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CLASSIC: Adidas Versus Puma: A Tale of Two Brothers · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow ridiculous historians. We are coming to you semi live
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: along the road in a very exciting place.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Live Ish, coming to you Live Ish from Doha Guitar
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: at Web Summit Quitar. We've had a wonderful experience in
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: a part of the world that I believe neither of
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: us had visited prior to this.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Everyone's been very kind.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: We've been part of some presentations here with some incredible
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: iHeart folks, kind of helping creators in this part of
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: the world learn about this wonderful thing we call podcasting.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Yes, and we are joined in the studio today with
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: none other than our super guest producer, the man who's
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: making all of this possible podcast Wise, Matt the Madman Stillo,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Matt double Bird. Still up, Yeah, Matt. Do you have
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: any siblings that you know?
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Of what fraternal or.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Not quite as cool? But still do you guys get along? Yeah?
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Are you into shoes? Like, do you wear shoes?
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: All?
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  Speaker 3: Right?
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Do you ever dress an identical tracksuits? Okay, that would
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: be that's a little too close. Only the identicals do
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing, right, okay, right, and only for
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: you know, film appearance. Now, it's a bizarre though I
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: got to say, every set of identical twists I've ever known,
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  Speaker 2: they dressed the same. I feel something that they just
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  Speaker 2: have done since childhood. I feel like it's not on
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  Speaker 2: purpose for a lot of them, parallel thinking and they
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  Speaker 2: have the vibes. Dang, I also like a blue sweater.
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  Speaker 2: We're asking this.
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  Speaker 1: I'm so glad this because our classic episode today while
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: we're on the road is indeed a tale of two
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  Speaker 1: brothers and a tale of shoes, and a tale of
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  Speaker 1: two cities, and a tale of two cities divided by ideology,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: branding and a river. And I know I sort of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: decision tried you into that question, do you guys wear shoes?
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  Speaker 1: So most of the time was his response. If you
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: had to choose one, Noel, would you choose Puma or Adidas?
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Funny you should ask that ben.
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  Speaker 2: Adidas is a lot more less Sorry, I'm being such
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  Speaker 2: a small geman boy when I pronounced that one A
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  Speaker 2: lot more common.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: In the States.
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  Speaker 2: You see it Adida stores a lot more frequently. But
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  Speaker 2: recently I went to an outlet mall situation in one
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  Speaker 2: of the bit more far away suburbs of Atlanta, and
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  Speaker 2: they have a Puma store, and I purchased an entire
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  Speaker 2: Puma track suit and several pairs of Puma shoes, but
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I wear it with my Adidas beanie. So it's sort
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  Speaker 2: of a little controversial if you want to get into
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: today's topic.
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  Speaker 1: Right yeah, yeah, like walking around comp to wearing blue
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and red indeed, right, not fly, I mean it'll work
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: for me because I'm colored black.
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  Speaker 2: That's true, that's true.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you were getting some side eyes. Let's let's
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: look at it in a positive light and say, you're
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: building bridges, right indeed, and these bridges need to be
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  Speaker 1: built because, as we'll learn in today's classic episode, Adidas
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Adidas and there's a reason we're pronouncing it that way
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  Speaker 1: sometimes and Puma are two of the world's most well
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  Speaker 1: known sneaker brands today. Sport garb, active wear. Yes, yes, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you're fast walkies, that's true.
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  Speaker 2: But also you know, they really both, honestly, probably Adidas
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  Speaker 2: a little more, have developed a pretty significant place in
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  Speaker 2: pop culture.
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  Speaker 1: Like it's not just sportsmen that like.
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  Speaker 2: To wear these, you know, hip hop enthusiasts, be boys, skaters.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Or fans of the band Porno the k all day
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: they dream about. Yes, and it may surprise some of
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: us to learn that there is a strange and bigger
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: origin story behind these two titans of the sneaker world.
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  Speaker 1: We're gonna delve into a tale of family fuse, strange, contempt,
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  Speaker 1: and brothers Divide it.
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  Speaker 2: The story of the Dossler Brothers Adidas get It, Let's
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  Speaker 2: roll it.
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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Friends and neighbors, Thanks for tuning in. We have two
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: developments that we'd like to tell you about that occurred
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: outside of the studio only, one of which is tangentially
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: related to today's episode. First is that it is my
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: trustee co host Noel Brown's birthday today.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sorry I was runing in place birthday resolution with
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: my new Adidas track.
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  Speaker 1: Shoes, right yeah, oh so, happy birthday, Noel. I'm Ben.
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  Speaker 1: Let's hello to our super producer, Casey Pegram. And the
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: second development, which is I guess at best tangentially related
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  Speaker 1: to today's episode, is that, for the first time in years,
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  Speaker 1: I bought a pair of tennis shoes.
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  Speaker 2: You sure did, and Ben, thank you for the birthday wishes.
