Commenter “Otto von Bismark” asked me to estimate Hitler’s IQ, and with Halloween only days away, it makes sense to examine one of history’s most terrifying boogeymen.
STATISTICAL PREDICTION
The most salient fact about Hitler was his historical influence. Indeed when Time magazine named the most influential person of the 20th century, many felt that the title objectively belonged to Hitler, but because Hitler’s influence was so destructive and evil, the title was instead given to Albert Einstein for being the preeminent scientist in a century dominated by science.
But at the very least, Hitler was likely the most influential white gentile of the 20th century. Roughly 8.7 billion people lived some time during the 20th century. Assuming roughly 14% of them were white gentiles, then Hitler was the most influential out of 1.22 billion. Thus, when it comes to influence, Hitler had a normalized Z score of +6.
The next most salient fact about Hitler was that he was a criminal. Had he not committed suicide, he would have been hung for war crimes. Criminals tend to come from less successful backgrounds than non-criminals, for example only a quarter of American men are as low income as the median criminal, suggesting criminals average a normalized Z score of -0.66 on measures of money and probably influence. Thus, if relative to white gentilesn Hitler had a normalized Z score of +6 when it comes to historical influence, the normalized Z score was likely +6.66 with respect to criminal white gentiles.
Thus, if there were a perfect correlation between IQ and influence, Hitler’s IQ would be 6.66 standard deviations above the average white criminal. However the correlation between IQ and measures of worldly “success” appears to be about 0.4. This is the figure scholar Arthur Jensen (1998) gives for the correlation between IQ and income, and there’s probably a similar correlation between IQ and other measures of worldly success like power and influence, since elite politicians and top CEOs seem to be cognitively similar to billionaires.
Assuming a 0.4 correlation between IQ and influence, Hitler’s expected IQ would be 0.4(6.66) = 2.66 standard deviations above the average criminal. Assuming white criminals average IQs around 90 with a standard deviation of 15, that would put Hitler’s expected IQ at 130.
Of course, the standard error around this estimate is quite large, so one needs independent verification from other methods.
HISTORIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
The most popular official IQ tests are the Wechsler intelligence scales which have traditionally been divided into a verbal scale (i.e. the ability to solve problems with words), and performance IQ (i.e. the ability to solve problems by manipulating objects), both of which were combined into a full-scale IQ, which was a measure of overall intelligence. For Hitler, there is some evidence for his ability in both domains.
Hitler’s verbal IQ
Perhaps the best estimate of Hitler’s verbal IQ can be gleaned from his book Mein Kampf. According to an internet commenter named “Thierry Etienne Joseph Rotty“, Hitler was an awful writer, though of course this is relative. Rotty writes:
…Although he came up with the idea of writing Mein Kampf, most of the actual writing and typing was done by Rudolf Hess. When you look at the original pages you’ll see the version as dictated by Hitler, and then the re-writing Hess to make to make some sort of coherent sentences out of it. About half had to be re-written.
It should be noted that Rudolf Hess was one of 21 tried Nazi leaders who was administered a German version of the Wechsler-Bellevue. Although his score on the verbal section seems unreported, his full-scale IQ was 120, and typically on the Wechsler scales, the verbal IQ correlates 0.92-0.95 with the full-scale IQ. Thus if we assume that Hess had a verbal IQ of around 120, this puts a ceiling on Hitler’s likely verbal IQ, since Hess was the more competent writer, and writing skill is probably a good proxy for verbal IQ among amateurs.
Although Hitler’s verbal IQ was likely not above 120, we also have very good reason to assume it was not below 120. On page 58 of the book The Young Hitler I Knew: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Childhood Friend by August Kubizek, it states:
From school sources there is abundant authentic material describing his school performance. In primary school he was always near the top of the class. He learned quickly and made good progress without much effort.
Anyone in an ordinary white school, who does better than 90% of his classmates without much effort, must have a verbal IQ higher than 90% of whites (an IQ of 120 is often defined as the 90 percentile among whites in Western countries).
Since we have good reason to believe Hitler’s verbal IQ was neither above nor below 120, we can estimate it to be exactly 120.
Hitler’s Performance IQ
Probably the best estimate of Hitler’s performance IQ can be made from his drawings. Although drawing ability is only moderately correlated with general intelligence, Flourcence L Goodenough felt the correlation was good enough to publish the Draw-a-Man IQ test in 1926. Circa 1960 the test was revised and renormed by Dale Harris. Using the 1963 manual, I found that this drawing, reportedly by a 19-year-old Hitler, obtained a score of 49 out of 73 points.

