0:00

Two brothers who were in business together

0:02

had a falling out that was so bad that they

0:04

stopped speaking and literally literally

0:07

tried to have each other arrested. They

0:09

split the business into and both

0:12

became famous shoe brands, one

0:14

of the two arguably changing sports

0:16

and brand marketing forever. This

0:24

is Bisiography, the show where we dive

0:26

into the strange but true stories

0:28

of iconic companies. Whether they're

0:30

a current bright star, in the midst of

0:32

a massive dumpster fire, or settling

0:34

into the dust heap of history, they all

0:36

have a past worth knowing. I'm

0:39

Dana Barrett. I'm a former tech executive

0:41

and entrepreneur and a TV and radio host,

0:43

and over the course of my career, I've interviewed

0:45

thousands of business leaders and reported

0:48

on the bright beginnings and massive flame

0:50

outs of the brands we know and love. Some

0:52

of their stories are inspiring, some are

0:55

super intertwined with history, and

0:57

some seem like they're right out of a movie. Because

1:00

Bography is a production of I Heart Radio and

1:02

dB Media and is co hosted as

1:04

always by my producer and today's

1:06

official researcher, Nick Mean. Thank

1:09

you, Damon. Yeah, I think you're right right

1:11

out of a movie is a great example for

1:13

why we've decided to do this, and I

1:15

think we probably need to get into a little bit of that first.

1:18

Why we chose Audidas

1:21

the company of the day, So Audidas,

1:24

which I am going to now forever

1:26

referred to as Adidas, I

1:29

don't know. I may go back and forth. Actually I take that back,

1:31

but I think we have to point out that

1:34

this is the first non American

1:36

company. Now, we have other companies

1:38

that had histories and other parts of the world that the people

1:41

came from other parts of the world, but they

1:43

from the most part, started as American companies.

1:45

This is not an American company. Adidas

1:48

Audi Das is a European company.

1:51

It is a German company. It was a German

1:53

company. It still is a German company. It's a German

1:55

company. And I have to say

1:59

that one of the reasons I resisted

2:01

doing companies from other parts of the world is

2:04

the pronunciation issues that tend

2:06

to come up. And the minute you

2:09

brought the research in from this one, we knew

2:11

we were going to be on the struggle bus. Yeah,

2:13

there's a lot of German that uh really,

2:16

I don't think either of us have the dialect to

2:19

pull off and you're right. The moment you pull

2:21

up Adidas, the first thing you learned

2:23

is where their headquartered at, which is in Bavaria

2:26

in Germany. We can say that, Yeah, we can say Bavaria

2:28

and Germany, but the name of the actual town it's

2:31

a little bit harder. So we have the help of

2:33

you know, computer voice guy who always gets

2:35

it right to explain and to

2:37

tell us what the name is and it is how

2:42

that's hard to say. Yeah, you say that three times

2:44

fast, so yes,

2:47

it's very difficult to say. So we're gonna go with

2:50

what current CEO of Adidas

2:52

calls it when he's speaking in English and simply

2:54

say the name of the town is hurt So

2:58

I can handle herd so listen. The

3:01

other reason we felt like we really needed

3:03

to do the story of Audi Das

3:06

is because we knew we wanted to do

3:08

a shoe company, an athletic

3:11

shoe company, because athletic

3:13

shoes have become such

3:16

an important part of culture

3:19

in modern times, and so many

3:21

of the shoe brands are iconic. Absolutely,

3:24

I mean, isn't it kind of a big deal? What

3:26

brand do you have on your feet? It? I

3:29

mean, in our last episode, we dealt

3:32

with Singer, the sewing machine company, and

3:34

I started that episode by saying, if

3:36

I asked you to name a sewing machine company, you

3:38

probably could only name one, and

3:41

it would be Singer. But in this case,

3:43

if I asked you to name a famous shoe company,

3:46

you could probably name five easily

3:48

off the top of your head without even thinking about it.

3:51

And so we did do a little

3:53

bit of research and into some of the companies

3:55

that are based in the United

3:58

States that started in the United States, like Pike

4:00

Um, like New Balance, and not

4:03

that their stories were a snooze fest,

4:06

but their stories were kind of a snooze fest.

4:09

Yeah, they were very let's say, I know,

4:11

this is a business show, but they were very

4:13

business e. There wasn't really a lot of meat on

4:15

the bone. And plus we were doing kind

4:17

of multiple surface level researches and

4:19

that's when we came across Adidas and Old

4:22

Man. It gets deep. So that's why we

4:24

picked this exactly. This is a drama,

4:28

the story of the two brothers that

4:30

started essentially started

4:32

Adidas. I mean really, it's one of their

4:35

companies. In the end, as we're we've

4:37

already sort of alluded to. But the

4:40

story of these two guys is literally

4:42

it could be a blockbuster

4:45

movie, right. I have a feeling that this podcast

4:47

maybe used in some script writing in the near

4:49

future, and if that happens, we would like our our

4:51

favor. Just let us know, give us a call. It

4:54

won't be a big fee. We're easy,

4:57

Um. But I think you know. The way

4:59

to start this story is almost with the timeline

5:02

and with Adolph Dossler ADDI

5:05

of Adi das with his life.

5:07

Let's start with him. So he uh is

5:09

actually the fourth child

5:12

in his family, the third son, but the fourth child,

5:14

and he's born in the year nine hundred in

5:19

Bavaria, Germany. Um, and

5:22

he is uh, you know again,

5:26

one of four. His parents are His

5:28

father, rather, Um was

5:31

a weaver, a textile maker

5:33

who ultimately began to make a

5:36

version of a shoe, a felt slipper, when

5:38

Addie was just a little boy, and

5:41

his name was Adolf. I know I already said that, but I don't

5:43

want to be clear. His name was Adolf, his nickname was Addi.

5:46

His older brother was Rudolph, the next

5:49

one up the chain, and he went by Rudy.

5:51

So Rudy and ADDI, how cute is that?

5:53

That they had an older sister, Marie and an

5:56

older brother Fritz. So I did that backwards,

5:58

but you got it. Yes, Okay is the oldest,

6:00

youngest, the oldest, So basically he's having

6:02

a normal childhood that one might

6:04

have in the you know, nineteen

6:08

how do you say that? Right in the first decade

6:10

of the nineteen hundreds in Germany. Um,

6:13

he finishes his formal education

6:15

at thirteen years old, as one was wanting to do

6:17

in that era. So nineteen thirteen,

6:19

and he is apprenticed off to a

6:22

baker, and he

6:24

wasn't really into that. Yeah, I think at

6:26

the time in Germany was very much of a

6:29

hey, we're going to kind of pay attention to

6:31

what you're good at in school, and then we're going to tell you

6:33

what you should do. And when he got into

6:35

the bakery, he went, yeah, not for me, not

6:37

at all, right, And also just

6:39

so interesting to think about these decisions, Like I

6:42

feel like people today have a hard enough time deciding

6:44

what they want to do at eighteen nine, one

6:47

imagine that at thirteen. Yeah,

6:49

like, dude, I just want to go outside and play, Like

6:52

I don't I don't know what I want to be when I grow

6:54

up, but okay, sure fine. So a year

6:56

later, nineteen fourteen, Addie completes his

6:59

apprenticeship at the bakery, but decides,

7:01

no, no, not going to do this bakery thing. So

7:03

he was a guy who who

7:05

did what he said he was going to do, even at that young

7:07

age. He finished out the year, but then

7:09

he said, no, I don't want to do this. So he goes back

7:12

to his father and learns

7:14

to stitch, which again was his father's

7:16

business. And um,

7:19

he, like I said, at thirteen, just kind

7:21

of wanted to go out and play, right. He

7:24

was a sports kid and he did that right. He was

7:26

in track and field teams. He did a

7:28

lot of you know, obviously they didn't have quite

7:30

those sports stuff back then, but

7:33

he was involved in as much athletic activity

7:35

as he could possibly get involved in. Back then.