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  Speaker 2: I was. The endorphins were flowing through me so much
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  Speaker 2: I didn't even respond politely, and I do apologize. Let's
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  Speaker 2: talk about your shoes. Yours are tigers though, right.
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  Speaker 1: Right, right, Lions and tigers and Bears, Pumas and Adididas. Yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: that is the tangential relationship today. So one of the
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: most well known popular tennis shoe brands is Nike today, right,
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  Speaker 1: very true, very very true, just do it. But other
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  Speaker 1: brands are still in the international sphere and very very
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  Speaker 1: well known, like Adidas and Pumas.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, And I don't know, we can just spoil
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  Speaker 2: this part of the story in advance. Nike kind of
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  Speaker 2: blew up as a result of Adidas and Puma's kind
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  Speaker 2: of being distracted with sort of the topic of today's
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  Speaker 2: episode and not really paying attention to this impending shoe
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  Speaker 2: mcgeddon that Nike brought on.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely absolutely, because well, like, have you ever owned
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  Speaker 1: a pair of Adidas or a Puma shoe?
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  Speaker 2: I have an Adidas hoodie that I'm quite fond of,
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  Speaker 2: and I think I've owned a Puma a pair of
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  Speaker 2: Puma shoe. Don't think I've ever owned any Adidas shoes,
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  Speaker 2: but fan of the hoodies.
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  Speaker 1: I think I've only owned a track suit from Adidas
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  Speaker 1: it was a different life. I could never I could
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: not pay sure it was it was for a show.
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  Speaker 2: It was unrelated, okay, for a show, that's fair.
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  Speaker 1: But I haven't owned the shoes either, which is, you know,
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  Speaker 1: not super unusual for us, because neither of us are
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: especially sneaker heads, as they're called. But but they are
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: very very popular shoes and they have a very strange
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: story behind them. I guess to start off today, we
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: should go ahead and just be upfront about the pronunciation
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: of the name of this town.
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  Speaker 2: Should we have a pronunciation off and then we can
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: check four voh and see who was closest.
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  Speaker 1: So you're using four voh, right, that's right? That's right.
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  Speaker 1: Is that your go to pronunciation guide of choice?
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  Speaker 2: It is because it's crowdsourced and it's usually from natives,
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  Speaker 2: so I find it to be pretty reliable. And if
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: they're if the word isn't there, then I just you know,
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  Speaker 2: roll the dice. But this one, in fact, was there.
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  Speaker 1: So let's how about we spell it first so everyone
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  Speaker 1: knows where we're coming from. It's h E r z
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  Speaker 1: O G E N A U r A c H.
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  Speaker 1: So uh, let's see would that be? Here's g HER's
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: o ganda. Why do you give you a shut?
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  Speaker 2: Well man, I may have told you that in a
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  Speaker 2: past life, I was once a young German boy.
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  Speaker 1: That's true. I would defer to your pronunciation.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm gonna give it a go with the help
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: of four voh and then I'll check check myself.
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  Speaker 3: Hatzolganala, Hatzolganaha, got close close. I think I over pronounced
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: the gen the again, so they're more like hats olganah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, gn kind of like just.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 2: So you know, this is let's call it, what do
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  Speaker 2: we say, ben hartze Hertzel. That's what the locals call it.
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  Speaker 2: It's going to be easier, so Hertso it has a
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  Speaker 2: storied sneaker past.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, our story begins with the Dostler brothers, Rudolph
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  Speaker 1: and Adolph. But Rudy and ADDI to their friends right
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  Speaker 1: and to us and to us for the purposes of this.
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  Speaker 1: So Audi is the younger brother. He's a cobbler, he's
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: an inventor, he's a bit of an entrepreneur. His favorite
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  Speaker 1: thing in the world is to sit at his work
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  Speaker 1: bench and tinker. And he starts making shoes.
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  Speaker 2: So I thought I thought a shoemaker was a cobbler.
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  Speaker 2: It was a Tinker's a tinker as a thing too.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: There's tinker Taylor Soldier Spine in that movie What's a Tinker?
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  Speaker 1: So you could tinker with things, but the old profession
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  Speaker 1: is someone who travels from place to place mending things
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  Speaker 1: like pots and pants.
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  Speaker 2: Right, So he is a tinker and a cobbler. I
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: would say he's a tinkerer. Yeah, so he's a tinkering
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  Speaker 2: cobbler and he's cobbling at his tinker bench and what
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  Speaker 2: does he make? Ben There's a little bit of more
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  Speaker 2: of a story here too. This was after World War One.
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  Speaker 2: Things were pretty dire in Germany Bavaria, where hertzel Is located,
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  Speaker 2: and the brother's mother had had a laundry business that
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  Speaker 2: was no longer operational.
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  Speaker 1: And so that's where Audy set up his shop. He
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  Speaker 1: was eighteen years old when he returned from World War
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  Speaker 1: One in nineteen eighteen, and Harze is in northern Bavaria.
