Estimating Hitler's IQ

As a starting point, the expected IQ of Adolf Hitler is about 128 with an SE of 9.1, as that’s the average of the Nazi leadership. You should expect the leader of a group to be smarter than the subordinates, but that’s just an average, and can’t be extrapolated to individuals.

Reading through a review of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, I was able to find some relevant information:

• He was considered gifted by his teachers, but his personality did not lead to success in school. Teacher ratings of ability correlate with test scores at about 0.7 and most sources I find consider that roughly 6% of students are “gifted” (1, 2, 3). This percentage is not invariant across time of course, but it works as a reasonably conservative estimate.

• Has a talent for improvised speeches - g-loaded, but hard to measure.

• Can paint well, but was rejected from the Academy of Fine Arts of Vienna. They noted that he draws people poorly and recommended that he join the architecture department, but he couldn’t, as he didn’t finish secondary school.

• I would esstimate he is roughly in the 99th percentile of artistic ability - as paitning is only one aspect of artistic talent. School grades in art and music correlates at .21 with IQ, which I will use as an estimate of the g-loading of artistic ability.

This problem has been tackled before by Anatoly Karlin, who has estimated that Hitler’s IQ is about 125 - which is probably close to the truth. In his estimation he notes:

• Mein Kampf is poorly written. Writing skill is g-loaded, though it’s difficult to quantify how Hitler’s book ranks relative to the rest of the field.

• Hitler was at the top of his class during most of his school years - not surprising that his teachers thought he was gifted.

• Most (if not all) of his subordinates think he is intelligent.

This stuff is hard to quantify, but does suggest that Hitler’s IQ is probably between 120 and 140 - highly intelligent, but not a genius.

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For his simulation, I will do something a little different - I will assume a distribution of M = 128 and SD = 9, and then model the traits from there.

Based on his artistic ability, the IQ of his subordinates, and teacher-assessed intelligence, Adolf Hilter has an IQ of about 134 with an SE of 8.1.

########################
g <- rnorm(60000000, mean=28/15, sd = 9/15)
set.seed(2)
iq <- 0.7*g + rnorm(60000000)*sqrt(1-0.7^2)
set.seed(4)
c2 <- 0.21*g + rnorm(60000000)*sqrt(1-0.21^2)

subby1 <- data.frame(iq, c2)
subby1$g <- g

subby2 <- subset(subby1, (subby1$iq > 1.55) & (subby1$c2 > 2.25 & subby1$c2 < 2.4))
mean(subby2$g)*15
sd(subby2$g)*15