Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vogelbaumb here with another episode from our archives. This
Speaker 1: one tells the strange true story of how a family
Speaker 1: feud in Germany led to the parallel creation of Adidas
Speaker 1: and Puma, which are now in competition is the second
Speaker 1: and third largest sneaker companies in the world. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and I'm here today to talk about
Speaker 1: how family feuds can change the world. For example, if
Speaker 1: only two.
Speaker 2: Brothers named Oddi and Rudy Dossler had learned to get along,
Speaker 2: Germany's Gobruder Dossler might have bested Nike, is the world's
Speaker 2: top sports footwear company today. Instead, the brother's bitter feuding
Speaker 2: resulted in the Gobruder Dossler brand that's German for Dossler
Speaker 2: brothers being split in half and reborn as Adidas and Puma,
Speaker 2: which today are the world's second and third top sports
Speaker 2: shoe businesses. Adolf or I Dossler began making shoes in
Speaker 2: his mother's laundry room shortly after returning home to the
Speaker 2: Bavarian village of Hetzkunocha following World War One. His business
Speaker 2: did well, and his older brother Rudolph or Rudy Dossler
Speaker 2: joined him a few years later to help shy. Oddi
Speaker 2: was the creative force and brains behind the business, while
Speaker 2: extroverted Rudy was the salesman. The brothers Dossler soon gained
Speaker 2: acclaim for rolling out the first track spikes. The company
Speaker 2: really took off after the brothers persuaded American Olympic athlete
Speaker 2: Jesse Owens to wear their shoes in the nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: six Berlin Olympics. He did, and he won four gold
Speaker 2: medals while doing so. Yet it wasn't quite the triumph
Speaker 2: it should have been for the brothers, as things were
Speaker 2: beginning to sour between the two. The bad blood had
Speaker 2: started a few years earlier in nineteen thirty three, when
Speaker 2: ADDIE's sixteen year old wife tried to interfere in the business.
Speaker 2: Rudy was not pleased. It didn't help that Oddi's and
Speaker 2: Rudy's families lived together in the same town home, and
Speaker 2: their wives didn't really get along. But the breaking point
Speaker 2: came during a World War II air raid. Ruddy and
Speaker 2: his family were tucked into a bomb shelter and as
Speaker 2: Addi and his family entered. Oddi said, the dirty bastards
Speaker 2: are back again. He was purportedly commenting on the Royal
Speaker 2: Air Force planes roaring overhead, but Rudy was positive Oddi
Speaker 2: was referring to his family. From there, things quickly unraveled.
Speaker 2: When Rudy was called up to serve in the Nazi
Speaker 2: military in nineteen forty three, he was sure that Oddi
Speaker 2: had arranged it to have him sent away from the factory.
Speaker 2: Anxious to get back, Rudy deserted his post in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty five. Later, when arrested for desertion, he again blamed Addi,
Speaker 2: who it appears did snitch on him. After a few
Speaker 2: more scuffles, the two split up the company in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty eight, moving assets and employees into one of two
Speaker 2: competing operations located on opposite sides of the Roof River
Speaker 2: that flowed through the town. Oddi renamed his business Adidas,
Speaker 2: combining his first and last names. Rudy did the same,
Speaker 2: dubbing his Ruda, though he later changed it to Puma.
Speaker 2: Soon most of the town's citizens were employed by either
Speaker 2: Adidas or Puma, and these siblings intense rivalry spread throughout
Speaker 2: the town. If you worked for one company, you did
Speaker 2: not socialize with employees of the other. Marrying across enemy
Speaker 2: lines was strictly foreboden. You only shopped in the stores
Speaker 2: on the same side as the river as the factory
Speaker 2: in which you were employed. Over time, Adidas far surpassed
Speaker 2: Puma in sales thanks to Audi's creativity and technical acumen,
Speaker 2: though Puma also did quite well. But while the two
Speaker 2: were hard at work competing against one another, they paid
Speaker 2: no attention to another shoe company, Nike, that was quietly
Speaker 2: gaining market share. Today, Nike is king of the sports
Speaker 2: shoe business with twenty seventeen sales of twenty one billion
Speaker 2: dollars compared to Adidas's ten billion dollars and Puma's two billion.
Speaker 2: The brothers did speak to one another a few times
Speaker 2: later in life, but they never reconciled. Both died in
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies and were buried at opposite ends of
Speaker 2: the local cemetery. Their feud finally ended in two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine when employees of both companies played together in
Speaker 2: a friendly soccer match. Nonetheless, the Dossler Brothers epic fight
Speaker 2: was named by Time. Mack scene is one of history's
Speaker 2: top ten family feuds, alongside such notables as Canaan Abele
Speaker 2: and the Hatfields and McCoy's. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 2: the article the family Feud that spawned Adidas and Puma
Speaker 2: on how Stuffworks dot Com, written by Melanie Redzeeky McManus.
Speaker 2: Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership
Speaker 2: with how Stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.
Speaker 2: Four more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the Airheartradio app,
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