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  Speaker 1: Oddly enough to shoemaking was the biggest industry in the
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  Speaker 1: area at the time, so it was a natural fit
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  Speaker 1: for him to go into this empty laundry shed and
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  Speaker 1: begin making shoes.
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  Speaker 2: Right there's a great, great article that we're gonna pull
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: some good stuff from from Vice Sports by Brian Blickenstaff
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  Speaker 2: that sort of mentions the idea that even in those
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  Speaker 2: kind of salad days post World War One, when folks
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  Speaker 2: were returning back home and things were kind of a
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  Speaker 2: little bit getting by by hook er by crook, you
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  Speaker 2: might not have to buy the nicest clothes, but you
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  Speaker 2: had to have functional.
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  Speaker 1: Shoes, right, You gotta have shoes. And there's an excellent
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  Speaker 1: article depicting his experience making his first pair of shoes
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  Speaker 1: over on Today I found out folks. You may notice
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: we're avoiding giving you the headlines of these articles right now.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: That's because we don't want to spoil things straight from
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  Speaker 1: the gate. So he makes his first shoes for just
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: for his friends. But these shoes that he creates are
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: made out of leather scraps salvaged from helmets and wartime
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  Speaker 1: uniforms another gear. Yeah, he's're like mad Max shoes. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's a good description. And out people really liked Audi's shoes.
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  Speaker 1: His reputation spread far beyond herzel, and pretty soon he
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: had one of the best problems you can have when
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  Speaker 1: you start your own business. He had more work than
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: he could handle.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it took him about three years to
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  Speaker 2: get to that point. And that's when he enlisted the
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  Speaker 2: help of his brother, Rudy, who was a little bit
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  Speaker 2: more of a business minded kind of guy, a bit
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  Speaker 2: of a brash kind of salesman type dude. And he
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  Speaker 2: really needed that because Addi was sort of the brains
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  Speaker 2: behind the product, and Rudy came in and became the
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: power behind the throne, the kind of guy that pushed
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  Speaker 2: the product out into the marketplace a bit.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, nineteen twenty three, Rudy joins, and we must emphasize
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  Speaker 1: just how different these two guys are. Addi sounds to
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  Speaker 1: me like an introvert and Rudy definitely seems like the extrovert.
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  Speaker 1: And this worked in the beginning. This was a fantastic partnership.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, they had already grown up together, so they
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  Speaker 1: knew what to expect, and they worked pretty well in
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  Speaker 1: the early days. And in nineteen twenty four, things were
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  Speaker 1: going well enough that they said, you know what, let's
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  Speaker 1: make it official, bro, let's start a company.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. They're called the Dossler Bros. Or Gbruder Dossler.
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  Speaker 1: The Dossler Brothers shoe company and they continue growing, so
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  Speaker 1: I believe it's in nineteen twenty six they say, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: this laundry shed operation isn't cutting it. We need an
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  Speaker 1: actual factory's right. Oh, we shall also mentioned before we
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: get too far into the story. After World War One,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Rudy had decided he wanted to become a policeman and
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: he actually he trained.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: For it like a Gestapo type policeman.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Interesting that you would mention that part that is going
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: to come into play later, because yes, this is Germany
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen twenties at this time.
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  Speaker 2: Ah, yes, ah, yes, So where where should we go next?
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: We're still in Harzo, right we are. We're gonna We're
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: gonna mainly stay there.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, toward the end we might expand a little,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: but yes, this is a Harzo story through it through.
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  Speaker 2: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: Do you want to talk a little bit about what
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: these shoes look like and how they differ from modern shoes? Yeah?
