zoo and found massive stockpiles
07:15of priceless treasure stored in both but that's where the similarity between the two ends
07:22and the Friedrich Seine mystery begins
07:28so Sasha let me get this straight so the Russians take over the zoo flak tower at the beginning of May
07:32and they do so in an orderly fashion they put in guards they know there's treasures there and they're protected
07:37but they don't do the same here at Friedrich Seine the art is still in the radar tower unprotected
07:44that was the first idea I would have as an officer that they ignored everything
07:49no guards were posted at the tower and no protection was given to the treasures inside
07:56mobs of desperate Berliners now broke in on the hunt for food shelter and anything else on which they could lay their hands
08:05there's no guards people are looting and coming in and out and taking away things
08:10but responsible persons generals officers and guards why did they ignore Friedrich Seine and let it open to the public or anyone else
08:21over a three-day period from May 2nd to 5th civilians ransacked the tower taking anything they could find
08:30and then sometime between the night of the 5th of May and the morning of the 6th there's a fire on the first floor
08:38but this was just the beginning
08:42over the next 10 days two more blazes erupted on the second and third floors burning out of control
08:53we're talking about incineration we're talking about extreme heat aren't we
08:56yeah it burned for days so hot
09:00when the smoke finally cleared museum curators entered the tower
09:04and found knee-high piles of ash where the treasure was once stored
09:09but for the team questions remain was all the art destroyed or is it possible some items survived
09:16spirited away by looters before the blaze broke out
09:20the team is in Berlin to investigate the disappearance of 2 billion dollars worth of treasure in 1945
09:37there's a fire in the black tower and that destroys a huge amount of art
09:43but evidence is now emerging that some of this treasure may have survived
09:48but even earlier than that people are looting and coming in and out and taking away things
09:53now team leader Robert Edsel has come to Berlin to follow a new lead
09:58he's meeting Brian Horny the son of an American soldier who was stationed in the city after the war
10:08your father was working with allied military government and civil affairs right at the end of the war and was in Berlin
10:15well buildings still would have been practically smoldering
10:19the disaster
10:21there wasn't anything functional
10:24they got food for people housing for people
10:27they got the place safe again
10:29while helping with urgent relief work
10:34horny had a fateful encounter with a Berliner looking to exchange a painting for water and food
10:41he met a lady
10:44who was totally devastated
10:47and he supplied her food and water and apparently saw the painting was not framed
10:54he said you know what I saw was just the painting of Madonna
10:58so
11:00he paid her for the painting
11:02what I don't know
11:04he didn't look at the value of it
11:06he looked at the painting
11:08and it's a beautiful painting
11:10Brian's father returned to Pennsylvania with his treasure
11:14and it remained in the family for nearly 70 years
11:17until the day Brian took it to a nearby gallery to be reframed
11:22so I took it in
11:25and they said do you know how valuable this is
11:28I said no I have no idea
11:31the painting was sent to Sotheby's Auction House in New York
11:35where it was positively identified as a Renaissance era work by Italian master Giovanni Beltrafio
11:41a friend and colleague of Leonardo da Vinci
11:45and there was other shocking news
11:48we heard from Sotheby's that it was in one of the flak towers
11:53Sotheby's had discovered the painting on a wartime list of works stored at Friedrichshain and assumed destroyed
12:03the unidentified Berliner had somehow acquired it and sold it to Daniel Horny
12:08I never knew her name
12:11and he never mentioned it
12:13there's no way of knowing where she got it from
12:15none whatsoever
12:16he had no idea where it came from
12:19in 2012
12:22Brian returned this masterpiece to its rightful owners
12:25the Gemelde gallery in Berlin
12:27its survival is definitive proof that at least one of the paintings made it out of the flak tower intact
12:34but what of the other 440 paintings stored at Friedrichshain
12:41including this work by Caravaggio St. Matthew and the angel
12:45which would be worth tens of millions of dollars if found today
12:49what was its fate?