Drawing found here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1260274/Hitlers-GCSE-art-sketches-sale.html
Of the 73 items on the Draw-a-man IQ test, I found the above drawing flunks items 10,12-15,27,38-43,50,52-53,55-62,and 69. However items 55-59 all involved clothing. These were irrelevant to Hitler’s drawing because his picture was for art school where they evaluate your ability to draw nudes. Secondly, items 39-43 involved feet, and Hitler’s drawing does not extend to the feet.
Thus if it’s permissible to exclude the ten items that were not applicable to Hitler’s drawing, his prorated score becomes 57 out of 73. According to circa 1960 unsmoothed norms published by Harris (1963, pg 102), U.S. boys and girls combined (age 15 which is roughly adult level for such tests) had a mean score of 45.5 out of 73 (SD = 10.19). Thus Hitler’s prorated score of 57 would equate to an IQ of 117 (U.S. norms) or 116 (U.S. white norms for that era).
However Hitler made his drawing circa 1908 which is roughly 52 years before the above norms were obtained. According to scholar Richard Lynn (2006), performance on this test has been rising by the equivalent of 3 points per decade which means norms from around 1960 would give results 16 points too low for a drawing made around 1908. Since IQ by definition reflects your test performance compared to Western whites of your age and birth cohort, we must add 16 points, bringing Hitler’s performance IQ to 133.
Hitler’s full-scale IQ
Above I estimated Hitler’s verbal IQ to be 120 and his Performance IQ to be 133. Had Hitler lived long enough to have been one of the 21 Nazi leaders tried at Nuremberg, he would have been administered a German version of the Wechsler-Bellevue intelligence scale. I don’t know much about the German version, but on the American version, someone who is around the age Hitler would have been had he been tested, with a verbal IQ of 120 and a Performance IQ of 133 would have a full-scale IQ of 130. This is exactly the same as the 130 I statistically predicted at the start of this post, based simply on Hitler being both a criminal and the most influential white gentile of his century.
It’s also similar to what blogger Anatoly Karlin had predicted based just on the average IQ of the Nazi leaders who actually were tested.
An IQ of 130 implies one is smarter than 98% of Western whites of one’s same age and birth cohort.
How would Hitler score compared to people today?
I must once again emphasize that IQs are calculated relative to a mean defined as 100 in the Western (white) population of the same age and time period. If we could travel back in time to World War II and give Hitler the most current Wechsler adult IQ test (the WAIS-IV normed circa 2008), he likely would score 111 (using U.S. white norms) (19 points lower than the 130 he would obtain on a test given in his own time). This phenomenon, known as the Flynn effect, is partly because people today have the advantage of more schooling than was typical of Hitler’s day, and schooling seems to artificially prop up scores on IQ tests without actually increasing real intelligence. Thus when you give people from past generations a modern IQ test, they score lower by modern standards because the modern tests would be biased against them.
If we went back in time and gave Hitler only those WAIS-IV subtests that are not much impacted by schooling and obtained a prorated score based on this culture reduced part of the test, he would likely score 117. Higher than the 111 he would score on a biased test, but still not as high as the 130 he would have likely scored on a test normed on his own generation.
The reason he would have scored lower on a modern test, even after the schooling biased tests are removed, is that in my opinion, as much as 66% of the Flynn effect reflects a genuine biological increase in real intelligence caused by better nutrition (including disease reduction) increasing the size and complexity of the brain over the 20th century, analogous to secular gains in height.
Alternative claims
Not everyone would necessarily agree with my conclusion that Hitler had an IQ of 130. Popular high IQ society writer Grady Towers felt Hitler’s IQ was likely among the very highest of the Nazi leaders (i.e. IQ 143) because otherwise those wolves would have torn him apart. On the other hand, this source claims Hitler couldn’t be a mailman because he flunked an intelligence test because “his mental capacity suffered after he was gassed in the war”. When it comes to a historical figure as controversial as Hitler, people say all sorts of things so it’s hard separating fact from fiction.
[Update: Nov 3/2015–For a followup discussion on Hitler’s IQ, check out Anatoly Karlin’s recent post on the topic.]
hitler didn’t write meinkompf fucktard.
the whole thing was dictated while he was in jail.
hitler is the greatest public speaker in the history of the world.
that takes some uncommon verbal facility.
check out steve shoe’s latest. yet another example of a socially retarded hbder.
does he really believe those graphs? probably.