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: I think we really should. There is a really cool
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: blog post on a site called design Boom called history
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: of Adida's Audi Dossler's first Track and Field Shoes, and
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: it goes through a chronology of these designs between the
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: twenties and the thirties. The very first shoe, called the
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Model Weitzer from nineteen twenty eight was a sprint shoe
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: and it was actually worn at the Olympic Games in
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Amsterdam of that year. And it looks almost like a rudimentary,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: kind of very stark ballet shoe mixed with like a
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: bowling shoe. But it's very very steeply angled from the
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  Speaker 2: heel to like where the ball of the foot might be,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: and then it flattens out and then has these cleats,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: these six six stikes pronounced almost like crocodile teeth looking cleats.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: And this was kind of a revolutionary design because according
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: to this blog, it was the first shoe to use
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: a screw system in athletics, which were six handmade spikes
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: that were cut pressed through these holes that were punched
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: in the outsole of the shoe and then were screwed
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: in using a steel disc that attaches from the outsole
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: the outside of the shoe. And there were some positives
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: here and that it gave runners traction that they had
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: lacked in the past, but it also they were a
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: little bit heavy because there were a lot of weighty metal.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Parts, right, and they were not manufacturing the actual spikes themselves.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: They did have help from a blacksmith operation, but the
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: rest of it, sourcing the material and assembling it, that's
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: all Dostler, And it's true. This stuff is revolutionary p
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: people are loving it. We do need to mention that
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party come to power in
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: what around thirty three, nineteen thirty three, and when this happens,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: both of the Dossler brothers do join the Nazi Party.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: They have been described, to their credit, I guess, as
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: not being the most adamant Nazis. I guess they were
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: sort of low key Nazis.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah they were not. I guess they were fair weather Nazis.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: It seemed like they were just doing it because they
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: were fitting in maybe, yeah, which is a huge problem.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: It's a huge problem with the whole Nazi plague in general.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: It's like I was just following orders. I was just
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: trying to fit in. That's not a discussion for today's episode.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: But all the while, they they're blending into the background
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: while making these shoes, and it kind of comes to
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: a head when one of their designs worn by a
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: very famous African American sprinter by the name of James
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Cleveland Owens aka Jesse Owens, who wore these shoes and
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: a very specific sporting event that we have talked about
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: in episodes past.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, we were referring to the nineteen thirty six Summer Olympics,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: which were held in Berlin. If you've checked out our
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: earlier episode, then you noticed that Jesse Owens is a
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: returning guest to our show. Jesse Owens was a track
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: and field star, and given that the Dossler brothers were
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: already benefiting from the Nazi Party's use of sports as
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: a propaganda tool, they saw the Summer Olympics as an
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: opportunity to go into the international sphere and get recognition
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: outside of Herzel and outside of Germany. So they pushed
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and pushed to get Dossler shoes on Jesse Owens. All
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: they really seemed to care about in the Olympics, in fact,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: was getting Jesse Owens to wear these shoes. He did
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: wear Dostler shoes and he won four gold medals, which, again,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: if you look at the way these shoes are constructed,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: is crazy because you're not supposed to use your heel.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: You're just supposed to like dig in and run on
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: your toes and the plan worked. Owens four medals gave
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the company huge amounts of international attention, and athletes from
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: all across Europe started making their way to this village Harzol,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: which is pretty tiny, whenever they passed through Germany, saying
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I gotta get a pair of one of those Dossler
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Brothers shoes.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and from that original design we talked about from
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: nineteen twenty eight, this one was much improved because it
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: actually left out the metal plate and it had very
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: small eyelets where the and thin laces, which helped to
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: reduce the weight of the shoe, which was really important
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: for you know, sprinting. Absolutely in fact, instead of they
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: had to get really creative with materials because instead of
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: using that metal plate, they used something called vegetable tanned
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: bottom leather or vash leather, and that significantly reduced the weight.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: So really forward thinking design work going into these shoes
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: that continued to carry on specifically with Audi. Yeah.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I look again, as we're gonna see, neither of these
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: guys are perfect, but all these innovations in the world
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: of footwear are Audi's I want to highlight that because
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's very important that Audi was the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: brains of the operation. Well, at this point, their success
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: is bringing them to a more money, more problems sort
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: of situation. Their relationship is becoming strained, and as the
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: company is succeeding, Germany is inching closer to war and
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the brothers are experiencing a failure in their relationship. One
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: that a huge, huge animosity that extends to their wives,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: their children, their parents, their other siblings because they did
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: have other siblings.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and weirdly, both families lived together in the same villa,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: which seemed less than ideal considering that every source we've
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: looked into has their wives just fighting like cats and
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: dogs between each other.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: They were not peacemakers, not at all.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm sure that tension carried over into the brother's relationship.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: When you're trying to defend your wife in some sort
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: of spat and take take their side, it probably soured
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: relations between the brothers.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: And let's not forget moms in the picture too. Yeah. Right,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: So in nineteen forty, Oddie gets the call. He is
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: asked to serve in the German military, and he does
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: for about three months. But somehow he is able to
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: get an exemption. And you'll hear different history and speculate
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: that this could have been due to Rudy's to maybe
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: back in Herzel. He was pulling some strings to get
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: his brother out to go back to the shoe business.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: And we'll probably never know for sure whether he was
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: able to get that exemption due to Rudy, but we
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: do know that whatever happened, it did not alleviate the
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: tension between the families. As the war kicked in to
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: full swing, the tensions between the families got worse and
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: worse until they hit a tipping point.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is one of the most divisive bits of
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: the story. There are various accounts of this, but it
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: is something that comes up repeatedly, and so supposedly, in
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: nineteen forty three, when there was an Allied air raid
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: on Hertze, the brothers and their families found themselves sharing
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: a bomb shelter, and supposedly Adolph made a comment that
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Rudy was never able to shake because he interpreted as
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: being a direct insult to his family. So, as the
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: story goes, Adolph and hearing the sound of the approaching
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: RAF forces Royal Air Force British planes said something to
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: the effect of there come those pig dogs again, or
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: here come those bastards or the dirty bastards Basterds are
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: back again, exactly to which Rudy heard that as an insult,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: lobbed at he and his family as they got into
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: the shelter.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And this was either a misunderstanding or a grudge that
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: both brothers would carry throughout their lives and refuse to reconcile.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Later that year, this is nineteen forty three, Rudy himself
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: gets called up for military service, and at this point
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: he suspects that Audie had schemed to get him sent
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: to the front to edge him out of the business,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and he serves from nineteen forty three to nineteen forty five.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: In nineteen forty five, Rudy deserts his post in Poland.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: He flees just ahead of the oncoming Russian army and
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: he goes back to Harrisol. He hurriedly gets a friend
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: of his who is a doctor to declare him unfit
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: for military service due to a frozen foot. But then
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the story frozen foot, Yeah, frozen foot, is that like
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: a twisted ankle kind of it's you know, what he
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: was in a hurry?
