Ernst Leonhardt (September 25, 1885 – March 26, 1945) was an American-born Swiss military figure and pro-Nazi politician.
Ernst Leonhardt was born to a German-born Swiss father on September 25, 1885, in Tracy City, Grundy County, Tennessee, United States.
[1] Leonhardt moved to Switzerland at an early age to attend school at Basel, before joining the Swiss Army, where he rose to the rank of major.
[2] Leonhardt became involved in politics in 1932 when he joined the National Front, and before long he had risen to the rank of Gauführer (equivalent to Gauleiter) in both Basel-City and the Canton of Solothurn.
[2] He also founded the Schweizerische Gesellschaft der Freunde einer autoritären Demokratie [de] (SGAD) (Swiss Society of Friends of an Authoritarian Democracy) in 1938 (a group officially banned in 1940, although in existence until 1941[2]), whilst he was also a member of Franz Burri's Nationalsozialistischer Schweizerbund [de] and Nationalsozialistische Bewegung in der Schweiz.