12:51Robert has come to Berlin's Bode Museum to see some items that survived the fire
12:57not paintings but statues and sculptures which bear witness to the violence and chaos
13:04of those final days of the war
13:06so tell me about this
13:08this is a work that has been in Berlin since the 17th century
13:12and it's a work that was damaged in 1945
13:16it was in the Friedrichshain fire
13:18it also served as a target for soldiers
13:22we don't know if they were Russian or German soldiers
13:25there are two bullet holes that are visible
13:30in the back
13:31there's one here that you can see
13:33and another one here in the right shoulder
13:37and the most disturbing is the one in the temple here
13:40every time I look at this sculpture
13:42I see a child with a bullet in his head
13:47it stands as a testament to part of history
13:50yes absolutely
13:52in the museum's basement
13:55there are other sculptures damaged in the fire
13:57that lead Robert to the next stage in the investigation
14:03it looks like an accident scene
14:05you have two adolescents lying on stretchers
14:09these two were returned in 1958 from the Soviet Union
14:13after the fire Soviet archaeologists entered the flak tower
14:20removed any surviving treasure
14:22and took it to the Soviet Union
14:24the archaeologists were part of what was known as the Red Army Trophy Brigades
14:30which took cultural artifacts from Germany as compensation for Soviet war losses
14:352.5 million objects were taken
14:38they were distributed among a number of museums in the Soviet Union
14:43the two most important ones were the Pushkin Museum in Moscow
14:46and the Armitage in Saint Petersburg
14:48we know the trophy brigades took millions of items from Germany
14:53but did they remove treasures from the flak tower before the fires broke out?
14:58if unarmed civilians managed to make off with art
15:04how much more could a well-equipped Red Army unit have plundered?
15:08in their quest to solve the mystery of the flak tower fire
15:11in their quest to solve the mystery of the flak tower fire
15:24and the disappearance of more than 400 masterpieces
15:28the team has discovered that some of the treasures survived the inferno
15:32there's no guards, people are looting and coming in and out and taking away things
15:37the investigation now zeroes in on the role of the Red Army Trophy Brigades
15:42and the forgotten story of how the Soviets took 2.5 million art treasures back to Russia
15:49including a hoard of celebrated masterpieces
15:55in Dallas, Robert and Dorothy are investigating the Soviet motive
16:00I think when we talk about Berlin in May 1945
16:03we really have to go back to June 1941
16:06with Nazi Germany's invasion into the Soviet Union
16:09that's really when it all begins
16:14Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union
16:16was one of the biggest and deadliest events in history
16:21he considered the Russians to be untermensch
16:24or subhuman
16:26his relentless 4 year war of annihilation claimed nearly 25 million Soviet lives
16:35through combat, starvation and genocide
16:39the losses are staggering but it's not of course just the losses
16:43it's the pillaging and the looting
16:45as they advanced, the Nazis seized every possible opportunity
16:49to ransack the nation of its treasures
16:51it was cultural warfare on an unprecedented scale
16:55and the Nazis, they looted and pillaged so much in the Soviet Union
16:59the museums that were looted, places of worship that were blown up
17:03exactly, I mean when you get to 1944, the fall of 44
17:07and the spring of 45
17:09as Berlin's encircled by the Soviet Red Army forces
17:12they're running the looting and the pillaging in reverse
17:15they're out for revenge
17:24for the Soviets, the loss of one treasure above all others
17:27came to symbolize what they'd suffered at the hands of the Nazis
17:32investigative journalist Connor Woodman is in St. Petersburg
17:35to find out more about the theft of this cultural icon
17:38and how it drove the Soviets' quest for revenge
17:41I'm about 25 kilometers outside St. Petersburg
17:46on my way to Catherine's Palace
17:48which once housed the 8th wonder of the world
17:51the Amber Room
17:52it went missing from here in 1941
17:54stolen by the Nazis
17:56and it's never been found
17:57it's still considered by many to be the greatest art mystery of all time
18:01the Catherine Palace was conceived as a summer home for the Russian royal family
18:12and no expense was spared in its construction
18:18but for Hitler's looters, the real prize lay within
18:21crafted more than 300 years ago by German artisans as a gift to Russia
18:32the Amber Room
18:34with its soaring panels of glittering amber
18:36was a prime target for the Nazis
18:39oh wow, oh wow
18:49this is a meticulous reproduction of the original
18:53look at this
18:55this is so much bigger than I thought it would be
18:58I had no idea that it would be as vast as this
19:01when there was evakuation of museum objects from our palace
19:05the first thing we tried to do was to take our famous famous panneau
19:11but unfortunately, it turned out that it was impossible
19:14because by a number of reasons
19:17the panneau was hiding
19:20so we decided to leave it at the place
19:23in a last-ditch effort to save the room
19:26palace staff tried concealing the panels with wallpaper
19:29but the conquering Germans saw through the ruse almost immediately
19:38in November 1941
19:40a team of Nazi art experts arrived at the palace
19:43and quickly dismantled the room with surgical precision
19:46so they obviously worked out a way to move it
19:49that the Russians haven't been able to work out
19:51there was a whole kind of command
19:52there was a whole kind of command
19:55a team of scientists who were doing this
19:58they were able to dismantle this panneau
20:02two and a half years later
20:04in January 1944
20:06the Red Army liberated Leningrad
20:08and palace staff returned
20:10to find their worst fears realized
20:12the Amber Room was gone
20:15and the rest of the palace had been burned and gutted
20:19конечно
20:21состояние ощущение
20:22от увиденного было очень тяжелое
20:24потому что
20:26когда они сюда вошли
20:27они увидели полностью разрушенный дворец
20:29the Catherine palace has since been painstakingly restored
20:36to its former glory
20:38but for Vika
20:40it will never be complete without the original Amber Room
20:43and what do you think?
