* World War II -- Holocaust biographies Leonardo Conti








The Holocaust Biographies: Leonardo Conti (Swiss/German, 1900-45)


Figure 1.-- SS Chief Himmler appointed Leonardo Conti Reichsgesundheitsführer and State Secretary in the Interior Ministry (1939). This made him the Reich's Chief medical officer. This was a post in the SS police structure an accorded him unprecedented authority for a German doctor which he used to deadly effect in the T-4 Program. Here he is inspecting boys being inducted into the Hitler Jugend (HJ) movement. Notice the unidentified man standing has a HJ arm band.

Leonardo Conti was born (1900). His father was Swiss, Silvio Conti. His mother was German, Nanna Pauli, She would become an ardent NAZI and the NAZI Reich Midwifery Leader. Conti studied medicine at the Friedrich Humboldt Universität in Berlin and the Friedrich Alexander Universität. He became obsessed with the völkisch movement as a young man and became active in politics. We are not sure how someone like Conti who was half Italian could have been so fascinated with völkisch ideas. He co-founded an anti-semitic paper named the Kampfbund (Struggle League). He was active in the Freikorps and participated in the Kapp Putsch (1920). He joined the Sturmabteilung (SA) (1923). At thectime the SA was a rather disreptuable group. Few respectavle people joined. He was their first physician. One of patients was Horst Wessel, a youthbwho become a major NAZI martyr. He began organizing the Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Ärztebund (National Socialist German Doctors' League -- NSDÄB). He transferred to the more prestiogious Schutzstaffel (SS) with developing racial puity programs. Wiyh the NAZI seizure of power (1933), Hermann Göring appointed him to the Prussian State Council. He had the Party status of an 'old fighter'. He acquired prestigious appointments: Head of the Reichsärztekammer (Reich Physicians' Chamber), Leader of the NSDÄB, and Leader of the Main Office for the People's Health. With such prestigious positions he acquired an international reputation. A year after the Berlin Olympics the presigious International Federation of Sports (FIMS) elected him to its presidency (1937). It was not just politicans attempting to appease the NAZIs. SS Chief Himmler appointed him Reichsgesundheitsführer and State Secretary in the Interior Ministry (1939). This was a post in the SS police structure an accorded him unprecedented authority for a German doctor which he used to deadly effect in the T-4 Program. Conti was an advocate of eugenics. He strongly believed in aggressuive state state action to promote public health. His control of the German medical establishmnt allowed him to expand local health offices including Racial Hygene Courts. Their assignment was control of population genetics and the selction of 'weak' elements which could be eliminated, thus improving the German race. Eugenics had considerabkle support in the 1930s, but not other medical officer in any country had so much authority. 'Racial hygiene' under Conti became a lethal aspct of NAZI doctrine. The efforts he oversaw included the forced sterilization program, the racially motivated forced aborions, and the deadly Action T4 program. [Leyh] In addition he is known to have participated in human experimentation. We do not know to what extent he was involved if any in the mass killing of Jews. The T-4 killings, however, laid the ground work incklusing the develoment of gas vhambers for the Holocaust. As Reich Chief of Health he approved the continued use of amphetamines (Pervitin) in the German military (July 1941). Himmler was pleased with his work apointed him to SS-Obergruppenführer (lieutenant general) (1944). Only days after the NAZI surrender, Allied authorities arrested Conti. (May 19, 1945). He would have been tried as part of the Doctors' Trial for his involvement in Action T4. He declined to face justice and hanged himself in his Nuremberg cell (October 6, 1945). We are not sure if he could not stand to live in deNAZIfied Germany or if he was fully aware of how evil his actions were.

Sources

Leyh, Ernst-Alfred. (2002) "Leonardo Conti and the "ideologization of medicine during the Nazi dictatorship" (Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg: 2002). In German.







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Created: 6:57 PM 1/3/2018
Last updated: 9:25 PM 1/3/2018