7:37

He was that guy he was He was a jock. He

7:39

was a jock and he and he was helping

7:41

his dad with his dad's business, and that way

7:43

he kind of had the best of all worlds. Yeah. Uh,

7:46

and he didn't have to be a baker. So, um,

7:50

nineteen eighteen, he's now eighteen

7:52

years old, and think about what's happening

7:54

in history at that time World War

7:57

One. Yes, so he's

7:59

conscripted in to the German army

8:01

and um again he's

8:04

he's the youngest brother, so

8:06

this is four years after his two older

8:08

brothers had already been conscripted, so all

8:10

the brothers essentially were uh,

8:13

a part of World War One, but

8:16

only one year later. He comes back

8:18

from military conscription because now it's nineteen

8:20

nineteen, and goes back to work with his dad and

8:22

starts making sports shoes. But

8:24

he's sort of like his dad's doing shoes over there,

8:27

and he's kind of in his mom's kitchen

8:29

in the laundry shed, uh, and he's

8:32

starts to experiment with shoes for sports,

8:34

thinking like, you can't just wear your normal shoes.

8:36

You gotta have different specialty shoes for sports.

8:39

And the interesting part of it all is that

8:41

initially he wasn't really

8:43

planning on that. He said, you know what, dad made

8:46

slippers. It's worked for him. I'm going to get into

8:48

it too. And it was while he was out at

8:50

some event one of his shoes blew

8:52

out, tore up, something happened with it, and he's

8:54

like, this isn't working. Wait a minute, I

8:57

make shoes. I don't just make shoes

8:59

for myself to do this stuff, and that was kind

9:01

of the birth of sports shoes.

9:04

A little bit in the concept was

9:07

Audi Dasler said, I'm tired of having these

9:09

piece of junk shoes that blow up on me every time. Let's

9:11

make them for by track and field events, which

9:13

I love because it's the classic entrepreneur

9:16

story. You have a problem, you

9:18

yourself have a problem, you look

9:20

around, you see that others maybe have the similar

9:22

problem, and you come up with a

9:24

new innovative solution and solve

9:26

the problem. That is entrepreneurship and innovative

9:29

big time. Because this is what a year after World

9:31

War One, which Germany lost,

9:34

right, we all know that story, and so there's

9:36

not a lot of money to go around. The entire

9:38

nation is like war torn. He's literally

9:40

going out into fields and picking up

9:42

stuff left behind from these

9:45

armies, like army helmets and like AMMO

9:47

patches or pouches and stuff like that,

9:50

and he's using these materials to make

9:52

shoes. So yeah, totally

9:54

innovative in every way. Innovative

9:56

and resourceful, and that's the word for that.

9:59

You know, he's looking around, he's saying, well, materials

10:01

are scarce. You know what, I could use that

10:03

thing over there, and I could use that thing over there and

10:05

coming up with something new. So

10:09

you gotta love that about the guy. So

10:11

where does this whole brother story fit in?

10:14

ADDIE's brother Rudolph Rudy after

10:16

the war, So now you know early these

10:19

guys are close, and so Addie

10:21

brings Rudy into the business and they officially

10:24

start the Dozzler Brothers

10:26

Shoe Factory. And I

10:28

wish I could say, like the rest is history. They

10:30

made brilliant shoes and tons of money, but

10:33

then we wouldn't have a movie. So

10:35

we'll get a little bit more into the relationship

10:37

of the brothers, uh, and where

10:40

this all goes right

10:42

after this? All

10:49

right, So it's nin Addi

10:52

Dossler is years old.

10:55

His brother Rudy is just two years old or tent

10:57

seven years old. They now have

11:00

a shoe factory, the Dassler Brothers Sports

11:02

Shoe Factory as translated into

11:04

English, and they start manufacturing

11:07

shoes for what they call football and what

11:09

we call soccer. Uh. They are

11:11

shoes with nailed studs.

11:13

And they also start making track shoes, running

11:16

shoes with hand forged spikes.

11:19

So first of all I think and correct me if I'm wrong here, Nick,

11:21

But they were really the first company

11:23

to say you need different kinds of shoes

11:25

for different sports, right, So they didn't totally

11:28

invent the sports shoe. Addie had

11:30

that idea back in the day, but sports

11:32

shoes became a thing, but it was a sports

11:34

shoe for soccer, for track and field,

11:36

for anything. Addie and Rudy were the ones

11:39

that went, no, no, no, no no, no, you need a different kind

11:41

of shoe for football versus running track

11:43

and high jump and pull vaulting. So yeah, they were

11:45

the first ones to make kind of sports

11:48

specific shoes, and

11:50

yeah, that's started to spread throughout Germany.

11:52

So basically, if you felt like it, you could

11:54

blame them sort of for the modern shoe craze

11:56

on the whole, because little bit now you need

11:58

like you need your your kicks for going

12:01

out, you need your kicks for going to

12:03

the mall, you need a different kind

12:05

of kicks, you know, for actual

12:07

playing of sports. And we will get to the casual

12:09

part of Adidas much later, but you are

12:12

spot on that is exactly what

12:14

it was. Yeah, of course for them there

12:16

those things were the difference between what

12:19

you needed for a football or a soccer shoe

12:21

versus a running shoe had to do with the sport

12:23

itself and the way that shoe was used, and

12:25

so it was really a practical decision. It's like

12:27

a running shoe. You just don't do the same thing

12:29

with your feet when you're running straight

12:31

ahead as you do when you're playing soccer.

12:34

Right, And that was one thing apparently that was really common back

12:36

in the day, was that the we've all had that at least

12:38

once a pair of sneakers, right, you stepped to the side and

12:40

it just blows out in your foot. We saw it

12:42

was Zion Williams and anyone who watches n C double

12:44

a basketball. That happened last year and was a big deal.

12:47

And that was what was happening on the football pitch. I

12:49

mean, players were breaking their ankles literally

12:51

because they just had the wrong shoes. And these guys

12:54

went, no, no, no, no, we'll fix that. Yeah. So

12:56

crazy that happened recently, because

12:58

no one would ever expect that now. No, shoes are

13:00

not supposed to be like that now. Yeah, in

13:02

any case, very early on

13:04

Audi uh, I should give the

13:06

whole company credit for this, because we don't really

13:08

know exactly who gets credit. But the

13:11

Dozzler shoe company

13:13

knew that they should get involved in higher

13:15

level sports, that they wanted to be part of the

13:18

competition that was happening at a higher level.