20:44do you think one day someone will find the original Amber Room?
20:47мы надеемся
20:49и будем надеется до последнего
20:52as the Nazis sped away with the Amber Room
20:55little did they know
20:56their actions would stoke the fires of revenge
20:59and provoke the Soviets to blaze their own trail of plunder
21:03all the way to Berlin
21:05and the Friedrichsein Flack Tower
21:06the team is searching for masterpieces looted from a Berlin treasure hoard in the final hours of the war
21:21and the Red Army is a prime suspect
21:26in Berlin
21:28Robert has a rendezvous with Konstantina Kinsha
21:31he was a curator at the Kyiv Museum in the early 1990s
21:35where he made a shocking discovery
21:38stashes of art looted from Germany
21:41and secretly kept in the back rooms of Soviet museums
21:45Konstantin tell me how that came about
21:47what was that moment like when you realized what you found?
21:50when I came as a young curator to the museum
21:53I saw all these hidden treasures
21:56and we found that half of our collection is not ours
22:00we had works from German museums which we were hiding
22:03shocked by what he saw
22:07Konstantin investigated further
22:09and discovered the Kyiv Museum was just one of 50 secret repositories of art taken from Germany by the Red Army Trophy Brigades
22:17where did the idea of the Soviet Trophy Brigades for culture come from?
22:24commodities, the main brigades were not specialized in art
22:28right for example it was a special trophy brigade coming to Germany to collect shoes
22:33so trains pegged by shoes were sent to Russia
22:38special trophy brigades were collecting heads
22:40so heads were sent to Russia
22:43and this all emanates from Stalin's view that the Soviet Union has of course suffered enormous losses
22:51which it has
22:53and that it should receive compensation for these losses
22:57yeah and art was the same
22:58you destroyed our works of art so we're going to take yours to compensate for the loss
23:03all in all we are talking about more than two and a half million of objects
23:07two and a half million objects under the trophy brigades
23:10yeah under the trophy brigades, moved to Russia
23:14following Stalin's death in 1953
23:17the Soviets returned an estimated 1.5 million of these objects to communist East Germany
23:23but that left a million works of art still hidden away behind the Iron Curtain
23:29the question now
23:32were the trophy brigades somehow involved in the Friedrichshain mystery?
23:37Konstantin is doubtful
23:39the city was in a state of complete chaos
23:41and all around Berlin they encountered problems
23:44they made unbelievable mistake with the tour of Friedrichshain
23:48the trophy brigades quickly secured the Zoo Flak Tower and its treasures
23:54but they were delayed in reaching its counterpart at Friedrichshain
23:58all these treasures were there, it was not guarded
24:02and people were coming there
24:05a lot of displaced persons, locals
24:09of course soldiers were looking, but like every army had the same problem
24:14so there's Soviet Red Army soldiers that are picking things up to take them back
24:18for which there really was no account
24:20yeah of course
24:22so things that are lost, perhaps thought to be destroyed
24:25and might show up in Russia at some point in time?
24:28of course they could be sitting in the origin
24:30and we don't know what still could be found there
24:34it seems like the best place to be looking for the missing objects
24:38is somewhere in Russia or the former Soviet Republic
24:40of course, but for this you need one scene
24:43you need access to the repositories of museums
24:47I think that some surprises are awaiting for us
24:50in this repository
24:52how do I get it?