Hitler`s speeches are recorded ,analized and found quite primitive. He was just an able actor for the illegible audience.
It’s called Mein Kampf Jorge. I have no idea how a fucktard is personified, but someone who thinks that he was a great orater, whilst all he did was knowingly add in gesticulation straight out of Wagnerian opera’s, really has no idea what he is saying here. His depth of German vocabulary was pretty moderate at best.
Lat but not least on greatest public speakers, ever heared of Churchill? Even Goebbels admitted the man was better than Hitler
and every anglo-prole piece of shit thinks every german writer can’t write.
you should read what they say about kant, hegel, marx, and heidegger, all four of whom are towering geniuses compared to any thinker the anglo-prole sphere has ever produced including that proliest of proles shakespeare.
but it’s pretty clear from biographies that hitler and stalin were the smartes of world leaders in their time and that even churchill was much smarter than any subsequent british pm.
stalin also is made out as a simpleton. you should read the Red Czar. he was anything but.
Yes, and what about Francis Bacon? To me, he set a trend for Anglo degeneracy in the name of moral grandstanding.
this ne plus ultra may be heard abundantly here:
hitler and stalin, but especially hitler, are also instructive as to how enormous the variety of societies is and has been…even in the last 100 years.
the politics and worldviews of hitler and stalin are today considered marginal or quaint at best if any still share them. they are passe, “not done”, etc…more un-fashionable than bell bottoms.
though, at the time, in their respective countries almost everyone among the elite DID share their worldview!
the german nobility was grossly over-represented among members of the SS.
the moral of the story is…
//
THOSE WHO CONTROL THE PRESENT CONTROL THE PAST.
Yeah, 120-135 seems about right, which seems to be the typical IQ range for public figures. I don;t think draw-a-man is a valid IQ test at all though, and isn’t really of any use in assessing his IQ
in terms of IQ Nixon is the smartest president…of all.
but he couldn’t speak like hitler.
he didn’t have “the vision thing”.
people loved hitler. LOVED.
the mitsford sisters found him CHARMING.
and oswald mosely was a baronet.
no one loved nixon. at most they admired him.
hitler saw the TRUTH more clearly than any politician ever has. the truth of nations. the truth of people. the truth of history.
amazing because he was also a sexual “deviant” in that he had very little interest in sex. all other perversions one might have heard are lies. hitler was asexual.
newton said:
If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
whatever his IQ…hitler is THE politician.
none have, nor had, ever come close.
and it all goes back to the war to end all wars whose centenary we’re in the middle of now. the one thing the conservatard george will has said that was true is that the first world war is the most significant event in human history after only perhaps the resurrection.
Why do you keep saying Nixon was the smartest president? He has the highest IQ of any president whose real test scores are actually known, but only the scores of four or five presidents are known.
just listen to him in interviews peepee.
just listen to the nixon tapes.
just go by the tesimony of the greatest jew hero of american conservatards, milton friedman.
friedman said on charlie rose’s show:
in terms of pure iq nixon is the smartest person i’ve ever met.
nixon has often been described as “socially awkward”, but how could he not have been? he was raised in poverty in SoCal, and at the same time was much smarter than any of the rich kids he had to deal with. social awkwardness isn’t a thing or a personality trait, at least not in nixon’s case. if the same genome had been raised by new england old money all that awkwardness wouldn’t have been.
but jefferson and adams and tr and even that satanworshipper lincoln were all very very smart.
despite the increase in mean IQ scores it seems that people like these…and like me and some of my relatives…simply don’t exist anymore.
they’ve been outbred by sheeple. they’re basically extinct.
That’s fascinating if milton friedman said that. There is sometimes a tendency to overestimate the IQ of presidents (and people in general), particularly if they are charismatic (i.e. JFK, Clinton, Obama)…even Jensen reported on a very charming boy he tested who Jensen and all the teachers assumed was absolutely brilliant, but when the test was objectively scored by Jensen himself, the IQ was only average…but Nixon was not charismatic or socially polished, so Friedman’s impression is unlikely to be an overestimate.
Nixon tested at 143, which is about 1 SD higher than the average president, but many tests are not designed to reliably discriminate above 130, so his true IQ might be even much higher.
I’m all for Nixon being the smartest president because the fact that he became president despite lacking good looks, charisma and privilege, indicates an ability to adapt.though his downfall might indicate the opposite.