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Is that like bone spurs?
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just something to make you unable to walk,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I see. And so this doesn't pass muster with the Gestapo.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: They arrest Rudy Dostler for desertion and he blames that
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: on Audi too. But here's the thing. We don't know
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: whether Adolph Dostler got his brother purposely sent into military service,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: but we do have pretty compelling circumstance reports that both
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Audie and his wife snitched on him.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I see referenced in several places, one of which
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: is in a Fortune magazine article called the Hatred and
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Bitterness behind two of the world's most popular brands by
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Omar Oktar to an American investigative report that was found
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: and that's in Fortune, right, Yes, that's in Fortune.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: And so he's arrested first for desserting his posts by
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: the Gestapo, and then when he's released by the Gestapo,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: he's arrested by the Allies on suspicion of working for
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the Gestapo. And that American investigative report that you mentioned,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Noel does give truth to his claims. And while he
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: was languishing wasting away in a pow camp. Adolph Osler
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: is very hard at work. He is rebuilding the business
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: and he is making a killing selling shoes, selling quote
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: unquote Jesse shoes to American soldiers who all know about
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the legendary Summer Olympics and all want to have the shoes.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: And it feels to me this is a speculating But
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: tell me if you think this is true, man, that
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: this is a really early example of this kind of
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: endorsement culture in sporting goods and wear and any kind
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: of apparel.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: I really do feel like this is kind of the
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: model setter for that whole thing, and this is something
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: that the company would continue to lean heavily into and
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: it would become another sore spot between the brothers as
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: time went on.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, we should also point out I couldn't find anything
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: about Jesse Owens getting any percentage of sales, So I
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: think that was a I think that was a rough
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: spot for him because he could have made millions.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Well, it was a different time, right, I mean it
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: was like a cutting edge stuff. They were almost like, yeah,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: just give me the shoes so I can perform better
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: because other companies weren't making anything that was quite up
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: to this level of innovation, right, right, So these.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Guys at first their personalities complementing one another. Then their
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: relationships became strained. Now they hate each other, They loathe
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: and a bore one another, and they can barely stand
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: each other's presence, which is weird because they still both
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: live in the same, very very small town. And we
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: see this hate in the historical record. So Rudy has
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: not taking this on the chin or turning the other cheek.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: He retaliates against his brother in nineteen forty six when
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Adolph Dossler is hauled before the deed Nazification Committee and
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: he could be classified as something called a bellestetter or
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: a profiteer, which means if he is proven to have
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: made a lot of profit or having broken financial laws
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: during wartime, he could have lost control of the entire
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: company of Dossler Brothers. And that meant, at least in
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Rudy's mind, that he could be appointed to run the company.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: He could maybe even cut out his brother entirely, which
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: is brutal when you consider Rudy didn't make the shoes.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: This is this is very strange. So he tried to
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: paint Adolph Ostler in a terrible light trying to get
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: control of the company, but they still lived under the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: same roof.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so he was sort of like pointing the finger
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: right right it himself. And ultimately the Allies determined that
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: neither of the Dossler brothers were problematic enough Nazis to
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: really mess with. They had bigger and Nazi fish to fry.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And the American occupation forces actually seized their villa.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: So all these two families that hate each other are
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: living in makeshift accommodations in the shoe factor, so this
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: is funny.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: In nineteen forty eight, they officially split the company up
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: and moved to opposite sides of the river that bisects
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: this tiny little hamlet in Bavaria.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: The river Aurok. Yeah, and Audi names his company Adidas
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Adi Das right, yeah, which is a portman toeau. Oh,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: we were on dangerous ground there of his first and
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: last names. And Rudy tries to do something similar and
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: at first he calls his company Ruda.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Now to me, this is a big signpost of how
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: uncreative and kind of like ripoffye Rudy kind of was
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: that he immediately had to be like, oh, you're gonna
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: make a portmanteau for your company name. Well, I'm gonna
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: do the same thing, you know. And because Adidas is
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: clever and that's a good idea, and that sounds good.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: It sounds good. But you know, he did see the
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: lights and whether he was counseled by some smart young
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: buck in marketing, he changed the name to the now
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: much more ubiquitous Puma, which couldn't imagine it Ruda. That
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: sounds that's hard, that's not even fun to say.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: It sounds like years ago. I did an episode for
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Car Stuff on Cars behind the Iron Curtain. Remember that
