Lowest level of mental performance consistent with "Master Race" status in Nazi Germany?

[Boojatta]

We are talking about mental performance when the individual was not impaired. It seems unlikely that a person at an acute stage of injury or illness would have been given mental tests to determine fitness to enter the army. Except perhaps in times of serious national emergency, one would not expect a potential recruit to begin basic military training while in such condition. Also, for example, one would obviously not test potential recruits while they were intoxicated from excessive alcohol consumption or extremely tired because they just worked a 12 hour shift of physically demanding work. A complete list of possible causes of impaired condition would be extremely long, but the idea should be clear.

When an individual was not suffering from temporary impairment and was attempting to display intelligence, what was the lowest level of mental performance that was thought to be consistent with "Master Race" status in Nazi Germany? A good answer will probably include examples.

[ThomWV]

1. What are you talking, or asking, about?

I don't understand your question at all. There was no test for minimum competence in Hitler's Germany. There were tests of ancestry and there were prohibitions against mental and physical defect as the movement progressed but there was certainly no minimum SAT score or anything like it either mental or physical. There being no test it follows that there were no minimum conditions for the test to be administered.

[Boojatta]

2. "there were prohibitions against mental and physical defect"

What kind of mental performance by a person not suffering from temporary impairment was considered to be evidence of mental defect?

[ThomWV]

6. I believe it was arbitrary decision in cases other than deformity

[rasputin1952]

3. There was no intelligence test, but I can say that the vast

majority would fall into the "average" to "slightly above average" range.

there were a few intellectuals that went into the party, but it was most likely for expedience and to gain funding for projects that were being developed.

One can be anywhere on the scale of intelligence to be a brute, it just takes some longer than others to reach a depraved state. Some never did. There was a Colonel that refused to have his men gun down civilians, mostly Jews, Nothing happened to him, as far as retribution, and he had his troops marched away from the site. However, a group of SS were immediately brought in and did the deed. I think that the Colonel would have been on a higher moral plane if he had placed his men between the victims and the SS.

Point is, there have been exceptionally intelligent people that have done incredibly horrendous things...it comes down to ideology, not intellectual capacity. In fact, I think it can be argued that those who possess a higher intelligence, can actually rationalize brutal behavior easier than can a dolt.

Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Strauss, Mengele, and a host of other Nazi's were far from being intellectuals, I'd argue that all of them had "average" IQ's. What they had was power, and an ability to rationalize things to the point where they believed they were "correct" in their beliefs, and motivate others to believe in the same ethos.

To be sure, there were detractors from the the Nazi ideology, most of them were detained or murdered, but Reinhardt Niemoller stands out, and survived.


First they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for the communists
And I did not speak out –
Because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out –
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me –

And there was no-one left
To speak out for me.

Pastor Niemöller, 1938

[Boojatta]

4. "There was no intelligence test"

Well, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that there was no Nazi Mensa. However, are you sure intelligence testing wasn't done for any purpose? What about joining the army; maintaining citizenship; getting a German Blood Certificate; getting married and producing offspring; joining the Nazi party; etc?

[rasputin1952]

5. Nope...All of those were based on bloodlines and external

qualifiers, i.e., blond hair/blue eyes etc.

In fact, a large part of the intelligentsia, military and learned were shuffled out of power. The main thing to being a Nazi was to adhere to the ideology.

There was certainly a hierarchy, but it was not based on intelligence, but rather on loyalty. Look at Ernst Rohm, certainly not the brightest of lights, but loyal, and therefore "blessed"...until he became a "threat" to the movement. Rohm was not a man of intellect, but he had a knack of getting people together, something others learned quite quickly. Once Rohm was out of the picture, the Brown-shirts were absorbed into the Party.

There were most certainly highly intelligent people that joined, but many of those joined so they would not lose what they had, or perhaps gain more. The basis for being a good member of the Party was simple blind loyalty; those of higher intelligence were rarely heard from...Power does not like competition, especially ideological competition that may look to be on a higher plane.

[Boojatta]

10. Okay, they didn't test cognitive performance. Did they look for physical disabilities?

The Minister of Propaganda had a physical disability. Did he get a special exemption or was his physical disability considered to be not particularly serious?

Was there a special distinction between disabilities that were thought to be purely genetic (such as color blindness and hemophilia) and disabilities that were at least partly a result of the environment (such as disabilities resulting from illnesses caused by infectious agents)?

Was execution the only official response to physical disabilities that were thought to be both extremely serious and also purely genetic or were there sometimes other responses, such as requesting that the person enter into a contractual agreement to not produce offspring or sterilizing the person? Was execution based on physical disabilities ordered by a judge after a trial or at least ordered by a judge after a systematic, official investigation?

Did the Nazi government give official blessing to some marriages and guarantee that future offspring would not be executed because of any disabilities thought to be caused entirely by genetics, regardless of how serious those disabilities might be?

[EFerrari]

7. They let my step father into the Hitler Youth.

He's severely ADD. Maybe the kids got a break or maybe no one was really paying attention. He was, however, very blond and very blue eyed.

[Boojatta]

8. You omitted a possibility.

Perhaps the Nazi authorities recognized that ADD may impair cognitive performance, but decided that they should focus on the underlying cognitive capacity and not jump to conclusions based on performance. On the other hand, maybe they just weren't paying attention.

[EFerrari]

9. He became a skilled engineer and lives here now in the Bay Area.

You have to wonder though, even as efficient as they were, how much time they really devoted to the children under 15 -- who in theory wouldn't be drafted.