13:20

So very early on, like they started the company

13:24

and in Lena Radke, a

13:26

German middle distance runner, one gold

13:28

at the Summer Olympics wearing Dossler brother

13:31

shoes. That was no accident. Um

13:33

that got the attention of the German track

13:35

and field coach uh and he

13:38

went out to meet with them and that

13:40

sort of tradition became part

13:42

of what they were doing. So in two

13:45

another German gold medal winner

13:48

was wearing Dossler brother shoes, right,

13:50

and that was something that turned

13:52

into kind of a traditional most for Dossler

13:55

Brothers. And then later on, you know, Adidas was

13:57

they were involved with the Olympics,

14:00

just in Germany to start with, but then it turns

14:02

internationals. So this is kind of their first foray,

14:05

like you said, into the higher level sports was the

14:07

Olympics, so they shot for gold. Pun

14:09

intended right from the start. I

14:12

love a good pun. Okay, keep

14:14

in mind this is now the early nineteen

14:16

thirties, Germany is for the most

14:18

part recovered from World War One, um,

14:21

but they're still suffering economically a little

14:23

bit, which leads to the rise

14:25

of the Nazi Party. And it's

14:27

now ninety three and as

14:29

that's happening. Now this is long before World War

14:32

two broke out, but just as the Nazi Power

14:34

Party is coming into power, they

14:36

are prioritizing athletic teamwork,

14:39

and the Dossler brothers see

14:41

the potential economic impact that this

14:43

could have for them, and so all three

14:45

brothers, Fritz, Rudy, and Addie

14:48

all joined the Nazi Party. What

14:51

yes, so right, We're getting

14:53

a little touchy here, folks, But the truth is, yes,

14:55

they all were active in the

14:58

Nazi Party, because for

15:00

what it's worth, it seems like initially

15:02

it was more of just a business decision. They

15:05

really weren't into the Nazi stuff. But like

15:07

you said, they were prioritizing athletics

15:09

so much they're like, hey, this huge market,

15:11

we can't not get involved here, right,

15:14

So again, think about it, like we're saying, joined the Nazi

15:17

Party, and in my mind, for whatever reason, that

15:19

immediately puts them in uniforms marching down the

15:21

street. Not Nazi soldiers,

15:23

just in the Nazi Party. It's the political

15:25

party, right, uh, and they joined

15:27

it. But it does make you like, it does kind of weird

15:29

you out a little bit, does it? Definitely did. As we

15:31

were doing research, I got to this point in the research timeline

15:34

and I sent you a text and said, Hey, maybe

15:36

we shouldn't do this because of you

15:38

know, they were Nazis. And

15:41

I wasn't so funny because in the middle of this

15:43

research, I went out shoes shopping, as I

15:45

want to do from time to time, and I was walking

15:47

around like the racks of shoes

15:50

at I think it was TJ Max somewhere, and there

15:52

was a bunch of Adidas shoes on the racks

15:55

and I was like, oh, these are cute. Oh wait, do

15:57

I want to I don't, Right

15:59

Like, I had that moment of like, oh there's a Nazi

16:01

connection. Yeah. Um.

16:04

However, to your point, Nick, they

16:06

did it because it felt right from a business

16:09

perspective for them. Um.

16:11

And so obviously they didn't know what

16:13

was going to happen. Uh later correct

16:15

with the Nazi Party at that moment. But in

16:17

any case, um, history

16:20

now looking back, you know, when you're looking back at a story

16:22

like this, whose story are you really

16:24

telling, But according

16:26

to some Rudy was sort

16:29

of the most heavily involved and the most

16:31

interested in the actual politics of the

16:33

Nazi Party. Yeah, basically it was business

16:35

for all three of them, but Rudy kind of got

16:38

sucked in. Yeah, correct,

16:40

Yeah, he was feeling it. Four

16:42

Addie gets married. He is now thirty

16:45

four years old, and he marries m

16:48

Kata Mark good job.

16:51

That was my pronunciation. It's spelled almost like

16:53

Kathy. We might go with Kathy

16:55

for the rest of the episode. But

16:57

Addi marries Kata and they

17:01

are doing great as a couple, but like

17:03

many couples, they're not getting along with the rest

17:05

of the family so well. She allegedly

17:08

would have some spats,

17:10

if you will, with Oddie's parents and

17:13

in particular with Rudy and his wife.

17:16

And by the way, they all lived together

17:18

in one house. Yeah, which I think

17:21

with the in laws and yeah, that's just

17:23

not going to end well for anyone. So

17:26

that family dynamic is starting

17:29

to bubble up. And in fact, later

17:32

um, when we get to it, you'll see that the

17:34

relationship between Rudy

17:37

and Kata almost is a big part of the

17:39

problem. But business

17:42

is continuing. It's now, and

17:44

Oddie sees that becoming

17:46

a coach and a supplier two

17:49

clubs in the Hitler Youth movement

17:51

was going to be a really good way

17:53

to expand production for the Doscil Brothers

17:55

shoe company. So he joins the

17:58

Hitler Youth as a coach his

18:00

own team right there in that

18:04

he coaches for the Hitler Youth. Uh.

18:06

Yeah, they get active, active in the Hitler

18:08

Youth overall because they are selling

18:10

sports shoes. Because that's right. The Nazi

18:12

Party was big about their imagery and they

18:15

wanted these strong young men to be the face

18:17

of it. And that's how they did it. They put them

18:19

on sports fields and had them break

18:21

records and do these big things, and so best

18:24

way to get the shoes on them, right right.

18:26

It's so interesting, just on a total side

18:28

note here to think about the Nazi Party

18:30

tactics and and how they

18:33

were doing what they were doing. I know so

18:35

much of it was brainwashing young kids.

18:37

Um, you know when you're that age, when you're

18:39

young, you know, in your early teens and even

18:41

before that, all you really want to do

18:44

is fit in and belongs. So if all

18:46

the other kids are Nazi, you

18:48

know, party members and in

18:50

the youth movement and playing on the Nazi

18:53

teams, then you want to do it too. And

18:55

if you have to sing the team song and you

18:58

know, salute the team logo and

19:00

whatever it is, you're going to do it because you want to fit

19:02

in with the other kids. It's just so interesting.

19:04

Can you imagine? Um, I guess, I guess there's

19:06

some of that with like young Republicans and Young

19:08

Democrats, but mostly that's college age in

19:11

America, you know what I mean? But can you

19:13

imagine if we did that now, if we had

19:15

like the Young Democrats and at like ten, we were putting

19:17

them in like on Young Democrats

19:19

soccer team. Could you imagine that would be really awkward?

19:21

How weird. It's just interesting to think about

19:23

the tactics and how you know, how effective

19:26

it was. I mean, it sounds bad, and I know we've all heard them

19:28

when it comes to stuff like that, but stardom young

19:31

and that was their game plan. Yeah, it really

19:33

was. In any case, it was working for

19:36

the Dossler brothers with their shoes because

19:38

here was an opportunity, to your point, to

19:40

get their athletic shoes on all those kids. And all they

19:42

had to do was sign up right, and it's

19:44

really interesting that that

19:46

that's what they do in nineteen thirty five is Addi joins

19:49

the Hitler Youth because right after that

19:51

is probably the biggest moment pre

19:54

Adidas, for Adidas

19:56

and the Dassler Brothers shoe company. Because the next

19:58

year, in nineteen third the six Addie

20:01

is of course they're working with the Olympic teams,

20:04

and they go to the Olympics

20:06

in nineteen thirty six and while

20:08

they're there, Oddie says, we're

20:10

doing great in Germany, but you know what we

20:12

could do is do great in other places.

20:15

And he sees one American athlete

20:17

that's been standing out one Jesse

20:20

Owens. We've all heard that name,

20:23

yeah, Jesse Owens. And nineteen

20:25

thirty six Oddie somehow gets him

20:27

one on one and convinces him

20:29

to wear Dossler Brothers shoes

20:32

in his nineteen thirty six competition.

20:35

The way that he sold it to Jesse and his trainer

20:37

was, listen, these shoes are much

20:40

lighter than any other shoe you're going

20:42

to wear. And also the spikes

20:44

a recent innovation. At the time, most

20:46

spikes were, as we said, nailed in. They

20:49

were literally like big heavy metal

20:51

spikes sticking out of the bottom of the shoe.