Oliver Stone’s movie Nixon is one of my favorite films (though my favorite cable host Chris Mathews hates Stone’s movies for what he considers their historical inaccuracy). One interesting part was when Nixon was ranting that the press hated him because they didn’t like they way he looked and they didn’t like where he went to school. But then I looked on wikipedia and Nixon seems to have attended a prestigious law school, so not sure what was being implied in that scene.
I wonder how historians will rank Nixon as a president…in many ways he was years ahead of his time
well…very sadly…and very judgementally (on my part)…it looks like stone’s son really is crazy…whereas oliver stone, despite his critics, has always struck me as very sane…but capable of thinking outside “the bubble”…capable of seeing that there really is “a bubble” which one might think outside of.
here it is, not what i remembered exactly…but close. GO TO 14:40 AND WAIT.
“IF YOU WERE TO JUDGE PRESIDENTS BY PURE IQ…NIXON WOULD COME AT THE TOP.”
notice also that friedman advocates open borders…only a jew…
and peepee,
again you must ask yourself what “adapt” means. nixon never adapted, in the sense that he never changed who he was. he was a dan quayle like choice for vp by ike. if he hadn’t had that LUCK, you’d never have heard of him. and if he hadn’t been COMPLIANT with the GOP’s moneyed interests, you’d never have heard of him.
nixon is accounted by MOST americans as the most EVIL politician America has ever had. EVIL!!! aaron burr is a distant second. the very name “nixon” causes laughter in the generations after his presidency.
i’m not one of them, but it’s yet another example of how valuing “adaptation” is valuing something other than GOOD…and inevitably the two CONFLICT.
GOD DAMN IT.
GO TO 8:50!
IF YOU WERE TO JUDGE THE PRESIDENTS BY PURE IQ, IT THINK NIXON WOULD COME AT THE TOP.
Just by the way:
We should take the WB scores with care, coz 1) sd was about 14, not 15, it leads us to slightly higher IQs , expressed in a WAIS-like manner. 2) the guys were in great distress plus we don’t fully understand their motivation while passing the test 3) all or at least the first Wechsler tests are known as a weak measure for discrimination mental abilities in the very superior range.
On the American version of the WB, the SD varies from 13.2 at age 10 to 16.85 at age 55-59. But sample sizes were small at many ages, so it’s unlikely to come out to exactly 15 at every age, just because of sampling error
cool, did not know that
Did not know where to post it – sorry if it looks like off-topic. PP, you know this article, don’t you? If not, might be interesting. Just for exchanging information. http://michaelwferguson.blogspot.ru/p/blog-page_9997.html
Looks fascinating!
I put Hitler’s IQ at 125 in my response to the original post where Hitler’s IQ was requested.
It was based not so much on an average of the Nazi leader IQ tests as on the average of those who were known to be especially close to him. Then adjusted a bit down for Flynn.
I haven’t read much about Stalin as a person but from what I have I suspect his IQ was also the 120s.
Next challenge: What is Merkel’s IQ? She is a cited physicist, so that’s one in favor. OTOH, unless she is joking here, she is geography challenged in a really bad and concerning way.
It’s hard to know what to make of that video. Reminds me of Obama’s 57 states gaffe.
Merkel is an interesting person and I will definitely estimate her IQ soon.
She’s definitely not joking. If you understand German you can tell. I watched a longer video of that event and it’s even more obvious there.
That’s actually very strange. Especially because she was extremely good at school. She got the best possible GPA in her Abitur (the highest school leaving certificate) in 1973. In 2007 only 0.72% of the students graduating with the Abitur got a score like that; in 1973 it was probably even harder to achieve that.
Why my comments are in moderation ? Can you give me an answer ?
Because comments for new users now have to be approved manually, and I haven’t had time to approve most of them.
Also, your comments are being flagged because your IP doesn’t match your location. Fake IPs automatically get flagged because they are often robots
I previously asked you to answer to commenter Tenn’s question which was approximatively : can you provide the link of the brainsize’s article in which you estimated your IQ from your reaction time ?
Also, your comments are being flagged because your IP doesn’t match your location. Fake IPs automatically get flagged because they are often robots
I don’t believe you, but, anyway, I will not insist on this.
I previously asked you to answer to commenter Tenn’s question which was approximatively : can you provide the link of the brainsize’s article in which you estimated your IQ from your reaction time ?
Here it is:
https://brainsize.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/radical-theory-for-explaining-the-flynn-effect/
Now that I re-read it, the post did not give an estimate for my IQ, what it did was give my score on the chronometric game. However anyone who is familiar with high IQ societies knows of the Prometheus society stats showing that my particular score (BrainMaster +1) equated to an IQ of about 135..
