Leonardo Conti

Leonardo Conti (; 24 August 1900 – 6 October 1945) was the Reich Health Leader and an SS-Obergruppenführer in Nazi Germany. He was involved in the planning and execution of Action T4 that murdered hundreds of thousands of adults and children with severe mental and physical handicaps. On 19 May 1945, after Germany's surrender, Conti was imprisoned and in October hanged himself to avoid trial.

Early life Conti was born on 24 August 1900 in Lugano, in the Swiss canton of Ticino, to a Swiss Italian father, Silvio Conti, and a German mother, Nanna Pauli, who later became the Reich Midwifery Leader in Nazi Germany. His father was a postal worker hailing from Monteggio. Conti also played a role in the banning of Jewish physicians from medical practice. In an interview in 1938, he declared: "It is only the elimination of the Jewish element which provides for the German doctor the living space due to him."

On 20 April 1939, Conti was appointed Reich Health Leader, President of the NSDÄB and head of the Main Office of Public Health; he was granted the Party rank of Hauptdienstleiter. This was followed on 28 August by Adolf Hitler appointing him State Secretary for Public Health and Nursing in the Reich and Prussian Ministry of the Interior. Conti attempted to have the use of the methamphetamine Pervitin (see History and culture of substituted amphetamines) restricted by the Wehrmacht, which had been issuing millions of tablets to their soldiers and airmen. In July 1941 Conti succeeded in having Pervitin added to the list of restricted substances but only a warning was issued to the military. On 27 August 1941, Conti was appointed to the Reichstag as a deputy from Ostmark, succeeding Josef Leopold who had been killed on the eastern front. On 1 October 1941 Conti was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer and attained the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer on 20 April 1944.

Action T4

Conti was a staunch promoter of a public medical administration strongly controlled by the Nazi state. Under his leadership, local health offices were further expanded to allow for genetic control and selection of the population in order to remove "weak" elements for the improvement of the German race, a doctrine known as eugenics. The various programmes were the basis for "racial hygiene" a lethal part of the Nazi philosophy. Conti worked with Dr. Karl Brandt to draft plans for the extermination of all Germany's mental patients along with those suffering from severe physical handicaps. This program, known euphemistically as Action T4, is estimated to have killed over 200,000 adults and children between 1939 and 1945. Conti was initially placed in charge of this initiative but soon was replaced by Philip Bouhler.

Accordingly, he was co-responsible for the forced sterilization program, the racially motivated forced pregnancy interruptions, and ultimately the Action T4 euthanasia program. It is also undisputed that Conti participated in human experiments. Conti was also involved in the forensic investigation into the Katyn massacre, and received a detailed report, known as the Katyn Commission on the discovery from an international team of experts.

SS ranks SS ranks Date Rank 12 June 1933 SS-Standartenführer 20 April 1935 SS-Oberführer 30 January 1938 SS-Brigadeführer 1 October 1941 SS-Gruppenführer 20 April 1944 SS-Obergruppenführer

Post-war imprisonment and suicide

On 19 May 1945, after Germany's surrender, Conti was arrested by the British in Flensburg and was imprisoned and held as a witness for the Nuremberg trials. He would have been brought to the Doctors' Trial for his involvement in Action T4. However, on 6 October 1945, Conti hanged himself in his Nuremberg cell. On 1 May 1959, his estate was fined 3000 Deutsche Marks by the Berlin denazification tribunal.