20:53

Addie said, well, you don't need to have metal,

20:55

so he was making spikes out of rubber

20:57

and canvas, which were much lighter and

21:00

actually more durable. Jesse Owen

21:02

said, sure, I'll wear your shoes, and

21:04

we all know what happened in nineteen thirty

21:06

six. So that kind of grew them

21:09

to international a

21:12

success and appeal right before

21:15

the war starts and maybe actually

21:17

saved the history of the company

21:20

a little later. We'll talk about that

21:22

after this. So

21:29

after the coup of getting

21:31

Jesse Owens to wear their shoes,

21:33

things are going pretty well for the Dossler

21:35

Brothers Shoe Company. It's six

21:39

and from that year through nine,

21:41

all is well. They're selling about two thousand

21:44

pairs of shoes every year. And

21:46

then World War two starts

21:48

and it goes down. Yes

21:51

it does. It goes down, of course for the whole world,

21:54

but it also goes down for the Dossler Brothers.

21:57

So this is where our story turns from

21:59

two young brothers, you know, working

22:01

together to build a family company

22:04

that will carry its legacy into the future and

22:06

turns into the Oscar winning

22:09

future movie starring George

22:12

Clooney and somebody who looks like um.

22:17

So it's nineteen thirty nine and World

22:20

War Two begins, and of course

22:22

all of that focus on sports in the

22:24

Reich now gets turned around and the

22:26

focus is now on war. So

22:28

in nineteen forty Addie U is

22:30

conscripted into the Vermacht and

22:33

he reports in December of that year.

22:35

It's really just a few months later February

22:38

of nineteen forty one where he gets to go

22:41

back home. He's relieved of his

22:43

duty in the Vermacht because it's

22:45

deemed that he needs to be uh

22:48

in his hometown in the Gospeler Brothers

22:50

shoe factory so that they can

22:52

use that shoe factory as part of the war effort. Right,

22:54

yeah, he was. He was basically as a civilian,

22:57

more valuable to the Reich than

23:00

he was as a soldier, and so they

23:02

sent him home, which is where

23:04

some of the tension comes from in the

23:06

family. Right. So now he's

23:08

at home, it's spring of

23:11

one, and the conditions

23:14

in the home with all

23:16

of those people in it, and and more

23:18

now because there's kids are

23:20

starting to boil over. There's one

23:23

house and you've got mom and dad that's

23:25

the grandparents essentially. Now Christoph and Pauline,

23:28

you've got their kids, Rudy and Addie

23:30

and their wives. So what does that put us

23:32

at six and five

23:34

grandkids, eleven people in

23:36

a nineteen forty one home. You

23:38

know, it wasn't big, it wasn't a mansion. They're

23:41

cramped. I don't know how many bathrooms they had, not

23:43

enough, But there was a lot of There had to be a lot of

23:45

fighting. Uh

23:47

So that fact that they were all

23:49

sort of crammed into a house, and we already know there

23:52

was tension between Kata and

23:54

Rudy and his wife, and between Kata and

23:56

really everybody. Apparently, I feel like I would

23:58

have really liked her. She was for everything I read,

24:00

she was a very strong willed

24:02

woman. She was not afraid to tell you what she really

24:05

thought. That apparently is not liked

24:07

by many people for some reason. I'm saying, I think I would

24:09

have really really liked her. Um

24:12

but of course that was the case. And

24:14

then um Marie, the

24:16

older sister, also got involved

24:18

in the business, which added to the tension, right because

24:21

now you know when family businesses, sometimes

24:23

they go great, but often there's family

24:25

dynamics that you know, turn into a strke

24:27

you bring work home and take home to work with you

24:29

and everything else. Yeah, Rudy

24:32

starts to now show his jealous streak. He's

24:35

kind of annoyed that his younger

24:38

brother Addie is seen by

24:40

the Nazi Party to be the leader of

24:42

the Dostler firm, and which is why he's

24:45

not having to fight. And so Rudy

24:47

begins to sort of, you know, puff

24:49

up his chest and say no, no, no, I'm

24:52

I'm the man here. And

24:55

with that he actually started

24:57

a fight essentially with Marie by denying

25:00

her kids jobs

25:02

in the company, saying

25:04

there were enough family problems already, right,

25:06

which totally isn't untrue,

25:09

right, But he didn't do it to stop

25:11

family drama. He did it, like you said, to

25:13

strong arm and show that he was the man in charge.

25:16

Well, this really upsets his older sister,

25:18

right, because it's right in the middle of

25:20

World War Two. It's one what

25:22

the Americans haven't yet we almost about,

25:25

but they're the war movement is is is happening.

25:28

And her two sons are young, they're late teens,

25:30

early twenties, and she doesn't want

25:32

them to get drafted because anybody

25:34

who's not already gainfully employed,

25:37

is going to get drafted into the war, into the Thermacht,

25:40

and that actually ends up happening, and

25:42

her two sons never came home from the war,

25:45

and she blames her older brother. And by the way, it's

25:47

not even just that you had to be gainfully employed,

25:49

you had to be gainfully employed in specific

25:51

war approved industry to

25:54

be saved from the draft essentially,

25:56

and their factory was one

25:58

of those places. So Rudy

26:00

could have saved her sons by allowing them to work

26:03

in that factory and he didn't. Yeah,

26:05

and because because then that's the thing too. They are

26:07

still making shoes, they're still making sports shoes,

26:09

but like half the factory and not exactly,

26:11

but he's making boots for the military

26:14

there. They start doing spot welding for like guns

26:16

and bazookas. So it's very

26:18

valuable for the Nazi Party to

26:20

have these people here. And yeah, her

26:23

both of her sons end up dying in war. That's

26:25

got to be tough. I mean, I'd

26:27

be pissed, let's be honest.

26:30

And you know what's so crazy about this part of the story

26:32

too, is that it's you know, that same

26:34

year Addie is reporting

26:37

being so short staffed in his

26:39

factory that he had to actually ask

26:42

for the use of some Soviet prisoners

26:44

of war on the production line. So imagine the

26:46

two boys, the two sons could have been useful,

26:49

right. That's the other thing that comes out later is that they

26:51

actually were short staffed and they could have

26:53

used her sons. But he was just being a big

26:55

jerk and it cost him there, It cost

26:57

his nephews their lives. That caused

27:00

is the big tension ripped between Audi and

27:02

that I guess sect of the

27:04

family and Rudolph's side of the family.

27:06

Yeah. I have to say, you know,

27:09

karma is a bit because three

27:12

a year after all that went down, Uh,

27:14

Rudy himself is conscripted into

27:16

the army, and he

27:19

blames Addie. He says, uh,

27:21

there's a quote. He says something like, I had to thank my brother

27:24

and his Nazi party friends for

27:26

getting him conscripted again. Yea, from

27:29

right from the start. He says that his brother obviously

27:31

his brother had the connections because his brother got

27:33

out of service. And now I'm getting drafted at

27:35

forty five years old. Mind you, Rudolph

27:38

is being drafted into the army, right Nazi

27:40

Germany was getting a little desperate at this point, but

27:44

yeah, right, I know. So,

27:46

um, this drama continues

27:49

on because now Rudy is conscripted

27:51

and he's mad. So

27:53

he sends a letter in April of nineteen forty three

27:55

to Addie that says, quote, I will not hesitate

27:58

to seek the closure of the factory so that you

28:00

be forced to take up an occupation that

28:02

will allow you to play the leader and as a first class

28:04

sportsman, to carry a gun. Can

28:07

I put a dude after that? Dude? That

28:10

is the modern day equivalent to as we say,

28:14

right big time. He's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna

28:16

I have to do this. You're gonna have to do this to Oh, you

28:18

think you're the big guy at the factory. Do you think you're the big sports

28:20

guy? Well, why don't you get out of here and lead a group

28:24

of soldiers with a gun in your hand? Exactly

28:26

like I have to say.

