Ambros, Otto

Within about a year Otto Ambros found himself in a little town... 

One of the cross-eyed men rose in the dock as his name was called. Sliding past Dr. Otto Ambros, he made his way across the well of the court, his feet toed out slightly, and this — with his erect posture — made you wonder whether he had ever been in the Army. But no — though his stride was even, there was no pace or music in it. If he had been announced as a minister of the gospel, you would believe it even before hearing the coincidence... 

And a very few happy reunions — husbands and wives who, separated by Nazi labor decrees, had searched for each other since the war s end and, coming by different ways, had found each other here. The city had few such favors to bestow on anyone except the defendants. In an ugly throng, who would remember two little cross-eyed men from Leuna, or a tall distinguished gentleman who stood perhaps behind the shouting front ranks that lined the street One witness had seen Otto Ambros here, and that was all. 

Soon after Otto Ambros first went to Oswiecem, Birkenau was established to house the people of the town whom Ambros had recommended to be "evacuated" and placed in a new concentration camp. In those days the main camp — still predominantly for political prisoners — was kept as "pure" as possible by having the Jews and Poles in the main camp transferred to Birkenau. The first killings at Birkenau were the explosive result of the mistreatment of Birkenau inmates enroute to and from the main camp and to and from the buna plant. From the center of the buna plant to the center of Camp Birkenau was almost five miles, and their return at night was extremely painful and dangerous. Over the whole distance they dragged tools, firewood, heavy caldrons, and the bodies of those who had died or been killed during the working day. Others who could not maintain the brisk pace of the march were knocked down and beaten to death. 

Otto Ambros Guilty on slave-labor count only Sentenced to eight years... 

And Dr. Otto Ambros, deadly-gas expert, who is stilt the irrepressible salesman of pure suds and shiny lacquers, has since the middle of 1951 been advisor to the Bonn government on "problems concerning I.G. Farben s southern German plants."... 

Otto Ambros Production chief for buna rubber and poison... 

Karl Wurster Technical director of inorganic factories. Sulphur expert. Assistant to Otto Ambros in development of chemical-warfare agents. 

It is possible that Hitler had in mind the new nerve gas. After all, in the same month the German chemical industry was ordered to put in hand plans to build the new factory at Dyhernfurth which was hoped to be capable of producing 1000 tons of tabun a month.9 A new company, Anorgana, was formed under the auspices of Otto Ambros of IG Farben,10 and through Anorgana, Ambros provided the chemists and... 

Nuremberg Industrialists Documents (NI)-6788, Affidavit by Otto Ambros (1 May 1947). 

Otto Ambros would later directly work as a consultant for Peter Grace, who, coincidentally headed the American Chapter of the Knights of Malta and has been a long-time associate of the CIA. The relationship between top CIA officers and the shadowy Knights of Malta is cemented in the fact that many Directors of Central Intelligence and other executive level officers are also members of this knightly order. 

There is very little on the life of Otto Ambros. See Jens Ulrich Heine, Verstand Schicksal (Weinheim VCH, 1990), pp. 172-174 and Brown Book. War and Nazi Criminals in West Germany (Dresden Verlag Zeit im Bild, 1965), p. 36. 

Otto Ambros laying the foundation stone of Schkopau on 25 April 1936. Two days earlier Ambros had become the Chairman of the Intermediates Committee (Zetko). (Courtesy Dow BSL-Olefinverbund.)... 

Otto Ambros, Die Projekte der Bunafabrik und des LOsungsmittelbetriebes in Mitteldeutschland, 16 November 1935, 6, I.G. Zentralarchiv file 370 (section 2), Firmenarchiv Hoechst AG. 

Letter from Otto Ambros to author, 27 October 1980. 

Letter from Otto Ambros to author, 27 October 1980. For the history of the Auschwitz Buna factory, see Morris, Acetylene Chemistry and Synthetic Rubber, pp. 330-345 Peter Hayes, Industry and Ideology, pp. 347-368 the excellent thesis by Joseph Robert White, The Politics of Labor Utilization l.G. Farben, the SS and Auschwitz, Georgia State University MA thesis, 1989, and the less original work of Robert Simon Yavner, LG. Farben s Petro-Chemical Plant and Concentration Camp at Auschwitz, Old Dominion University MA thesis, 1984. Unfortunately, Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt did not consult this literature (except for Hayes) for the chapter on l.G. Farben in their Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present (New York W. W. Norton, 1996). For a personal account, see Primo Levi, If this Man is a Man , a translation of Se questo e un uomo by Stuart Woolf (New York. Orion, 1959), also published as Survival in Auschwitz. 

BA, Akten der Direktionsabteilung, 323, Bombrini Parodi Delfino, Otto Ambros to Hans Kuhne, November 1942. 

International Military Tribunal (IMT), Speer Testimony, 21 June 1946 Nuremberg Documents, NI-6788, Affidavit Otto Ambros, i May 1947 Nuremberg Documents, NI-9772, Affidavit Albert Palm, 24 July 1947 Film and Video Archive... 

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