Army Ordnance finally had their scientists on U.S. soil, and work commenced at Fort Bliss without delay. In Germany, the drama between the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service and FIAT over the suspected war criminal Otto Ambros escalated. Despite orders from SHAEF to arrest him, Ambros remained a fugitive in plain sight. He lived and worked with impunity in the French zone. At Dustbin, FIAT officers continued to learn more about who Ambros was and the wartime role that he had played in chemical weapons research and development. In an interrogation with Albert Speer, FIAT learned that no single person had been as critical to the development of Hitler’s vast arsenal of nerve agents and poison gases as Otto Ambros had been. “He is known to have spoken to Hitler at a high-level German conference on Chemical Warfare,” a FIAT report read. Another stated, “Ambros’ importance, from the Intelligence point of view, has been re-emphasized by the recent Chemical Warfare investigation at ‘Dustbin.’ Speer and the German Chemical Warfare experts agree that he is the key man in German Chemical Warfare production.” Major Tilley was outraged by it all, but there was little he could do except put Ambros under surveillance.
Initial attempts to capture Dr. Ambros maintained the fiction of civility. “At the end of August or beginning of September 1945, an attempt was made to induce Ambros to return to the American zone,” Tilley wrote in a FIAT report. In response, “Ambros claimed to be unable to return then as the French authorities would not permit him to leave the French zone.” Major Tilley knew this was a lie. Ambros regularly traveled back and forth between Ludwigshafen, in the French zone, and the IG Farben guesthouse, Villa Kohlhof, outside Heidelberg, in the American zone. This made Tilley furious. “This man is thought to be far too dangerous and undesirable to be left at liberty, let alone be employed by the Allied authorities,” Tilley wrote. FIAT authorized him to set up a sting operation in an attempt to capture and arrest Ambros. Captain Edelsten was assigned the job of tracking Ambros day and night. Through the Counter Intelligence Corps in Heidelberg, Captain Edelsten, working with a Colonel Mumford, set up a network of undercover agents who began to follow Ambros’s every move. “Saw Ambros at LU [Ludwigshafen],” read one report. “Drives his own car, usually alone. Slept in car for two hours one night, on roadside,” another set of field notes revealed. Ambros traveled frequently: to Freiburg, Rheinfelden, and Baden-Baden. He’d even been back to Gendorf—a brazen move, considering the Seventh Army had an outstanding arrest warrant for him there. But Ambros was quicker than the U.S. Army and had a better intelligence network in place as well. Whenever the U.S. Army showed up to arrest him, he was already gone.
Finally, Captain Edelsten reached Ambros on the telephone. “Edelsten told Ambros that Col. Mumford was anxious to see him again,” and asked if a meeting could be arranged for the following Sunday, at the Farben villa. Ambros agreed. FIAT planned its takedown. Plain clothes CIC officers would wait outside Villa Kohlhof, out of eyesight, until after Captain Edelsten placed Ambros under arrest. Then they’d step in and transport the wanted war criminal back to Dustbin. Except Ambros was one step ahead. With his well established “private intelligence center complete with secretaries and errand boys,” he learned the meeting was a ruse to arrest him. When Edelsten arrived at the villa, Ambros’s secretary invited him inside. Smiling broadly, she apologized and said “Dr. Ambros is not able to come.” Edelsten feigned understanding and sat down at a large banquet table elegantly set for eight. The secretary whispered in his ear, “You have been at Gendorf,” as if to taunt him.
Ambros, it turned out, had his own people following the FIAT agents who had been tailing him, a posse of “various deputies [between] Ludwigshafen and Gendorf.” Embarrassed and infuriated by the audacity of it all, Edelsten finished his tea and got up to leave. “Just as Edelsten was leaving, Ambros’s car pulled in (Chevrolet),” and for a fleeting moment Edelsten believed he would capture him after all. Instead, a look-alike “emerged from [the] car and said [Ambros] was unable to come.” Ambros had sent a double; Edelsten had been burned.
FIAT was being made fun of, and there was little they could do. Captain Edelsten left the IG Farben villa red-faced and empty-handed. “Gave CIC description of Ambros’s car,” he noted in his report. “Light blue closed Saloon (Chevrolet).” Edelsten posted his men to watch the bridges around Heidelberg and promised to arrest Ambros if he ever arrived. But of course he never did. Adding insult to injury, the following day Dr. Otto Ambros sent Captain Edelsten a formal note, neatly typed on fancy stationery, with Farben’s wartime address still embossed on the letterhead. “Sorry that I could not make the appointment,” Ambros wrote. He signed his name in thick black ink.