Background
The son of a university professor, Ambros attended school and passed his Abitur exam in Munich.
The son of a university professor, Ambros attended school and passed his Abitur exam in Munich.
In 1920 he went to the University of Munich to study chemistry and agricultural science. Beginning in 1926, Ambros worked at Badische Anilin- & Soda-Fabrik in Ludwigshafen. In 1930 he spent a year studying in the Far East.
From 1934 he worked at IG Farben, becoming head of their Schkopau plant in 1935.
His division of IG Farben developed chemical weapons, including the nerve agents sarin (in 1938) and soman (in 1944). In this capacity, he was an advisor to Carl Krauch, a company executive.
Ambros then managed the IG Farben factories at Dyhernfurth, which produced sarin and soman, and at Gendorf, which produced mustard gas, a skin irritant. He was an expert on tabun, an extremely lethal chemical.
Arrest
Ambros was arrested by the United States Army in 1946.
He had tested poisons and chemicals on concentration camp inmates, and had overseen the IG Buna Werke rubber plant at Auschwitz. At Nuremberg in 1948 he was sentenced to eight years confinement, and was ultimately released from Landsberg Prison early in 1952. Release from prison
After his release, he became an adviser to chemical companies such as J. Peter Grace, Dow Chemical, as well as the United States. Army Chemical Corps, and Konrad Adenauer.