28:28

Their language even granted this as a translation

28:30

from German also, but it's so much nicer than

28:32

we would say it now. I think cursing

28:35

and call each other names probably

28:37

the facto for the forties in general. Yeah,

28:40

but then the worst part is later that year, when

28:42

the Dazzler Brothers factory in December

28:44

gets put into full wartime mode. They are nothing

28:47

but war stuff for the Reich. Rudy

28:50

hears about this wherever he's stationed in Germany

28:52

and goes back home because he says, hey,

28:54

this war is going to end at some point, and we have a

28:56

lot of resources that are just sitting there

28:58

and not being used. He goes back to the factory

29:01

to get leather to take home take

29:03

back with him so he can start doing shoes after the war.

29:06

He gets to the factory and finds out Addie

29:08

had already beaten him to it. Addie had

29:10

already gotten a lot of leather and stored it away

29:13

to use after the war. So Rudy

29:15

decides to report him to the local authorities.

29:18

Wow. Yeah, And according to Kata,

29:20

the police, uh we're not nice to Addie

29:22

when they came to uh

29:25

talk to him about this. Yeah. So

29:27

so essentially, I mean, think about that, Rudy

29:30

gets tries to get his brother put in jail.

29:33

In he tries to

29:36

stab his brother in the back, and finding was stabbed

29:38

first, reports him to the cops. Man,

29:41

right, it goes beyond that, so

29:44

now Rudy tries to use his contacts.

29:46

I can't say this word either in the loose WAFFA.

29:51

Okay, this is why we don't do international

29:53

companies. But in any case, he tries

29:55

to use his contacts to take control of

29:57

the Dazzler factory. Fails

30:00

at that, and then Rudy

30:04

deserts his unit in the Nazi

30:06

Party and returns to Halzel

30:09

Olga. Thanks

30:12

for that assist voiceover, guy, But

30:15

he goes home and uh,

30:18

he gets arrested for deserting

30:22

by the Gestapo and

30:25

is essentially held for the rest of the war

30:27

until the Allied liberation in May of that year.

30:29

Yeah, it's it's bad. So

30:32

he called the cops on his brother. He ends up leaving

30:34

the unit, comes back to the hometown. Addie says,

30:36

what are you doing here, and calls the Secret

30:38

Service essentially the Gestapo, to come

30:40

and pick him up. Nuts The interesting

30:43

part here, right, So, like you said, he was held by

30:45

the Gestapo until the end of the war. As

30:48

the Allies are marching through Germany,

30:50

the Americans thankfully get

30:53

to Hazel and

30:55

Bavaria first, and as they're

30:57

coming through, they're trying to completely dismantle

30:59

the jury and war machine. They see a factory

31:01

it's making war stuff. They get ready to go

31:03

burn the place down. Kata and

31:06

Marie come running out of the factory

31:08

as the Allies soldiers are walking up and they go no,

31:10

no, no, no, please don't, please don't.

31:12

And they produced these newspaper articles

31:14

showing Jesse Owens

31:17

wearing the Dazzler Brothers

31:19

shoes in the n Olympics. And

31:21

not only does it make the Allies not burn down

31:23

the factory, a lot of the Allies right

31:25

then and there on the spot. So well, then go back in there and

31:27

make me some shoes, and they start buying

31:29

shoes from Dazzler Brothers. It's crazy.

31:32

So, like we alluded to, the

31:34

deal, the early deal getting Jesse Owens

31:37

to wear the shoes may

31:39

have saved the company and

31:41

allowed Adidas as we know it today

31:43

to happen. Because if that had

31:46

not happened with Jesse Owens, it is quite possible,

31:48

quite likely in fact, that that factory

31:50

would have been torn apart by the Allied forces

31:53

and maybe they would have been able to start up over again,

31:56

but maybe they wouldn't, who knows. So

31:59

that is the way history played out in

32:01

that case, and that

32:03

for the purposes of our story, was essentially

32:06

the end of the wartime drama.

32:08

You have Addie and Rudy by this point

32:10

now just literally trying

32:12

to get each other thrown in jail, and

32:14

you have a factory that still stands

32:17

and a war that's over. We'll tell

32:19

you what happened after the war after

32:21

this. So

32:28

the war ends, and it's

32:30

like, you know, the world is rebuilding

32:33

and coming back to peace. But the brotherly

32:35

war, the war between between

32:37

the two Dozzler brothers,

32:40

is in like full

32:42

swing. Yeah, pinnacle of the battle

32:44

here. Yeah. And I think most families

32:47

can relate to some inter

32:49

family fights. There's always like,

32:52

you know, Uncle Joe and Dad

32:54

don't get along, or cousin Mary

32:56

and cousin Sue don't speak, and you've got to put

32:58

them at different tables across the room when there's a wedding,

33:01

you know that kind of thing. Everybody has

33:03

that. But this is like a whole

33:05

other level a family

33:08

feud. As we were mentioning, you know, at the

33:10

end of the war, they were already sort of pointing

33:12

the finger at each other, um to the

33:14

Gestapo and to the local authorities for various

33:16

reasons. After the war. That

33:19

sort of continued for some time because

33:21

after the war they were both kind of in trouble

33:24

with the Allied forces in

33:26

some way or other. For Rudy it was um

33:28

suspicion of working for the Gestapo. For

33:31

Addie it was just general purpose UM

33:33

suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer.

33:35

And so they both had sort of battles to fight

33:38

UM from a legal perspective, UM

33:40

sort of trying to get out of

33:42

any guilt around being a Nazi

33:45

or sympathizing with them. And for Addi,

33:48

UM he ultimately got the charges

33:50

all the way dropped down almost as low as they could go,

33:52

and there was sort of an admittance that he had

33:54

to work with them, but he didn't really pay

33:56

the price for that too badly, but not because

33:59

of Rudy. Rudy was, oh, yes he did, Yes,

34:01

he did, right. And I just remind everybody this comes

34:03

down to Rudy's want to be

34:05

the head of the shoot company, right

34:07

because all throughout the war, Addie is the face

34:09

of Dossler Brothers, and Rudy feels kind of,

34:12

you know, slighted by that. So he's

34:14

doing everything he can to get Audie

34:16

locked up so Rudy can run the show. And

34:18

keep in mind, these are not kids like in the nineteen

34:21

late nineteen forties. These are forties something almost

34:23

fifty year old men that are fighting like

34:25

little boys and so um.

34:27

You know, there came a point in in addis

34:30

like working through this, uh, the appeals

34:32

process with the with the Allied forces.

34:34

There are the Allied troops or the whatever they called it

34:36

at that time. I think they were technically the Allied

34:39

or Allied occupying. I

34:42

knew it had something to do with the occupation, but I didn't want to

34:44

get it wrong. Well, but he had gotten

34:46

his his um you

34:48

know, the accusations sort

34:50

of lowered down to the lowest level. But Rudy actually

34:52

went back to the authorities and said no, no, no no, he

34:55

wanted to make the weapons. It was his idea to do it.

