polybutadiene Polybutadiene utadiene rubber BRis a synthetic rubber. Polybutadiene rubber is a polymer formed from the polymerization of the monomer 1,3-butadiene. Polybutadiene has a high resistance to wear and is used especially in the manufacture of tir ...

nerve agent Nerve agents, sometimes also called nerve gases, are a class of organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanisms by which nerves transfer messages to organs. The disruption is caused by the blocking of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), an enzyme that ...

sarin Sarin (NATO designation GB G-series, "B"">Nerve_agent#G-series.html" ;"title="hort for Nerve agent#G-series">G-series, "B" is an extremely toxic synthetic organophosphorus compound.tabun). After the war he was tried at Nuremberg and convicted of

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

for his use of slave labor from the Auschwitz III–Monowitz concentration camp.

Early life

The son of a university professor, Ambros attended school and passed his Abitur exam in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

. In 1920 he went to the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's List of universities in Germany, sixth-oldest u ...

to study chemistry and agricultural science. In 1925 he gained a doctorate, studying under the 1915

Nobel Prize for Chemistry ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...

winner,

Richard Willstätter Richard Martin Willstätter FRS(For) HFRSE (, 13 August 1872 – 3 August 1942) was a German organic chemist whose study of the structure of plant pigments, chlorophyll included, won him the 1915 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Willstätter invented ...

.

Career

Beginning in 1926, Ambros worked at

BASF BASF Societas Europaea, SE () is a German multinational corporation, multinational chemical company and the List of largest chemical producers, largest chemical producer in the world. Its headquarters is located in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The ...

in

Ludwigshafen Ludwigshafen, officially Ludwigshafen am Rhein (; meaning " Ludwig's Port upon Rhine"), is a city in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, on the river Rhine, opposite Mannheim. With Mannheim, Heidelberg, and the surrounding region, it form ...

. In 1930 he spent a year studying in the Far East. From 1934 he worked at

IG Farben Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate (company), conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies—BASF, ...

, becoming head of their

Schkopau Schkopau is a municipality in the Saalekreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Geography It is situated at the confluence of the Saale River with its White Elster and Luppe tributaries, approx. north of Merseburg, and south of Halle. Sch ...

plant in 1935. His division of IG Farben developed chemical weapons, including the nerve agents

sarin Sarin (NATO designation GB G-series, "B"">Nerve_agent#G-series.html" ;"title="hort for Nerve agent#G-series">G-series, "B" is an extremely toxic synthetic organophosphorus compound.soman Soman (or GD, EA 1210, Zoman, PFMP, A-255, systematic name: ''O''-pinacolyl methylphosphonofluoridate) is an extremely toxic chemical substance. It is a nerve agent, interfering with normal functioning of the mammalian nervous system by inhibiti ...

(in 1944). In this capacity, he was an advisor to

Carl Krauch Carl Krauch (7 April 1887 – 3 February 1968) was a German chemist, industrialist and Nazi war criminal. He was an executive at BASF (later IG Farben); during World War II, he was chairman of the supervisory board. He was a key implementer of t ...

, a company executive. The name sarin is an acronym of the initials of the discoverers, with Ambros being the "a". Ambros then managed the IG Farben factories at

Dyhernfurth Brzeg Dolny (german: Dyhernfurth) is a town in Wołów County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland. It is located north-west of Wrocław on the Oder River, and is the site of a large chemical plant complex, PCC Rokita SA. As of ...

, which produced tabun (a

nerve agent Nerve agents, sometimes also called nerve gases, are a class of organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanisms by which nerves transfer messages to organs. The disruption is caused by the blocking of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), an enzyme that ...

similar to

sarin Sarin (NATO designation GB G-series, "B"">Nerve_agent#G-series.html" ;"title="hort for Nerve agent#G-series">G-series, "B" is an extremely toxic synthetic organophosphorus compound.Gendorf, which produced

mustard gas Mustard gas or sulfur mustard is a chemical compound belonging to a family of cytotoxic and blister agents known as mustard agents. The name ''mustard gas'' is technically incorrect: the substance, when dispersed, is often not actually a gas, b ...

(a

poison gas Many gases have toxic properties, which are often assessed using the LC50 (median lethal dose) measure. In the United States, many of these gases have been assigned an NFPA 704 health rating of 4 (may be fatal) or 3 (may cause serious or perman ...

originally developed and used in World War I). The Dyhernfurth factory included a slave labor concentration camp with about 3000 prisoners who were used for the most hard and dangerous work at the plant, and as human guinea pigs in nerve gas experiments. At IG Farben, Ambros also helped research how to produce

polybutadiene Polybutadiene utadiene rubber BRis a synthetic rubber. Polybutadiene rubber is a polymer formed from the polymerization of the monomer 1,3-butadiene. Polybutadiene has a high resistance to wear and is used especially in the manufacture of tir ...

rubber, which they gave the trade name "Buna rubber" because it is made using

butadiene 1,3-Butadiene () is the organic compound with the formula (CH2=CH)2. It is a colorless gas that is easily condensed to a liquid. It is important industrially as a precursor to synthetic rubber. The molecule can be viewed as the union of two viny ...

and sodium (Na). This was an important project because the war cut off Germany from raw materials for natural rubber, and in June 1944 Ambros was awarded a prize of one million marks by Adolf Hitler in recognition of this work. In 1941 Ambros selected the site for the

Monowitz concentration camp Monowitz (also known as Monowitz-Buna, Buna and Auschwitz III) was a Nazi concentration camp and labor camp (''Arbeitslager'') run by Nazi Germany in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland from 1942–1945, during World War II and t ...

and the ''Buna Werke'' factory, which produced Buna rubber using slave labor from the Auschwitz camp, and he then spent the rest of the war serving as plant manager of Buna-Werk IV and managing director of the synthetic fuel production facility at IG Auschwitz. In 1944 Ambros was awarded the Knight's Cross of War Merit Cross.