24:54that's another question
25:00Connor has flown to the city of Kaliningrad in Russia
25:03before the war, it was the German city of Koenigsberg
25:10home of the Koenigsberg castle
25:13the last verified location of the Amber Room
25:16this is all that remains of the structure today
25:20Connor has come to meet with the castle's historian
25:23to find out more about the Amber Room's time here
25:26and if the ruins might still hold any clues to its fate
25:30well this is it
25:34the rest of the Royal Koenigsberg castle
25:37this was the last place the Amber Room was seen
25:41yes
25:43according to Nazi records
25:45the room was transported here directly from the Catherine Palace
25:49in late fall 1941
25:51and it was here the Amber Room was reassembled and put on display
25:55for Hitler and the Nazis
25:59it was a triumph
26:01a historic example of German craftsmanship
26:05repatriated to the fatherland
26:07after more than two centuries in Russia
26:10for the Germans to have sent so much important art
26:15including the Amber Room to this place
26:17they must have felt like this was a pretty safe castle
26:19they were never going to lose it
26:22losing the war was not in their plans
26:29in 1943
26:31the Allies turned the tide against Germany
26:34and Koenigsberg became a prime target for their bombers
26:38for its protection
26:40the Amber Room was disassembled, crated up
26:43and moved into storage deep inside the castle
26:46this is pretty much where we know the Amber Room was was stored
26:51to keep it safe from the from the bombing
26:53yeah so it's quite likely that somewhere along here
26:56it's was the last place the Amber Room was seen
26:59underground level of the building that contains the Amber Room
27:05and after that it just disappeared from the history
27:09the Red Army surrounded Koenigsberg on January 15, 1945
27:13and after a brutal three-month siege
27:17took the city and its castle on April 10th
27:20Nazi records show the Germans evacuated at least some of the valuable art
27:28housed at Koenigsberg Castle before the city was surrounded
27:32but were the delicate panels of the Amber Room among them
27:36more than 70 years later the question remains unanswered
27:40and where do you think it is?
27:43I don't know, I don't know
27:45there's no evidence of existence in the room somewhere after the war
27:50but some other objects, a lot of documents were transported to Germany
27:54and we found it after the war
27:56and I think if German transported the documents
27:59they actually transported the Amber Room
28:01Amber Room?
28:02Yeah, which would you take first?
28:04Your documents or your Amber Room?
28:06I know which one I'd take
28:10It's possible the Amber Room was safely evacuated
28:13to a carefully selected hiding place before the Red Army surrounded the city
28:17and Connor is about to meet a man who was convinced they hid the Amber Room somewhere the victorious Red Army least expected
28:27right below their feet
28:29In the hunt for the Flak Tower treasures, Robert has learned that it wasn't only Soviet trophy brigades that took German cultural artifacts
28:46Roe Red Army soldiers may have also taken treasures home as souvenirs
28:53He's in Russia at St. Petersburg's legendary Hermitage Museum
28:59to see if there's any chance works that survived the Friedrich Sein fires might still be found in Russia's national galleries
29:07We're here at the General Headquarters building at the Hermitage
29:13It's an extraordinarily rich collection with works of art that were taken from Germany at the end of the war
29:19and brought to the Soviet Union where they sat in archives for many, many decades
29:25In 1995, four years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia's two greatest museums, the Hermitage and the Pushkin in Moscow
29:36put more than 130 masterworks taken from Germany on public display
29:42Many still hang in the Hermitage today
29:46To see this remarkable painting by Degas in spectacular condition
29:53the freshness and the crispness of it
29:56and this great painting by Van Gogh, the White House at night
30:00these paintings have such vibrancy and energy to them
30:05and it's just a joy to be able to be here and see these works of art and know that they've been preserved well
30:11But before they were taken by the trophy brigades and shipped to the Soviet Union
30:16these paintings had once belonged to Germans
30:20They don't come from the Flak Tower, but other collections
30:23and neither the Hermitage nor the Russian government has any intention of returning them
30:30Mikhail Piotrowski has been the museum's director since 1990
30:34and oversaw the introduction of these contentious paintings
30:38There's controversy about the pictures that are here at the Hermitage in Pushkin that came out of Germany
30:45Yes, well, you know, it's not a problem we have taken there, we deserve it, there was a war, we won the war, it's okay
30:52But it must be seen by the people, because art is above economics, art is above politics
30:59Art is not an object of profit and money, art is very special, it really belongs to everybody, wherever it is
31:06But what about the treasures at the heart of the Flak Tower mystery?
31:11Is there any chance some are hanging in Russia's great museums and galleries?
31:16You're a great student of history, what do you think happened in the fire at the Friedrichshahn Flak Tower in Berlin?
