Apr 06
2
Peter Drucker – Anecdote
I had a meeting today with someone today, who is an ex-Intel exec. He told me a story about how at one point during his time there he decided to try to get Peter Drucker to come as a guest speaker and mentor for a small group of Intel execs. He sent off an email and was amazed several days later to receive a fax accepting the invitation – clearly typed on an old IBM Selectric typewriter.
At one point in an early conversation Drucker mentioned the time that he interviewed Hitler.
My friend, Phil, was utterly gob smacked to hear the mention of the name and asked Drucker what he was talking about. It apparently turned out that early in his career Drucker had been a journalist. He had been assigned with the job of interviewing the author of a new book that had come out in Germany at the time. It was called Mein Kampf. The author of course was Hitler.
He dutifully read the book in order to conduct research prior to the interview.
Drucker recounted to Phil that when he interviewed Hitler he asked him how it came to be that in the book he talked a lot about power but not once about money. Hitler apparently replied along the following lines: “First you need to get the power. When you have that you find the people with money. Then you kill them. Then you have both”.
Apparently Drucker went to all his friends and told them to leave Germany immediately. He was of course Jewish. His friends didn't believe him. They stayed. They died.
Drucker left. Legend has it that Drucker was exiled from Germany because of his views on economics. The truth is that he left because he didn't want he and his wife to be killed.