34:57

He didn't just do it because someone asked him to. He it was his

35:00

idea. I mean, that's how bad this was. In

35:02

any case, they go back and forth. Eventually

35:05

both of them sort of for the most part,

35:07

wiggle themselves out of any real legal

35:09

problems with the occupying forces. But

35:12

they still got a business to deal with, and

35:14

so Essentially the family

35:16

is split into with some of the sisters

35:18

on one side, you know, the sister on one side, the

35:21

parents feeling one way, the various kids feeling

35:23

however they're going to feel, and they split

35:25

the business into essentially splitting

35:27

it, you know, employees one for one,

35:30

the buildings one for one, and the way

35:32

it turned out, correct me if I'm wrong, Nick, But there was literally

35:35

two main buildings, just coincidentally,

35:38

one on either side of a river, right, right, Yeah,

35:40

So in in their hometown of they

35:46

they got right before the war started, they had opened

35:48

a second factory because they were mostly football

35:50

shoes in one, but they were doing you know, other

35:53

normal shoes a little bit in the other. So they did

35:55

have two factories and you're right, literally across

35:57

the river from each other in their town, and

35:59

the staff was split down

36:01

the middle. I think the interesting part

36:03

of this is, right, so the sister

36:06

Marie goes with Addie or

36:08

Addie because Rudolf

36:10

gets her son's killed. The parents sign

36:13

side with Rudolf and go to the other side of the river.

36:15

And Routolf, apparently in the Dassler

36:18

Brothers company, was kind of the salesman

36:21

of the group. So when he goes across

36:23

the river. They let everybody who worked for Dassler

36:25

Brothers Shoes decide, Okay, who do

36:27

you want to go work for? We're not gonna tell you where to go.

36:30

Most of the sales team went

36:32

over with Rudolf across the river. Staying

36:35

on this side of the river was

36:38

Addie and most of the technicians

36:41

and development production people.

36:43

So that just goes to show

36:45

you kind of where the two companies then

36:47

went went on from that

36:49

point kind of. Rudy got all the sales folks

36:52

in the marketing and Addie got all the invention

36:54

side right and correct me if I'm wrong again.

36:57

But initially when that happened,

36:59

Rudy's side I had actually did better because

37:01

they had good salespeople and they teamed up with German

37:03

football teams and local clubs. I mean, they

37:05

were out there pushing, pushing, pushing, and

37:07

so they were initially the more

37:10

successful of the two. But then people

37:12

realized that the quality was better coming

37:14

out of ADDIE's side and ended

37:16

up over there in terms of the consumers.

37:19

So there was another a couple of other fun little

37:21

pieces to this story, which is this

37:23

this town of It

37:27

was such a small town that everybody

37:30

was sort of aware of this fight, and

37:33

everybody kind of knew about it. Like I feel like in Atlanta

37:35

where we are, as an example, you know, if

37:37

there was a family feud over our company and they ended up

37:39

splitting and one took one building, we wouldn't know. But

37:42

this was a different era and it was a small town,

37:44

and so everybody in the town knew about

37:47

this, and the town was divided about it, and

37:49

the town ended up being known as

37:52

the town of bent next because

37:54

everybody had to look down to see which

37:57

shoes the strangers were wearing.

37:59

Right, this is like probably and this is

38:01

not confirmed. I'm just gonna put it out there. This may be

38:03

the first confirmed case

38:06

of foot watching, right, because that

38:08

became a thing for a while. What brand you got? What? What brand

38:11

are your kicks? Yeah, this was probably the

38:13

first time. It was a big deal. And if you were you

38:15

know, they saw if you were wearing Rudy shoes, you

38:17

were one thing, and if you were wearing Addie shoes

38:19

you or something else. Also it could be like the earliest

38:22

occurrence of um, what we now

38:24

know is what like cell phone neck Ye,

38:26

Like this is incredibly weird. That's

38:30

true. And it's even down to the point where the

38:32

town had two football clubs

38:34

in the in the same league, and one

38:36

team sided with Addie and one team sided

38:39

with Rudy. It was nuts, all right.

38:41

We also have to talk about what they ended up naming their

38:43

company, right, I think you've probably hint, hint

38:45

already figured out where Audi Das came

38:47

from, Audi Dassler. Correct,

38:50

his shoes became Audi Das Adidas.

38:53

There you go. Rudy originally

38:56

along the same line, was going to call

38:58

his shoe company Rue Da

39:00

Ruda. Okay, Rudolph Dassler.

39:02

Yeah, maybe Dad, that

39:06

was not good. But but ultimately, uh,

39:08

and we're not really sure exactly why. Maybe that just didn't

39:10

roll off the tongue as well or whatever. Um,

39:13

but ultimately his shoe company ended

39:15

up being called Puma.

39:18

Yea ever heard of it? Yeah? That Puma.

39:21

So two of the biggest shoe brands

39:24

in the world today are

39:27

still right across the river from

39:29

each other and still

39:32

have a

39:34

kind of, um, what's the word

39:36

A A antagonism towards each

39:38

other. Yeah, very very

39:40

much, so very competitive with each other,

39:43

even when now really

39:45

they should be all competing with like Nike, Oh,

39:47

absolutely, they've got much bigger competition and

39:50

the families themselves aren't

39:53

really involved anymore and nineteam.

39:56

But the companies just like literally cannot

39:59

stand each other. It's weird. They still go at

40:01

each other and they still claim. You know, there's

40:03

all kinds of claims back and forth about which one was

40:05

responsible for this invention or

40:07

that invention. No, no, we did it, No we did

40:10

it. UM. Anyway, Puma

40:12

and Adidas both coming

40:15

out of the Dustler Brothers story. Now

40:17

you see why we felt like we had to tell this story,

40:20

because it's not just the story of Adidas, but in

40:22

fact both companies and

40:25

UM pretty fascinating. I was telling a friend of mine

40:27

about the story UM before we sat down

40:29

to record it, and they were like, wait, what those

40:31

companies were started by Nazis?

40:34

Like rights, who do? Makes

40:36

you think? Right? And you would never think that Adida. I

40:38

thought Puma was something maybe what South

40:41

American African based, because you know that's

40:43

where cougars live. No, Germany,

40:45

so strange. There are some more interesting facts

40:48

though, right that we have to get through. One of them I want

40:50

to share with everybody. We all know Adidas and

40:52

their logo, the Three stripe right

40:54

one to three. Do you do you know where that came

40:57

from at all? The thought process

40:59

behind that. I'm gonna cheat a little bit here,

41:01

cheating looking at the sheep, but I do know, and

41:03

I think it's interesting because now people spend so much time

41:05

and energy thinking about exactly what a logo

41:08

should look like. Um, there's actually

41:10

came from literally the way the shoe

41:12

was made. There were three sort of structural support

41:14

bands around the middle of the shoe to

41:17

make it work for

41:19

four sports, and that actually just sort

41:21

of ultimately became the logo just by

41:23

turning in another color. Yeah. The story is literally that

41:25

Addie was walking through the production line one day

41:27

and was like looking at the shoes being made

41:30

and just being light bulb went off and he said,

41:32

why don't we paint these? Because this group with this

41:34

batch is going to a team or something. Why don't we paint

41:37

these and see if people notice? And it's

41:39

stuck and they were in with it. Yeah,

41:41

And that was I think still in the late ninety

41:44

that was still pretty early on. Yeah. Yeah, So it was suffice

41:46

it to say in the nineties,

41:49

late nineteen forties, post World War Two, the two

41:51

companies are you know, getting

41:53

up and running, getting their branding together, their

41:55

trademark, their Puma name, the

41:57

stripes for Adidas. Uh, and

42:00

they're they're you know, starting to blossom

42:02

and do well. And we'll kind of leave the Puma story

42:04

because this is an Adidas episode and will

42:07

focus on Audi das UM.

42:09

But they had some big moments

42:11

in sports really, and that

42:14

is in the nineteen fifties when they started to have some really

42:16

important moments that made the brand UM

42:19

become even more prominent, not only there

42:21

in Germany and in Europe, but worldwide.

