The Enemy Brothers: Adidas vs Puma

Adolf  and Rudolf Dassler grew up in a poor German family. Their father worked in a shoe factory and mother ran a laundary service. Family sold homemade slippers to put food on the table. In the 1920's, the brothers founded the Dassler Brothers Sports Shoe Company, in the small town of Herzogenaurach. Adolf Dassler was a quiet craftsman who designed and made the shoes. Despite the fact that both brothers were members of the somewhat unsavory Nazi party. They managed to convince legendary Olympian Jesse Owens to wear there shoes. In the 1936 Olympic Games Owens won four gold medals. His victory gave Dassler shoes international exposure. But all of this success was not good for their relationship. There is much speculation about what caused the brothers to fall out. Some say there was stealing, affairs or resentment and after the World War 2 the brother's eventually split their company in two. Adolf named his factory Adidas (short for ADI DASler). Rudolf attempted the same by naming his company Ruda (RUdolf DAssler) But changed it to the more athletic sounding Puma. It was a nasty family feud that not only pitted two brothers against one another. But also separated the people of their town into opposing factions for 60 years.



Most of Herzogenaurach's citizens were employed by one of Dassler brothers.If you worked for one company, you did not socialize with employees of the other. Herzogenaurach came to be  known as the town of the bent necks because people would first look at the person's footwear and then greet or ignore them.
The brothers sued each other many many times over the years. Speculating on all sorts of design and trademark issues. Adi and Rudi both died in the 1970's. They are both buried in the same cemetery but as far as possible from each other. The two never reconciled. In business terms, it is Adi who has won. In Herzogenaurach there is even a statue in his honor. Adidas is now far bigger company employing 39,000 compared with Puma's 9000. But it is the  nature of the Adi and Rudi, driven rivalry that has given both firms their fighting spirit. Relations didn't really improve between the two firms until 21st September 2009.when they arranged a football match between workers of both factories. They started the process of the healing decades of enmity and new era of love and shoes started.