Adolf Dassler

Adolf "Adi" Dassler, born 3 November 1900 and died 6 September 1978, was a German cobbler, inventor, and businessman. He founded the sportswear company Adidas. His older brother, Rudolf Dassler, founded Puma. The two were once partners in a shoe company Adi had started, called Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik, which Rudolf joined in 1924. A feud after World War II split them, and each launched his own company in 1948. Dassler was a pioneer in sports shoe design and an early adopter of athlete endorsements to boost sales. To support himself while getting his business off the ground, Adi repaired shoes around town. With post-war Germany offering no reliable materials or credit, he scavenged army debris: helmets and bread pouches became leather for soles, parachutes supplied silk for slippers. He was skilled at adapting devices to mechanize production without electricity. For instance, he rigged a leather milling machine to a stationary bicycle, powered by the firm’s first employee. His vision focused on specialized sport designs. He made some of the earliest spiked shoes, with spikes forged by the smithy of his friend Fritz Zehlein’s family. He experimented with shark skin and kangaroo leather to build strong, lightweight shoes. His widow, Käthe Dassler, later said: “Developing shoes was his hobby, not his job. He did it very scientifically.”

After the war, Rudolf wanted to be a policeman. But once he finished training, he joined Adi’s firm on 1 July 1923. With the Zehlein smithy supplying spikes, Adi registered Gebrüder Dassler, Sportschuhfabrik, Herzogenaurach on 1 July 1924. They worked in a converted washroom with manual electricity generation. By 1925, the brothers were making leather football boots with nailed studs and track shoes with hand-forged spikes. Two things turned their small regional factory—moved in 1927 from their parents’ home—into an international shoe distributor. First, former Olympian and German track-and-field coach Josef Waitzer took interest. Hearing about the plant and Adi’s experiments, Waitzer traveled from Munich to Herzogenaurach. A friendship grew from their shared interest in improving athletic performance through better footwear, and Waitzer became a consultant. This connection gave Adi access to athletes at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Second, the Nazi Party’s rise under Adolf Hitler emphasized athletic teamwork. The brothers saw how politics could help their business and joined the Nazi Party on 1 May 1933, three months after Hitler became chancellor. Rudolf was said to be the more ardent believer. Even earlier, at the 1928 Amsterdam Games, Dassler shoes were used in international competition. German middle-distance runner Lina Radke wore them when she won gold in 1928, and a German gold medal runner wore them at the 1932 Los Angeles games. In 1935, Adi decided that coaching and supplying clubs tied to the Hitler Youth was necessary for expanded production. During his post-war denazification, he said he stuck to coaching and avoided political rallies. He claimed involvement in clubs of other political leanings, like a liberal gymnastic club, Herzogenaurach’s conservative KHC football club, and a workers’ sports club called “The Union.” Both brothers were members of the National Socialist Motor Corps and used “Heil Hitler” in their correspondence. In the early 1930s, Adi studied at the Footwear Technical College in Pirmasens. One instructor, Franz Martz, was a master last-maker. Dassler often stayed at Martz’s home and began a relationship with his fifteen-year-old daughter Käthe. They married on 17 March 1934. Unlike Rudolf’s wife Friedl, Käthe was self-assertive and suspicious of the Franconians’ brusque ways. She often clashed with Adi’s parents and with Rudolf and his wife, all living in the same house. Years later, in a letter to Puma’s American distributor, Rudolf blamed the rift entirely on Käthe, claiming she “tried to interfere in business matters” and that the brothers’ relations were “ideal” until 1933. Käthe and Adi had son Horst in March 1936, daughter Inge in June 1938, daughter Karin in 1941, and after the war, daughters Brigit in May 1946 and Sigrid in 1953. Adi saw the Berlin Olympics as the key to international exposure. Through Waitzer, most German athletes wore Dassler shoes, but he had another athlete in mind: American track star Jesse Owens.