42:25

And the biggest one that came was

42:27

in nineteen fifty four at the

42:30

FIFA World Cup. Right,

42:32

we know soccer football is the biggest aspect

42:35

of what Adidas cares about, right

42:37

in the sporting shoe. So this

42:39

is West Germany and East Germany. West

42:41

Germany is in the World Cup at nineteen

42:43

fifty four. This is a country that at this point

42:45

is what eight years old, like still fledgling, still

42:48

trying to recover from the war. They go to

42:50

the World Cup and just prior

42:52

to that, in fifty two, Adidas

42:54

and the team and the team coach

42:57

of the West German national team got together

42:59

and said Hey, why don't you help us with our equipment.

43:01

This is not out of the ordinary. Adidas has done this with a

43:04

bunch of smaller teams and clubs.

43:06

So Adida starts working with them on doing

43:08

their equipment well, brainstorming,

43:10

and Audie himself

43:12

comes up with a new design for shoes that

43:15

comes into play while West Germany is

43:17

playing. It is screw in

43:19

studs in your shoes, so if you can

43:21

replace it for different playing surface or different

43:23

conditions, you don't just have that one set

43:26

of cleats, so to speak, for the shoe

43:28

that you're playing in. So West Germany

43:31

is taking these shoes and they're beating the odds.

43:33

They're beating huge teams at the time like Turkey,

43:36

Yugoslavia and Austria, and they end

43:38

up in the final match against Hungary

43:40

in the nineteen fifty four World Cup. And

43:43

I love that the whole fact that what happens

43:45

next has kind of everything

43:47

to do with the weather. Yeah,

43:49

it totally has to do. If it had been a beautiful

43:51

sunny day, maybe this story would not have happened.

43:54

No, absolutely not, because on the

43:56

day of the game there was like a light drizzle,

43:59

and so the pitch, the field

44:01

they play on was kind of muddy,

44:03

which made West Germany kind of happy because

44:05

their best player on the team just so happened

44:08

to be really good in those kinds

44:10

of conditions. So they're playing against

44:12

the Hungarian team

44:14

and just as the playing field

44:16

starts to get really bad later on

44:18

in the game, the head coach turns

44:21

around and looks it at Audie and

44:23

apparently this is what Adidas claims is one of

44:25

their biggest lines, pivotal moments in

44:27

their history. He looks and goes, Audie,

44:29

screw them on. Addie had developed

44:32

deeper, bigger

44:36

screw them on now,

44:41

Yeah, but he bigger spikes essentially to work

44:43

in these adverse conditions, And so without having

44:45

to change shoes and everything else, they plug them on and

44:47

the West German team beats

44:50

Hungary and they come behind match

44:53

three to two. It is what's

44:55

now known as the quote miracle

44:57

in Burn because West Germany should

45:00

have never stood a chance. And this

45:02

is really the coach after the game

45:04

comes out and on the podium saying we have

45:06

to think Audi Dostler and Audi

45:08

Doss because this equipment is what helped us win

45:10

this game. It really launched them to the International

45:13

prominence that they're at, and

45:15

of course to prove that we're not making stuff

45:17

up about the family rivalry.

45:19

Many many many years later, in fact,

45:22

just a few years ago in two thousand six,

45:24

Puma comes back with a statement

45:26

that they were the first ones to invent the screw

45:29

in studs. Yeah, they actually had,

45:31

because obviously they sponsored different teams.

45:33

They came out with like a newspaper article that

45:36

showed a German local team that had

45:38

won, like the German National Soccer Championship

45:41

three months before the World Cup,

45:43

wearing shoes with screw in

45:45

studs. So Nick and I decided, we

45:48

don't really know this, but we decided that there's a good

45:50

chance that there were probably corporate

45:52

spies in both cases

45:54

running back and forth between Adidas

45:56

and Puma, and we think the world will never

45:58

really know, right who at the first or whose idea

46:01

it was. Some people, they're literally across the river from

46:03

each other. It's not that hard time. And also it stands

46:05

to reason that Addie is the one that came up

46:07

with the screw and studs. And the reason I say

46:09

that is because he was the one inventing

46:12

all along. He was the brains behind

46:15

the science of the shoes all along, whereas

46:17

that was never Rudy's specialty, so he

46:19

was much more a businessman and

46:21

less a shoemaker. Yeah, so we're gonna we're

46:23

gonna side with Addie. The biography

46:26

team will side with the Audie on this

46:28

one. Um, but the world will really

46:30

never know. In any case, the miracle

46:33

and burn was a big moment for the brand, and

46:35

um kind of launched the shoe to be just

46:38

really popular among football teams,

46:40

soccer teams worldwide. A lot of national

46:43

teams then reached out to the company and said, hey, we

46:45

want that give us those shoes. Um.

46:47

So that was the nineteen fifties and

46:50

UM, you know, essentially at this point

46:52

we're kind of to the point in the story where

46:54

Adidas is on their way. They're

46:56

becoming the iconic brand we uh

46:59

know and love today. But I think there are

47:01

a few kind of fun little moments along

47:03

the way that are worth highlighting.

47:05

By the way, um the family stayed in

47:07

the business, one of you know, one

47:09

of the fun points is it wasn't just like when Addie was done,

47:11

somebody else took it over. So Horsted actually

47:14

got into the game in the nineteen sixties.

47:16

He was ADDIE's oldest son, so he

47:18

was running the company for a long time, I

47:20

believe. Yeah. Um, but the soccer

47:22

ball had Adidas's

47:25

name on it in the nineteen sixties. Howd that happened?

47:27

So the soccer ball was a big deal for Adidas

47:29

because that was the first thing they did kind

47:32

of outside of shoes, right,

47:34

they just did shoes and cleats, that was what Adidas

47:36

did. And then they started to

47:39

make uh, soccer balls, and they expanded

47:41

into other equipment in general

47:43

for sports, so that started to help their marketability.

47:46

Right, they were into more than just shoes. And then

47:48

two interesting parts of that of the equipment

47:50

story. Nine seven, they

47:52

release the track suit. Everybody

47:56

knows the Adidas track suit with the three stripes down

47:58

the pants and down the arms. They're still

48:01

around today. Look up a picture. I'm not kidding

48:03

you. Really hasn't changed very much

48:05

at all. It's pretty much the same for the last

48:07

fifty years. And then in nineteen seventy,

48:10

Adidas, having a great relationship with

48:12

the World Cup and World Cup teams, approaches

48:16

FIFA and says, hey, we're starting to

48:18

get to the point in nineteen seventy where a lot of these World

48:20

Cup matches are getting televised all over the

48:22

world, and soccer balls then

48:25

really looked like volleyballs. They were just white

48:27

with the patches together. He said, hey,

48:29

here is an idea for something you'll see on black

48:32

and white television, and it's what we

48:34

now know as a soccer ball.

48:36

They called it the tell Star, but it's

48:38

a soccer ball with occasional black

48:40

patches so you can see it on a black and

48:42

white TV screen. That is in

48:44

in nineteen seventy they sent that to FIFA. FIFA

48:47

said, cool, we love it. We're gonna make it the official ball

48:49

of the World Cup, and Adidas has been

48:51

the official soccer ball of the World Cup

48:53

every single time they've had it since. Insane.

48:56

Yeah, also interesting to think that the

48:58

company which really sounds started

49:01

When did the actual name Adidas become the name?

49:04

Okay, so shortly after the war.