31:24In the early years, the standard line was everything was destroyed in the fire
31:28But we now know that wasn't true, because there were some smaller format paintings that were found
31:32Do you think some of these missing works of art might have also survived?
31:37And might be in museums?
31:39I don't think so
31:41We would know if there have been the collections of the museums, and today they are not
31:45So, there's no hope that there will be more paintings like that surface?
31:49You know, there must be hope, but still have to understand that a lot of things have been destroyed
31:54From time to time, people are finding things
31:56We know that a lot of things have been taken also by the Soviet soldiers
31:59Even though it was considered to be illegal
32:02So, some of the work of art could still be in Russia
32:06In collections, private collections
32:08So, in the former Soviet countries, taken by Soviet soldiers?
32:12It's terrible, but it is how it is
32:14In Kaliningrad, Russia, Conor's investigation into the Nazis' theft of the Amber Room continues, near the ruins of Koenigsberg Castle
32:29But I'm only a stone's throw from the castle
32:33This is a bunker that's been excavated by the Museum of Kaliningrad
32:37And I'm going to meet a guy here who's got a theory
32:40That this bunker, and maybe other bunkers, are connected by a system of tunnels
32:44And even that the Amber Room might be inside one of them
32:46Sergei Trifonov is a treasure hunter who has spent the last three decades searching for the Amber Room
32:58Sergei, why do you think the Amber Room is in this spot?
33:01So, the Nazis took the Amber Room, they hid it in a bunker below this bunker, and then they sealed it to make it look as though there was no bunker there. Is that the theory?
33:22Yes, more than that, I have full confidence that the Yantar room from Kienigsberg didn't get out of Kienigsberg
33:33This is the system of tunnels that I received from Germany
33:37Sergei obtained this map from a historian in Berlin
33:41It revealed another bunker below that had not been entered in decades
33:45The Nazis used the city's old tunnels to link their bunkers
34:00Sergei believes that as the Soviets surrounded the city
34:04The Amber Room was secretly taken from the castle through these tunnels and sealed inside the secret bunker
34:10In 2013, with the city museum's permission, Sergei bored a hole into the 1942 bunker
34:19You had them make this hole
34:24All right, let's have a look
34:29Dark creepy bunkers, just what we love
34:32Sergei's excavation revealed a flooded chamber that had to be pumped out before it could be safely explored
34:45Draining the chamber revealed a hastily built brick wall
34:49Okay, so
34:52We have an interesting bunker because
34:54Everything in here is really fabricated out of concrete, but at the end
35:00There is a brick wall, which is completely different to everything else in here
35:05Sergei recently gained permission to bore a new hole near the top and insert a camera probe to see what lay beyond
35:13It's a really thick brick wall
35:16One meter fifty, so
35:19Whoever built this brick wall really didn't want anyone to get through to the other side
35:26So Sergei, you pushed a camera through these holes
35:30And explain to me what you could see when you went through
35:34Well, first of all, there is a room that is filled with water
35:38First of all, there is a room that is filled with water
35:39First of all, there is two large objects that we saw
35:43The green color with clearly expressed technical features
35:49The sides are круглые
35:51Sergei's camera revealed another flooded chamber and captured this footage
35:57He believes these objects are large metal cases containing pieces of the amber room
36:02Perhaps they were hidden here by the Germans, while the battle for Koenigsberg raged above
36:08Why doesn't someone just knock it down?
36:13This is a huge consensus
36:15Of course, the pouring of water is the most dangerous
36:18Until the museum agrees to pump out the water
36:22Exactly what this image is will remain a mystery
36:25It strikes me there are many possibilities about what happened to the amber room
36:32And one option definitely is that it was buried here under the streets of Kaliningrad
36:36But as far as my investigation into that goes, well, I've hit a brick wall
36:41Whoever built this wall definitely does not want you to get to the other side of it
36:46Whatever is behind there has been hidden from us
36:48And it makes me wonder why in the last few years since it was discovered
36:54Nobody's knocked it down
36:56Especially when you think that maybe waiting behind it
36:59Is the amber room
37:03The whereabouts of the amber room remains a mystery
37:06But Robert is about to make a dramatic breakthrough in the hunt for the missing flak tower treasures
37:14I met a lot of people who were the proud owners of treasures
37:19That they inherited and the provenance was German museums
37:23In St. Petersburg, Robert is following an important lead in the hunt for the flak tower treasures
37:43Some of the work of arts could still be in Russia, in collections, private collections
37:49Now he's arranged a meeting with Mikhail Kamensky, the former head of Sotheby's auction house in Russia
37:56To find out what could be hidden in the country today
37:59When I started to work for the auction house in the 90s
38:05I met a lot of people who were the proud owners of treasures
38:11That they inherited and the provenance was German museums
38:15When you say inherited, do you think inherited from someone that was a Soviet soldier?
