BERLIN -- Demolition experts are set to blast their way into one of Hitler's bunkers in the eastern German state of Thuringia in hopes of finding pieces of the legendary Amber Room, looted by the Nazis from a Tsar's Palace in St. Petersburg.
In recent weeks, treasure hunters have swarmed to the former Soviet military base at Jonastal, near the city of Erfurt, after Russian President Boris Yeltsin said during a visit to Germany last month he knew the exact location of the Amber Room.
'Give us permission now and we will dig it out,' Yeltsin told stunned German parliamentarians, apparently confirming speculation the treasure was buried on the site of a Soviet military base in eastern Germany.
One persistent rumor has been that the treasure was situated under the Jonastal base. That base was built over a mile-deep network of undeground tunnels built by 30,000 prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp.
More than 10,000 inmates perished building the bunker -- code-named Project Olga -- from which Hitler planned to make a final stand against the invading Red Army.
Hitler never used the bunker, but in the closing stages of the war, Nazi treasures looted from all over Europe including the Amber Room were reporteldy transported to the bunker.
'When the Soviets came in 1945, they blew up all entrances to the bunker complex. We have no idea what is in there, as the area has been off limits for thp past 46 years,' said Klaus Scheikel, mayor of the nearby village of Ohrdruf.
Following withdrawal of Soviet forces from the camp a few weeks ago, the district council ordered the search of previously un-opened tunnels. Demolition experts launching the project Wednesday will have to clear some 4,000 tons of rubble before blasting open the entrance.
The Amber Room, comprised of 12 tons of carved amber tiles, was built for Frederick I of Prussia and presented to Russian Tsar Peter the Great in 1717 to symbolize the friendship between the two states.
In 1775 it was installed in the summer palace near St. Petersburg.
During the 1942 siege of the city -- then called Leningrad -- Nazi troops dismantled the room and transported it to the of the Prussian capital of Koenigsberg -- now the Russian city of Kaliningrad.
The room was again taken apart during the 1944 bombing of Koenigsberg and packed into crates, which were reportedly removed from the city before it fell to Red Army troops in 1945.
The location of the crates been a subject of great speculation. Some say the ship transporting the Amber Room was sunk in the Baltic Sea in 1945, but others maintain the treasure never left Koenigsberg.
Boris Yeltsin's comments in Bonn gave credibility to those convinced the Amber Room was hidden in the depths of the Hitler bunker by SS officers who blasted shut the entrance.
But the deputy-head of the team preparing to break into the Hitler bunker is unconvinced that treasure remains hidden in the tunnels.
'I've been in all the sections of the bunker already opened -- there's nothing down there,' said Lothar Doernbrack.