What about you? What is your IQ?
but, anyway, I will not insist on this.
Smart man.
Hi, Cale. Back again I see?
All this sounds like Hitler’s IQ was a little to the north of 110. “Near the top of the class” could mean top 3 out of 30 people (90th percentile) or top 6 out of 30 people (80th percentile). And I find the Draw-a-Man and historical significance evidence to be totally worthless for any exact measurements. If Hess’s IQ was 120, Hitler’s has to be somewhere below. But Hitler’s IQ has to be some points above 100 as well; otherwise, he could never have become leader of Germany. So an IQ of 110-115 wouldn’t be too unreasonable.
130 seems too low for Hitler. I’d put him at 150.
Think you overestimate Hitler’s IQ because he:
* failed to proceed to the next class, more than once
* ultimately failed to graduate from school
* showed low future-time orientation. Without WW1, he might have frozen in a Viennese alley. And later in WW2, he often couldn’t make up his mind and procrastinated (case in point: Kursk)
Hitler showed only short bursts of intensive activity that were interrupted by a great deal of laziness. He was also constantly late. This does not indicate a great deal of self-control and indicates a low performance IQ.
My guess is that Hitler had a relatively high verbal IQ with a good memory, and since he was well-read and had some capable staffers this deluded people into greatly overestimating his general intelligence (imagine him with the army and bureaucracy of Mussolini). A general said about him during WW2 that he knew unimportant trivia like the screws used by English tanks, but was hopeless at drawing logical conclusions.
Actually all the generals spoke well of Hitler, including Rommel himself, who read military geniuses and strategists of all time, who knew more about propaganda than Goebbels himself, who was an expert in literature, etc, etc.
Hitler’s IQ was 135 according to new modern estimates, it was a GENIUS.
”Hitler’s IQ was 135 according to new modern estimates, it was a GENIUS.”
Iqists are just like a plagues on psychology department
You’re just asserting that 135 IQ. I’d like to have a source for this claim.
Clearly, I not claim that Hitler was not knowledgeable.
But reading lots of military books did not prevent him from making horrible decisions.
Some people close to Hitler like “lackey” Keitel praised him, but this is to be
expected whenever someone surrounds himself with sycophants.
Yet many generals paid for their opposition by being sacked (or executed).
Like Rommel, who turned from admirer to being involved in the Valkyrie plot.
Or Manstein (probably the best military brain the Germans had) who despised Hitler.
One of the highest scoring Nazis said that Hitler was a genius in certain areas. His understanding of mass propaganda psychology and oratory was serious, historical world-class genius.
I think it is more accurate, fruitful, and in-focus to look at “genius in certain areas” rather than general “IQ.”
Consider the case of Kasparov vs John Nunn. Nunn was the youngest person admitted to Oxford in the last 450 years, and had an IQ that was probably over 200. Kasparov was rumored to have an IQ of 190. A psychologist tried to find the source of this claim, however, and couldn’t; so he tested Kasparov himself. 135.
Nunn quit his job as an Oxford mathematician in order to pursue a career as a professional chess player, with the goal of winning the world championship title, which he regarded as within his abilities. It did not come easily, though. In fact, it did not come at all.
His highest achieved Elo rating in chess was 2630. Kasparov’s was 2856.7. Magnus Carlsen’s was 2889.2.
Nunn was never a serious threat to Kasparov, nor was he ever a threat to other leading elite grandmasters. He wasn’t even in the same league.
Caltech physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman’s IQ was 127, but his understanding and accomplishments in physics were far beyond many physicists with higher IQs.
Back to Hitler: one of the highest scoring Nazis was dazzled by Hitler’s intelligence. Many others were similarly dazzled when interacting with him. Hitler, at least in some ways, was much more intelligent than these higher-IQ Nazis under him.
No one here has mentioned Hitler’s occultism. He was in touch with superhuman intelligence on occult planes. His early military successes were related to that relationship. And his later failures were also related to interventions by other occult intelligence.
Unusually intelligent people sometimes explore domains beyond mind as we know it. Hitler was one of them.
One of the highest scoring Nazis said that Hitler was a genius in certain areas. His understanding of mass propaganda psychology and oratory was serious, historical world-class genius.
I think it is more accurate, fruitful, and in-focus to look at “genius in certain areas” rather than general “IQ.”
Or it could be that my estimate of his IQ was just wrong.