If only Adi and Rudi Dassler had learned to get along , Germany ’s Gebrüder Dassler might have bestedNikeas the Earth ’s top sports footgear company today . Instead , the brothers ' bitter feud caused the brand they created — Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik ( Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory ) — to separate in two as Adidas and Puma , the world’ssecond and thirdtop sports shoe businesses .
Adolf ( Adi ) Dassler began ready place in 1924 in his mother ’s kitchen shortly after returning home to the Bavarian village of Herzogenaurach afterWorld War I. His business did well , and older chum Rudolph ( Rudi ) Dassler unite him a few years by and by to help . Shy Adi was the originative force and brains behind the business , while extroverted Rudi was the salesman .
The Dassler pal ' main goal at this other stage of the ship’s company was to get their skid on the feet of athlete . They believed if an jock won a slipstream while wearing their place , it would help authenticate their product . The probability come up at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam when German distance base runner Lina Radke not onlywon the 800 - metre racein a pair of their spiked cartroad shoes , she also coiffe a new humans record .
Gebrüder Dassler gained further acclaim at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin . Adi provided their shoe to athletes from several different body politic . It was American Jesse Owens , who had the Olympics of his life in a duet of Dassler brothers track shoes , who became the catalyst for the company . Seven amber , five silver and five bronze medals were come through by athlete in Dassler skid during that Olympics — four amber medals by Owens alone .
But it was n’t quite the triumph it should have been because thing inside the company were beginning to sour .
The Dasslers and the Nazis
While the Dassler brother were building their skid company , theNazi partywas seek to take ascendancy of Germany . In 1925 , just when the Brother were forming Dassler , Adolf Hitler declare the reformulation of the National Socialist German Workers ' Party ( NSDAP ) , with himself as leader . By 1933 , Hitler was appointed German chancellor and thebrothers joined the Nazi partyand remained member until the closing of the warfare .
ab initio , duringWorld War II , the Dassler factory continued producing track shoes , but in 1941 , the Nazis order it toproduce 10,500 pairs of shoesa month for the regime . affair were not good at home , either . For one , the brother and their wives all lived together , including Adi ’s married woman who was just a teenager . finally much of the bad blood between Adi and Rudi began bubble over .
" . . . His young wife adjudicate to interfere in business matter , although she , with her 16 years , had no experience at all , and the war begin , " Rudolf Dassler wrote according to Barbara Smit ’s book , " Sneaker warfare : The Enemy Brothers Who Founded Adidas and Puma and the Family Feud That Forever Changed the Business of Sports . "
Rudi did n’t of necessity intend World War II when he said " warfare , " but the warfare was pivotal in their feuds . Adi was initially drafted in 1940 butgiven a defermentbecause he was needed to track down the manufactory . But Rudi was drafted in January 1943 . He blame Adi for his draft and did n’t think Adi could execute the company without him . He demanded Adi keep him inform about every business sector decision and wanted his married woman , Friedl , toact as his lieutenant .
Adi tell no , and thing between the brothers worsen . While post at the second - largest Jewish ghetto in Poland , in April 1943,Rudi wrote to Adi :
Six months later the factory was shut down as part of the Third Reich ’s Totaler Krieg - Kürzester Krieg ( Total War - Shortest War ) campaign . Dassler was forced to block producing shoe and instead start establish thePanzerschreck , a shoulder rocket launcher used to take out Allied tank .
Even still , Rudi seek to take control of the factory from Adi . He tried to carry member of the Nazi party to use the manufacturing plant to produce boots for soldiers instead of munitions . His plan failed . Instead he went AWOL from his post in Poland just days before the Soviets liberated it , saving the remaining 800 Jews immure there . Rudi returned to Herzogenaurach but was arrested by the Gestapo .
The Dasslers Post WWII
before long after the war terminate , Rudi returned to Herzogenaurach but was chop-chop arrested by American troops who suspected he worked for the Sicherheitsdienst ( the occult service of the Reichsführer - SS ) . Adi and his wife Käthetestifiedto the de-Nazification gore that Rudi was part of the SS and he was imprisoned for a class , provide Adi again to launch the factory .
But Adi did n’t get off scot - destitute . The de-Nazification gore required that Adi not engage Dassler . Once again , Rudi saw this as his chance to regain mightiness . He told the panel that it was Adi all along who masterminded the weapons product for the Nazis for his own net . But the panel did n’t corrupt it and formally concede Adi possession of Gebrüder Dassler onFeb . 3 , 1947 .
The simulated testimony from Rudi , the testimony from Adi , the kinfolk infighting — it all led to the irreparable rupture of the entire Dassler family and in the end the party . By 1948 Gebrüder Dassler officially part , move its assets and employees into one of two compete operations settle on diametric sides of the Aurach River that flowed through Herzogenaurach . Adi rename his occupation " Adidas , " combining his first and last names . Rudi did the same , dubbing his " Ruda , " although he later change it to " Puma . "
shortly , most of Herzogenaurach ’s citizens were employed by either Adidas or Puma , and the siblings ' intense rivalryspread throughout the townsfolk . If someone worked for one party , they did n’t socialize with employees of the other . hook up with across companies was stringently foreclose . Residents only shopped in the stores on the same side of the river as the factory in which they were employed .
The brothers ' babe Marie side with Adi and Käthe . Their female parent Paulina side with Rudi and Friedl . In the detachment , Adi maintain the factory and the family villa .
Over sentence , Adidasfar surpassed Puma in gross revenue , thanks to Adi ’s creativity and proficient insightfulness , although Puma still did quite well . But while the two were grueling at employment competing against one another , they paid no attention to another shoe society — Nike — that was quietly profit mart share . Today , Nike is king of the variation brake shoe stage business , with 2017 sales of$28 billioncompared to Adidas ' $ 12.8 billion and Puma ’s $ 3.5 billion .
The brothers speak a few timeslater in lifebut never reconciled . Both died in the 1970s and were swallow up at opposite ends of the local cemetery . Their feud lastly ended in 2009 , when employee of both companies played together in a favorable association football match .