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I was the producer of that show, the producer. That's true. Yeah, wow,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: we go way back. But the thing is, Ruda sounds
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: like a kind of iron curtain car.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: It also sounds like the prefix for like rudimentary. It
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: makes me think like they're kind of like crappy shoes.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it just sounds very plain, you know.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Puma. On the other hand, I picture a powerful, you know,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: prowling beast with speed and precision and agility, something that
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: leaps and pounces.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Right. So, yes, correct decision on Rudy's part to shed
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: that name Ruda and go for something a little bit better.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: And here's something interesting. We mentioned earlier that Harzo is
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: in an area of Germany it was known for shoemaking. Historically,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: it was one of the primary industries of the area.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: It's no surprise that shoe factories would take off here.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: But eventually most of the town, if not all of
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the town, ends up working for one of these two factories.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: These guys still hate each other, by the way, oh,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: with a venomous passion, and that passion extends this to me,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: this was one of the weirdest parts. It extends to
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the employees.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Oh man, No, it was. They created this whole hat
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: field in McCoy's kind of atmosphere in this little town
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: that was literally divided by that river we talked about.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, there were restaurants, bars, grocery stores specifically designed
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: to just be for employees of one company or the other.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: They were, I mean, I can't imagine it would have
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: been codified in any kind of real way, But there
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: was this unspoken idea that they never the twain shall meet,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: there shall be no coupling between Poma and Adida's employees.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Including yeah, romantic pursuits.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's that's yeah, exactly right, and certainly
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: marriage would have been hashtag for boat built in.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's an interesting split in terms of the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: internal workforce as well. So when the Dossler brothers split
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: the company up, the employees essentially had to choose. They
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: could go to Adidas or they could go to Puma.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Most of the technical people, like the actual cobblers, stayed
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: with Adidas. Most of the sales force and the admin
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: folks went with Puma, and it showed pretty quickly.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: And man, making it even deeper bitterer family affair. Even
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: the mom had to pick sides.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but who did she choose?
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Think she went with the elder?
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy?
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Which is still crazy because Adis was the idea man.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: He was the Willy Wonka of this whole operation. He
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: started it in her abandoned lawn. How could she forsake
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: her her young son like that, her bright young boy.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think clearly we have chosen our horse in
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: this race. We don't want to be too biased, but
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: we do want to be transparent about that. Rudy seems
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: like the worst. I'm on tie Maudie all the way.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: What about you?
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: Casey, I got a side with run DMC and corn
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: I'm going Adidas. It has been adjudicated Casey on the
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: case I love that segment.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Have you seen that shirt design that's floating around on
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: the face group? Yeah, and no spoilers, guys, but it's
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: happening and I think it's gonna have some French on it.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Check it out. Go to Ridiculous Historians our community page,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: where you can see some A plus memes as well.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: So let's let's pause for a second before before we
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: get into even more opprobrium. There is an interesting story
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: about how they make how they decide the iconic shoes right,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: because clearly the Adidas or the Pumas you buy today
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: do not look like the shoes that Jesse Owens wore.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Oh no, well, like I said, I mean you see
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: on this amazing design blog, Design Boom, just the evolution
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: of these shoes. And even as far as it goes no,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: it's cool. You actually when you still when it becomes Adidas.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Because this site is particularly devoted to ADDIE's designs, so
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: they've obviously chosen sides as well. You start to see
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: more of a fashion trend kind of coming into play.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: The spikes are less pronounced.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Spikes are less pronounced, or color, there's more color they
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: have that like even in like sixty four, you have
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: the designs that use that kind of more Swede blue
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: swede look, and then they've got the little kind of
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: stripes along the side, much more traditional. Then you start
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: seeing those like iconic like gold colored ones. It's called
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: the Azteca Gold model. And that's as far as this
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: blog goes. But yeah, so it took like into the
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: sixties for them to really start getting that iconic look
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: that we know today from it.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Get And so we do have this story behind that
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: iconic three stripe arrangement on Adidas. So they had those
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: strips before in earlier versions of the shoe, but they
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: weren't really noticeable. They were the same color, like he says,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: before the gold, before the blue and the white. So
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Addi decided that the strips should be painted some other
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: color to make them look like stripes, and that this
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: would be the Adidas trademark. And so he made sample shoes,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: some with two, some with three, some of four or
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: even as many as six stripes apiece. And then he
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: asked his wife and his sister in law to pick
