Letters written by Greta Garbo disappeared from Swedish archive

Two letters and two postcards written by Swedish screen legend Greta Garbo appear to have been stolen from a public archive, officials said Friday. The documents, written by Garbo to her close friend Vera Schmiterlow after the movie star moved to Hollywood in the 1920s, were reported stolen from the Military Archives of Sweden last month after a researcher found they were missing, archivist Anders Degerstrom said.

It was unclear what the documents were worth, he said. Degerstrom said the documents had not been checked out since March 2004, according to archive records. The letters could have been stolen at any time since then, he said.

All documents can be checked out by the public and viewed in one of the archive reading rooms, but cannot be taken home, Degerstrom said. The correspondence was kept in a larger file of documents that originally belonged to Schmiterlow's brother, a military official. They were donated to the archive in 1975, Degerstrom said.

He said it could not be ruled out that the letters and postcards had simply been misplaced, but that it would be difficult to find them if that was the case. "We have about 75 kilometers (45 miles) worth of shelves," he said. This year's 100th anniversary of Garbo's birth was celebrated in Sweden with special screenings of her films, and an exhibit at the Swedish National Portrait Gallery, reports the AP. N.U.