(1) Hitler was not a good general or admiral and did cause problems when interfering there. He was only a corporal after all. But I think his strategic decisions were largely correct. The Axis were major underdogs and they gave us a good scare. Stalingrad and Dunkirk were pretty bad though.
(2) WW1 messenger was a dangerous, important and trustworthy job. You wouldn't give it to a bad soldier. By the way I don't know about now but in the 90s the British infantry still trained you at this, in case the electronic communications were (suspected of) being listened to by the enemy or went down.
At the Nuremberg Trials, two of his former superiors testified that Hitler had refused to be considered for promotion. Hitler was twice decorated for bravery. He received the Iron Cross Second Class in 1914 and the Iron Cross First Class in 1918, an honour rarely given to a lance corporal. Hitler's First Class Iron Cross was recommended by Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann, a Jewish adjutant in the List Regiment. According to Weber, this rare award was commonly awarded to those posted to regimental headquarters, such as Hitler, who had contact with more senior officers than did combat soldiers. Hitler's Iron Cross First Class was awarded after an attack in open warfare during which messengers were indispensable and on a day in which the depleted regiment lost 60 killed and 211 wounded.
During the Battle of the Somme in October 1916 Hitler received a wound in his left thigh when a shell exploded at the entrance to the dispatch runners' dugout. He begged not to be evacuated, but was sent for almost two months to the Red Cross hospital at Beelitz in Brandenburg. Thereafter, he was ordered to the depot in Munich. He wrote to his commanding officer, Hauptmann Fritz Wiedemann, asking that he be recalled to the regiment because he could not tolerate Munich when he knew his comrades were at the Front.
Irony is where something has the opposite from intended outcome.
(2) Here are the Nuremburg IQ scores:
1 Hjalmar Schacht 143
2 Arthur Seyss-Inquart 141
3 Hermann Goering 138
4 Karl Doenitz 138
5 Franz von Papen 134
6 Eric Raeder 134
7 Dr. Hans Frank 130
8 Hans Fritsche 130
9 Baldur von Schirach 130
10 Joachim von Ribbentrop 129
11 Wilhelm Keitel 129
12 Albert Speer 128
13 Alfred Jodl 127
14 Alfred Rosenberg 127
15 Constantin von Neurath 125
16 Walther Funk 124
17 Wilhelm Frick 124
18 Rudolf Hess 120
19 Fritz Sauckel 118
20 Ernst Kaltenbrunner 113
21 Julius Streicher 106
(3) I can't find a mainstream academic article estimating Hitler's IQ, which is perhaps not surprising considering how politically incorrect it would be to score him highly. The closest I can find are these:
125
133 - In an article linked in the above article, 'Pumpkin Person', who specialises in estimating famous people's IQs, estimated Hitler's as 133. The link is dead and the page has been deleted from the Wayback Machine.
134
(4) Of course you have to consider that IQ is an overall measure and people can be for instance, good at maths but bad at verbal skills etc. Hitler was top of his class at school. His art was also legit (and if he had stuck at it he would have improved).
(5) Don't do yourselves down, 110 is
more intelligent than 75% of White people, and 118 is more intelligent than 88%.
(6) As
@SirRealKiller said, while Hitler could not be IQ tested as he was
hiding in Argentina dead, considering the IQs of his top guys and the fact that they followed him, and what they said about him, his IQ was probably at least 130. That's conservative, most estimates in people discussing this cluster around 140.
(7) Membership of the Nazi Party maxed out at 8 million, which was about 10% of the German population. Most people weren't Nazis, most people are just NPCs who obey authority.
(8) Over a million foreigners fought with the Germans in WW2. Famously most of the final defenders of the Bunker were French SS.