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: which ones they liked best. They ended up saying that
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: four stripes is too many, it felt too busy, and
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: so on their advice, he went with the three stripe
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: design over at Puma. By the way, just to be fair,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Rudy had a couple of different depictions. He thought of
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: maybe having a Puma jumping through capital D, but eventually
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: he just settled on the company's signature horizontal stripe, which
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: they call a form stripe.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Man, man, you have just really expanded my sneaker head Oh.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: No, oh, no, actual sneakerheads are listening to this. Yeah,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: hopefully you find this of interest.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Hopefully, but really, if you are a sneakerhead, I know
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I'm harping on it, but I cannot recommend highly enough
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: this Design Boom blog because each shoe has very specific
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: information about like some of the design features, and there
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: are some very specific kind of jargon y terms that
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: I was unaware of that folks that are into that
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: world might be a little more hip too, so I
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: recommend checking that out.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: We should also mention I think we talked about this
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit off air. The entire time this story
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: is taking place, like since forty eight they are suing
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the pants off each other, right or trying to.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: I mean pretty much just a non stop torrent of lawsuits.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: And I don't know if you were able to find
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: anything specific Ben or any specific documentation, but I would
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: conjecture I would hazard to guess that a lot of
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: it was around Rudy possibly nicking some of these designs
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: from his clearly more sneaker headed brother.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: ADDI, Oh, yeah, absolutely. And as this stuff is happening,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Adidas and Puma are both growing as companies. The town
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: is getting further and further and further divided. It becomes
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: known as did you see this nickname now? Oh? Yeah,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the bent Next, Yes, the town of bent Next. Because,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: according to the story, if you were walking around town
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and you saw someone you didn't know, you would look
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: at their shoes before you decided whether to talk to them.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: If you were a Puma person and they wore pumas,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: you're in.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is just crazy how it's such a specific industry,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: It's such a small town to be divided so and
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: have such a very interesting way of identifying and easy, right,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: you could just look at the other person's shoes and say,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: I know what team you're on, buddy.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Here's how deep it went. This is something I found.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: I only found this in one place, so I hope
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: it's true, but I couldn't confirm it yet. Apparently each
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: side had their own tombstone carvers.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that will come into play a little bit later.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: I did find an article on a blog called Duet's
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Blog that deals with the intersection of creativity and the law,
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: and it talks about how a lot of the lawsuits
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: between Puma and Adidas were in fact quibbling over that
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: three stripe design that you mentioned earlier and went into
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Apparently Puma, in a burst of creativity, made it a
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: four stripe design to just, you know, one stripe better
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: in the mind of in the mind of Rudi. Not
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: to mention the fact that we talked about earlier, how
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: there was this focus on getting these athletes to endorse
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: these products, right, and that continued and became a game
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: of one upsmanship between Audi and Rudy as their respective
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: companies kind of started to gain steam on their own.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: And this continued on throughout the years. When Audi actually
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: turned down the idea of sponsoring this young, up and
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: coming tennis player by the name of Boris Becker if
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: you've heard of him. He was a big deal in
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: the in the eighties, in the nineties. And so just
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: just to as a you know, act of pure one upsmanship,
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Rudy signed him. Not because he thought he was awesome
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: or he saw any promise in him. He just wanted
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: to piss off his brother. And this is from a
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: fantastic article in the Telegraph called Adidas and Puma Bury
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: the hatchet after sixty years of brothers feud? What bury
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: the hatchet? Ben? What does that mean?
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: It means that the brothers died, That's what it means.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: That is what that means. And remember that tombstone carver
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: you were talking about, Well, those respective tombstone carvers carved
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: those respective tombstones on polar opposite sides of the town. Yes,
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: that's correct.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Rudy Dossler, the elder of the Dostler brothers, died on
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: October twenty seventh, nineteen seventy four, of lung cancer. He
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: was seventy six. The priest called his little brother Adolf
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: to his side, and they did not squash the beef.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: As far as we know. Adolph himself expired four years later.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: He was seventy eight.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Ben, I want to correct myself here. I think I
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: said earlier that there were separate cemeteries on opposite side
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: of the town. That seems to be not quite right.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: They just made sure that in the town cemetery they
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: were as far away from one another.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: As possible, symbolically as to the telegraph rights, symbolically representing
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: their unending hatred. So they did it on purpose. Can
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: you imagine that deathbed conversation? Man?