Monowitz

Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2007-0058, IG-Farbenwerke Auschwitz

Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2007-0068, IG-Farbenwerke Auschwitz

Ambros was arrested by the US Army in 1946. At the

IG Farben trial ''The United States of America vs. Carl Krauch, et al.'', also known as the IG Farben Trial, was the sixth of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany (Nuremberg) after the end of World War ...

in Nuremberg in 1948, Ambros and 23 other IG Farben executives were charged with waging wars of aggression; plunder and spoliation; and slave labor and mass murder. He was found guilty on the slave-labor count only, for his role overseeing the IG

Buna Werke Buna Werke may refer to: * Buna Werke Schkopau, the first large-scale synthetic rubber plant in Schkopau, Germany * Monowitz Buna Werke Monowitz (also known as Monowitz-Buna, Buna and Auschwitz III) was a Nazi concentration camp and labor camp ...

rubber plant at

Monowitz Monowitz (also known as Monowitz-Buna, Buna and Auschwitz III) was a Nazi concentration camp and labor camp (''Arbeitslager'') run by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland from 1942–1945, during World War II and the Holocaust. For most of its existe ...

, and sentenced to eight years' confinement. Ultimately he was released early from

Landsberg Prison Landsberg Prison is a penal facility in the town of Landsberg am Lech in the southwest of the German state of Bavaria, about west-southwest of Munich and south of Augsburg. It is best known as the prison where Adolf Hitler was held in 1924, a ...

in 1951. Monowitz was built as an Arbeitslager (workcamp); it also contained an "Arbeitsausbildungslager" (Labor Education Camp) for non-Jewish prisoners perceived not up to par with German work standards. It held approximately 12,000 prisoners, the great majority of whom were Jewish, in addition to non-Jewish criminals and political prisoners. Prisoners from Monowitz were leased out by the SS to IG Farben to labor at the Buna Werke, a collection of chemical factories including those used to manufacture Buna (

synthetic rubber A synthetic rubber is an artificial elastomer. They are polymers synthesized from petroleum byproducts. About 32-million metric tons of rubbers are produced annually in the United States, and of that amount two thirds are synthetic. Synthetic rubbe ...

) and

synthetic oil Synthetic oil is a lubricant consisting of chemical compounds that are artificially modified or synthesised. Synthetic lubricants can be manufactured using chemically modified petroleum components rather than whole crude oil, but can also be syn ...

. The SS charged IG Farben three Reichsmarks (RM) per day for unskilled workers, four RM per hour for skilled workers, and one and one-half RM for children. By 1942 the new labour camp complex for IG Farben prisoners occupied about half of its projected area, and the expansion was for the most part finished in the summer of 1943. The last 4 barracks were built a year later. The labour camp's population grew from 3,500 in December 1942 to over 6,000 by the first half of 1943. By July 1944 the prisoner population was over 11,000, most of whom were Jews. Despite the increasing death-rate from

slave labour Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

,

starvation Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake, below the level needed to maintain an organism's life. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, dea ...

, executions or other forms of murder, the demand for labour was growing, and more prisoners were brought in. Because the factory management insisted on removing sick and exhausted prisoners from Monowitz, people incapable of continuing their work were murdered at the

death camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

at

Birkenau Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

nearby. The company argued that they had not spent large amounts of money building barracks for prisoners unfit to work. The Buna camp was described in the writings of

Primo Levi Primo Michele Levi (; 31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987) was an Italian chemist, partisan, writer, and Jewish Holocaust survivor. He was the author of several books, collections of short stories, essays, poems and one novel. His best-known works ...

, the Italian Jewish chemist and Auschwitz survivor.

Release from prison

Otto Ambros was released from prison in 1951 due to good behaviour. He became an adviser to chemical companies such as W. R. Grace,

Dow Chemical The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world. Dow manufactures plastics ...

, as well as the U.S. Army

Chemical Corps The Chemical Corps is the branch of the United States Army tasked with defending against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. The Chemical Warfare Service was established on 28 June 1918, combining activities that until ...

, and

Konrad Adenauer Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a Germany, German statesman who served as the first Chancellor of Germany, chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the fir ...

. He was also advising ''Chemie Grünenthal'' (now ''

Grünenthal GmbH Grünenthal is a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Aachen in Germany. It was founded in 1946 as Chemie Grünenthal and has been continuously family-owned. The company was the first to introduce penicillin into the German market in the po ...

'') in the development of

thalidomide Thalidomide, sold under the brand names Contergan and Thalomid among others, is a medication used to treat a number of cancers (including multiple myeloma), graft-versus-host disease, and a number of skin conditions including complications of ...

.From the Holocaust to Thalidomide: A Nazi Legacy, Alliance for Human Research Protection
/ref>

References

Toxipedia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ambros, Otto 1901 births 1990 deaths Scientists from Munich Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni 20th-century German chemists Organic chemists People convicted by the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals People from the Kingdom of Bavaria IG Farben people BASF people German chemical industry people Weapons scientists and engineers German people convicted of crimes against humanity Recipients of the Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross Nazi Party members 20th-century Freikorps personnel