38:21Yes, from soldiers who were in Berlin
38:24And who brought these trophies back to the Soviet Union
38:30During the Soviet era, possession of looted art was illegal
38:34But in modern Russia, the situation has changed
38:38So, I want to understand this because this is such an important point
38:44If individuals here have these works of art that they've inherited from a Soviet Red Army soldier
38:51They are the legal owners
38:53They are the legal owners
38:55Inside Russia, they are the legal owners
38:56According to Mikhail, in the years after the collapse of the Communist bloc and the Soviet Union
39:03Russian bankers began buying up and amassing large collections of art that once belonged to Germany
39:10I won't ask you to name names of works of art
39:15But have some of the works of art that you've seen in the course of time in these private collections
39:21Are they as important or more important than some of the works at the state collections by Van Gogh and Degas and others?
39:31Many of them are from museums, so of course they are of museum quality
39:35But international law put a stop to the bankers venture
39:40You cannot officially sell anything at the auction or in the gallery
39:45And declare the fact that the original source is a museum collection in Germany
39:53They are stuck inside Russia
39:55Yes, these art objects cannot circulate on the art market
40:01So in the case of the Friedrichshahn Flack Tower
40:07There were these enormous fires thought for the longest while to have consumed all of the works of art inside
40:14And then over the course of time some of the paintings have emerged
40:18Do you think some could be in the former Soviet countries?
40:21Absolutely
40:23But I can speak only about my personal experience
40:26But I think this is an important search from the point of your art history
40:32The repatriation of the art treasures
40:35It's like bringing it back to the world
40:38These are our shared cultural heritage
40:41It's a chance for the world to see these things
40:43Yes
40:44We just heard confirmation that works of art that were taken out of Germany at the end of the war
40:55Masterpieces worth millions of dollars, museum quality pictures, are in private collections inside Russia
41:02In fact, I think it really gives us hope that works of art, perhaps some from the Friedrichshahn Flack Tower
41:09And many, many others that are missing are in Russia and may over the course of time emerge
41:15The hunt has taken the team from Germany
41:21To Russia
41:22And while the Amber Room and Friedrichshahn mysteries remain
41:28Both investigations have turned up compelling new leads
41:35Back in Berlin, Robert has come to the city's Gemelde Gallery Museum
41:40He's joining Brian Horny, together with his wife and daughter, to see the Beltrafio masterpiece
41:47Which for decades have been part of their lives
41:49In 2012, they gave it back to the gallery
41:53It's the first, and so far only, painting from Friedrichshahn to have been returned to its rightful place
42:01Come on up, you can hear what it looks
42:10I'm sorry
42:15Looks great
42:16How do you feel seeing it back where it once was?
42:22I'm sad, but I'm happy
42:25At the same time
42:27Because she's home
42:29And you must be proud of your parents for making this decision to bring it back
42:34I'm very proud of them
42:35Your father was an officer in the army and played an important role in Berlin
42:40Getting back on its feet in the devastation of the city in May 1945
42:46Were he here with us today?
42:48How do you think he'd feel to see this painting that now has come full circle
42:52Hanging on the wall of the Gemelde Gallery Museum?
42:54You know what I think he'd say?
42:58My work's done
43:00I enjoyed it
43:02And I'm proud of it
43:04I really do
43:06We knew it belonged here
43:10We want the people here and in other parts of the world to see it too
43:15And enjoy it as much as we did
43:18Well you've done a good thing and I know the museum in Berlin is hugely appreciative
43:21And of course all the people that will have a chance to see this now that wouldn't have had a chance before
43:27And it really gives hope to how many other pictures that were also in this flat tower in Friedrichshahn that might also have survived
43:35So many people that might also have survived
44:05Let's take all of these pictures to see this new collection of the Gemelde Gallery Museum
44:08Based on the story of the Gemelde Gallery Museum
44:10The Man who was the one that worked with a GMELD Gallery Museum
44:14The world has made this beautiful picture of a bigger picture of a picture that was shown at the site of the PYJ
44:28The One that took a picture of the Gemelde Gallery Museum
44:30And it is entirely unique.
44:33And it might have a picture of the two faces in the planet