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I cannot. No, I cannot and I cannot imagine.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, the circumstances were pretty insane. You're talking about
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: a lot of money, a lot of intellectual property, a
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: weird power dynamic, weird familial relations, not to mention being
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: in the heart of one of the most brutal conflicts
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: in the history of the world, if not the most
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: rutal conflict in the history of the world. So you know,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: lots lots of factors at play here. But I did
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: read in that Vice article that the brothers purportedly never
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: spoke to each other again. But then they're hints that
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: maybe they did here and there from time to time
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: throughout their lives. But it certainly never smooth things over.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: But there's a really good quote from a book called
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Sneaker Wars, The Enemy Brothers who founded Adidas and Pumas
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: and the family feud that forever changed the Business of Sports,
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: by Barbara Smitt, and it is a quote from Rudolph
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Dossler much later in his life, and he says this,
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: the relation to my brother was ideal from nineteen twenty
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: four till nineteen thirty three. Then his young wife tried
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: to interfere in business matters, although she, with her sixteen years,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: had no experience at all, and the warfare began.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: So it was probably a situation where he said I
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: hate your wife. Yeah, like a Yoko Beatles kind of situation. Yeah.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Maybe maybe that's the needle in the conflict haystack. Here.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: We do know that the feud carried on to later generations,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: and the brothers had notoriously bad relationships with their children
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: as well. I was reading a pretty interesting article in
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: The Guardian that talked about this Adidas versus Puma, the
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: bitter rivalry that runs and runs, and in this they
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: explore the problems that the brothers had almost universally relating
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: to family members. So Audie always fought with his son
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: and heir, a guy named Horst Dossler, and eventually banished
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: him to France.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Spanished him.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah. He banished him to work on a shoe
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: factory that was failing losing a ton of money. He
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: turned it into a moneymaker. Then he built a thing
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: called Adidas France that rivaled the rest of Adidas, but
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: it wasn't good enough for his dad. And Rudy over
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: at Puma had a son named Armand Dossler. It was
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: his oldest son in heir. He routinely made fun of
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: him in front of other company executives, and he was
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: going crazy because he saw his cousin Horst succeeding at Adidas.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: So Armand finally exiled himself to Salzburg to run a
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Puma factory there. And then he started selling shoes on
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: the US market, which his father had forbidden him to do.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: And when Rudy died in nineteen seventy four, his oldest
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: son was startled to learn he had been written out
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: of the will. That's cold grief, man.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, after all this bad blood and bitter familial feul,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: surely there's a silver lining here somewhere, right, then.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Is somewhere in the end zone of this story. Yeah,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: on the on the pitch, Yeah, maybe lay it on me. Bro.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Well, the two companies do still exist in that same
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: tiny town of twenty five thousand Herzo. I'm not gonna
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: even try to pronounce it again because I don't have
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: it in front of me. But in two thousand and nine,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: the companies kind of put their differences aside, and then
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: this really brutal history of one upsminceship aside and stepped
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: out to play a friendly soccer game whereas the Europeans
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: call it a football, and it was to support the
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Peace One Day organization, which chose September twenty first of
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: two thousand and nine as the first, I believe, of
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: an annual day of non violence. So but then this
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: article in the Telegraph ends with the very knowing little
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Kicker line quote. But despite the friendly handshakes, those who
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: know the townspeople say it will take more than one
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: game of soccer to bury the hatchet.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: And in business terms, Adidas, if you just look at
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: the numbers, is by far the larger company. I think
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine they had thirty nine thousand
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: employees compared to Puma's nine thousand, but Puma says they're
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: not hurting. They have a great reputation for getting the
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: endorsements of world famous athletes like Usain Bolt was one
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: of the one of the more recent ones.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: And that's a legacy that's just carried over from the
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: old Dossler Brothers days. So very very forward thinking. And
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: I did read somewhere that while Adidas maybe wasn't the
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: first custom sneaker company, they were the first to like
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: mass produce and sell them to the public. Because you
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: make a custom sneaker designed for an athlete, there was
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: a time where it was literally a custom product designed
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: for an individual. Now these custom products, people want them
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: on their feet, even though they are not Hussein Bolt,
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: even though they are not Michael Jordan, you know, yes,
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: and feel a little bit closer to their heroes.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like Rebock pumps. You know, remember those La lights?
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, easies. It's an interesting pattern and it makes
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: me think that we found a crazy piece of history
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: that a lot of people don't know. If you are
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: listening to this, gosh, I hope someone out here is
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: If you're listening to this and you're wearing Adidas and Pumas,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Adidas or Pumas. I don't know how you'd wear I
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: guess one on one foot, one on the other. That
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: would look ridiculous. That's very forward fashion, I think. But
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: if you're wearing those, be aware that you are treading
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: on strange history with each step. You take a waxing
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: poetic here just because it's such an interesting story.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the image of treading when we're talking about shoes,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: that works quite nicely.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, oh, thanks man, And we hope that you
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: NOL again. You know, I don't want to blow up
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: your spot, but happy birthday man.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Hey, thanks pal. We'll have a drink after work maybe.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, let's see. Let's look into that. Casey, he
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: are you down? Let's do it all right? Well, Casey
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: is spoken, And of course we want to thank you
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Casey for helping us out as always, thanks for saving
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: the show. We want to thank our research associate Ease
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Jeff Cope.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: Also want to thank Alex Williams, who composed our theme.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: And yeah, we want to thank you for joining us
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: for another episode of Ridiculous History. Stay tuned for our
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: next episode where we blow up the moon try to.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: We'll see you then, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.