49:07

It wasn't until seventy two that

49:09

they got that sort of three leaf trefoil

49:11

logo that we all know now that came

49:14

a lot later. It did this. It's kind of interesting.

49:16

They had the three stripes all along, but then they added

49:18

that I guess that's what it's called a trefoil

49:21

does that word means something I've I looked

49:23

it up and every time I saw it, it it just kept sending me

49:25

back to images of that. So it may just be an artistic

49:28

concept like a floor dai ly a

49:30

little bit, something very similar to that. I was very

49:32

educated at you okay

49:35

any in any case, that is sort of the sixties

49:37

and seventies um, and they then

49:40

continue to expand the line over time.

49:42

Uh Rudy passed away in nine seventy

49:45

four from lung cancer. He was seventies

49:48

six years old, I think at the time. So

49:50

I loved a pretty good life. But in the

49:52

nineteen seventies there was another sort of

49:54

development that Adidas can

49:56

kind of take at least partial credit for, if

49:59

not credit for, And that is sort

50:02

of what we know now is commonplace, which

50:04

is brands sort of becoming

50:07

official worldwide sponsors of a

50:09

sport, in this case FIFA World Cup, and

50:11

the Brandon question was Coca Cola.

50:14

Yeah, so Horsed uh ADDIE's

50:16

oldest son who would joined the company, got

50:18

into kind of marketing and stuff. He saw the

50:20

potential in this partnering with teams and groups,

50:23

so he ended up working with a British

50:25

advertising executive named Patrick

50:28

Nally, They went to the FIFA World Cup,

50:30

they went to Coke. Took him a while, but

50:32

lo and behold. In nineteen seventy six, the deal

50:35

is official. They have an eight million

50:37

dollar deal that makes Coca Cola the first

50:39

exclusive worldwide sponsor

50:41

of a sport. Then right after that they

50:43

went after big names like McDonald's, Levi

50:46

Strauss and essentially Horst Dossler,

50:48

the son of Audi, an executive at Audi Das,

50:51

is considered one of the fathers of sports

50:53

sponsorship. The reason you go to a game

50:56

and you see billboards in the outfield or

50:58

you see the for example, Adidas

51:00

or Nike on a jersey, these sponsorships,

51:03

this branding, it was birthed by Adidas

51:05

essentially. Yeah, it's pretty crazy,

51:08

you know. Our story is sort of winding

51:11

down essentially in terms of the

51:13

growth and popularity and Adidas

51:16

turning into what we know now.

51:18

But it's worth noting that Addie did pass away

51:21

in nineteen seventy eight at seventy eight years

51:23

old from heart failure, and

51:25

that Kata, his wife, then became

51:28

the chairman. Yes, she did in eight.

51:31

She passed away six years later

51:34

four, but she had a couple of years as the boss there. Yes,

51:36

she did. She stayed involved in the business from the

51:38

moment her and Addie got married, Yeah, which

51:41

is obviously for the times, very

51:43

rare. Yeah. And especially to not only

51:45

stay involved. I think a lot of women, as we are learning

51:47

just doing this podcast, were involved

51:49

in the businesses, but they didn't always get the credit.

51:52

But she actually took over in that chairman role

51:54

after he passed away, so that was kind of cool. Uh,

51:56

and then Horst took over after her. The

51:59

other thing I think is worth noting that as we moved into

52:01

modern times, starting with let's say the mid eighties

52:03

through the nineties and into now, the

52:05

cultural changes Adidas made over

52:08

time I think also has really kept them front

52:10

and center as a brand. They've had their ups

52:12

and downs in terms of sales. I mean, Nike sort

52:14

of got into the game, and Nike is the number

52:16

one shoe company in the world now, but Adidas

52:18

is number one in Europe still and it's number

52:21

two in the world, and so um.

52:23

Some of the things they did partnering with artists

52:25

they were early on and doing that now we see

52:27

a lot of brand um influencers

52:30

now, but at the time when they started doing it in

52:32

the nineteen eighties, that was relatively

52:35

new and they were one of the first,

52:37

and in a way, it happened backwards for them.

52:39

So I think we can sort of end this, uh

52:41

you know, our episode today with this sort of fun story

52:44

because it just so happened

52:46

that in the mid nineteen eighties, around six

52:49

UM, somebody who

52:51

worked at Adidas happened to go to

52:53

a run DMC concert and

52:55

heard this song through

53:04

stage at so

53:06

they're like, wait a minute, did they just say may Adidas

53:09

because I worked there? And

53:11

they go back. This employee goes back to the company

53:13

and says, did you know this was happening? And

53:15

they were like what No. So

53:17

they partnered with run DMC, who had written

53:20

the song just cause it

53:22

wasn't a commercial. It was written because they

53:24

were wearing Adidas and they were looking cool in

53:27

Adidas kicks. So they partnered

53:29

with run DMC, and that was sort of the beginning

53:31

of them beginning to partner with UM

53:33

celebrities and of course other brands doing

53:35

the same thing. And that continues really

53:38

into modern times, right it does, because

53:41

they partnered with another currently well known

53:43

artist, one man named Kanye West.

53:46

I've heard of him. Yeah, and they made yeasies

53:49

and they're still running them today, and they have lots

53:52

of partnerships with non athletic

53:55

stars like that. Adidas has just

53:57

been into that for a long time. Yeah, So that

53:59

brings us really up to modern times. I mean, we

54:01

skipped through the modern times a little bit because I think

54:03

we sort of all know that Adidas is part

54:05

of our culture now. Between the track

54:07

suits and the three stripes and the trefoil logo

54:10

and World Cup and the soccer ball. Everybody

54:12

knows Adidas. And they're

54:15

not hurting in revenues

54:17

at Adidas or approximately

54:19

twenty four billion US, so

54:21

not too shabby, right, And all

54:23

of that too, is because they

54:25

got it together in modern days. I just I

54:27

can't. I don't feel like we can finish the episode without letting

54:30

people know. We've learned so many through phisiography

54:32

of companies owned by companies we had no idea

54:34

they were associated. One of the reasons Adidas

54:36

is so successful. They just own

54:38

also Reebok. We all

54:40

know that brand and Taylor made

54:43

the golf company. Yes, so they

54:45

actively own and run both of those.

54:48

Yeah, they're they're they're a huge, massive

54:50

international company. Yeah, they learned, like a lot of companies

54:53

do, as they got bigger and bigger to acquire

54:55

when it was appropriate, and they sold things off here

54:57

and there as well. Um So a lot of interesting

54:59

history there too, um but we'll leave that for

55:01

your googling pleasure. You

55:03

know, I'd like to sometimes make predictions beyond

55:06

what's going to happen, beyond the now, and I think

55:08

it is just a d percent clear that Adidas

55:11

is here to stay. I mean, certainly

55:13

for the foreseeable future. Who knows what's going

55:15

to happen in the long long term, but in the

55:17

foreseeable Adidas is forever in the

55:19

culture. They've done a good job of ingraining

55:21

themselves, yeah, and staying relevant. So

55:24

good on you, Adidas, And uh,

55:26

that's our episode. See you next time. Phisography

55:32

is a production of I Heart Radio and dB Media.

55:34

I'm your host Dana Barrett, My co host is

55:36

Nick Bean, our producer is Tory

55:39

Harrison, and our executive producer is Jonathan

55:41

Strickland. Have questions I want to give us

55:43

feedback or have a company you'd like us to cover.

55:46

Email us at info at Phisiography

55:48

dot Show, or contact us on social.

55:50

I'm at the Danta Barrett on Facebook, Twitter,

55:52

and Instagram, or just search for me on LinkedIn.

55:55

Thanks for your support,

56:02

d