Pod Insights Stuff You Should Know Selects: Adidas v. Puma: A Sibling Rivalry About this episode Join Josh and Chuck in this classic episode as they go down the sport shoe rabbit hole, detailing the strange tail of the brothers who brought Puma and Adidas to the world. Sibling rivalry, Nazis, shoes - there's a lot to unpack here.
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1:02 Josh Clark? Hey friends, it's me, Josh. And for this week's select, I've chosen our 2018 episode on Adidas versus Puma. It's the German version of the Hatfield versus the McCoys, except with cool sports apparel rather than overalls. And one of the things I noticed at the end of this episode is that sometimes when we're just doing our thing, talking back and forth like we do, we'll have some throwaway comment or side conversation or something that takes on much greater significance years on. It's one of the interesting things about talking out loud for 17 years. At any rate, Sorak vodka, anyone?
1:41 Speaker 00 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.
1:51 Josh Clark? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Andrew over there, the guest producer. I'm wearing Adidas. Chuck is wearing Puma. Andrew's wearing Reebok. None of us are speaking to one another right now.
2:07 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's weird. Andrew is wearing white Reebok high tops with bronze pantyhose and orange dolphin running shorts. And he claims he doesn't work for Hooters part-time.
2:18 Josh Clark? Oh, oh, oh, yes.
2:21 Speaker 02 I like that you didn't know that because that means you don't go into Hooters.
2:24 Josh Clark? No, no, I've seen pictures on TV.
2:28 Speaker 02 I had to go, actually, I've only been there once, and that was when I worked at that awful job with the chicken killers. And it was on a stupid work trip they made me go on, and that was like the only place in town.
2:40 Josh Clark? Yep.
2:41 Speaker 02 And all these yokels that I worked with were like, "Yeah, man, let's go to Hooters." And I went in there and I was just like, "Oh, my lord, what is..." They were trapped in time.
2:50 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm. I've been there a couple of times, actually, when I was a younger, younger man.
2:54 Speaker 02 It's the same, I imagine.
2:56 Josh Clark? It is, I'm sure. And I was there on my 21st birthday in Jacksonville because it was the only place open. It was like a Tuesday night or something. And I was like, "This is, this is not the best 21st birthday I'll ever have."
3:09 Speaker 02 Yeah. And hey, we don't want to yuck your yum. If you're, if you work at Hooters, or if you'd love going there, more power to you.
3:17 Josh Clark? Sure.
3:18 Speaker 02 Sure. Why not, right?
3:21 Josh Clark? That's pretty awesome that you said you don't want to yuck anyone's yum.
3:24 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's funny, I was thinking about a couple of weeks ago when, it was like the Costanza moment, when you thought of a line after the moment.
3:32 Josh Clark? Yeah.
3:33 Speaker 02 When you were talking about how I was crazy for not liking olives, and I got on to you. I should have said, "Don't yum my yuck."
3:40 Josh Clark? Right, or, I was, it's funny you said that, because I was thinking about that later on, too. I thought that I should have said, "Well, actually, I'm not yucking your yum, I'm yucking your yuck," which is different.
3:53 Speaker 02 Oh.
3:54 Josh Clark? You know, think about it.
3:55 Speaker 02 Man.
3:56 Josh Clark? Are you thinking about it?
3:58 Speaker 02 I think it's weird that we both thought about that moment afterward.
4:00 Josh Clark? I think so, too.
4:01 Speaker 02 Because usually, we'd just go back into our hyperbolic chambers and float for the next six days.
4:07 Josh Clark? It's a pretty great life we have.
4:09 Speaker 02 Pretty nice.
4:10 Josh Clark? Just soaking in our own urine.
4:14 Josh Clark? Don't you pee in your hyperbaric chamber?
4:16 Speaker 02 Well, yeah, but I mean, that's how you're supposed to fill it up, right?
4:19 Josh Clark? Right. So Chuck, obviously, what we're talking about today is athletic gear, sports shoes in particular, and two of the most well-known sports brands in the entire world, Adidas and Puma. And some people might not know this, Chuck, but Adidas and Puma were founded by two brothers who spent many decades of their lives not speaking to one another. And some people might even know that, that they are rival brands founded by rival brothers. But I guarantee they don't know the full story behind the, one of the most bitter family rivalries of all time that gave us Adidas and Puma.
5:03 Josh Clark? And it is extraordinarily fascinating. There's Nazis, there's Run DMC, there's all this stuff, all rolled into one. And it turns out that this is, it's one of the better stories I've ever come across.
5:16 Speaker 02 That's right. And before we dive into that awesome story to head off emails, I know I said hyperbolic instead of hyperbaric. There's no such thing as a hyperbolic chamber. I guess it could be.
5:28 Josh Clark? It's a chamber that's like, I'm the biggest chamber ever.
5:31 Speaker 02 Probably so. All right. So this is a great story. And I had heard bits and pieces of this over the years. But it is interesting that Nazis and Run DMC and feuding brothers all come together to, because you know my Pumas. I've been a Puma guy.
5:50 Josh Clark? Sure.
5:50 Speaker 02 For many, many years, even though I did have a pair of Adidas superstars at one point. But they're too.
5:59 Josh Clark? Flashy?
6:00 Speaker 02 No, I liked them, but they were, you know, white shoes aren't good on me. I get them too dirty too quick.
6:06 Josh Clark? Yeah.
6:07 Speaker 02 So now I just vary my Pumas between the black and the black suede and sort of like the olive green suede usually.
6:13 Josh Clark? You know Adidas makes non-white shoes you could try.
6:17 Speaker 02 Yeah, but those classic white superstars with the three blue stripes, those are the ones.
6:22 Josh Clark? The shell toes.
6:23 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:25 Josh Clark? Well, I mean, they have some other cool ones, too, like Gazelles are pretty cool, like the, the, the flat-bottomed soccer shoe and...
6:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, my, my brother was into, I wore Gazelles for a while when I was a soccer poser, but my brother was into Stan Smiths.
6:38 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah, those are cool, too. I've got some, some Stan Smiths that are like this blue mesh. And now that I think about it, if I have a loyalty to either one, it would be Adidas. But I don't, I don't consider myself like Adidas loyal.
6:52 Speaker 02 Well, I'm a Puma guy, just because they look good on me and they're comfy. But I was also a low-top Converse All-Star guy for a while. And in high school, of course, in the preppy days, I was all about the tree torns.
7:08 Josh Clark? I never had tree torns.
7:09 Speaker 02 It was a look.
7:11 Josh Clark? Oh, I know, for sure. I, I...
7:13 Speaker 02 Those are comfy.
7:13 Josh Clark? I was right after tree torns, when I started getting into shoes, K-Swiss were in.
7:18 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah. I never had any of those.
7:20 Josh Clark? Those are cool.
7:21 Speaker 02 And then what was the other shoe? The, the Vans? There's a particular style of Vans that I really still enjoy.
7:29 Josh Clark? The slip-on ones with the black and white checks?
7:31 Speaker 02 No, those are cool, but I don't know if I can pull those off at 47.
7:35 Josh Clark? You could, but people will laugh at you behind your back.
7:38 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's already happening. Yeah, I'll, I'll remember at some point.
7:43 Josh Clark? Okay, well, just shout it out.
7:44 Speaker 02 And plus, I just wanted to cover our bases by saying as many name brands as possible.
7:49 Josh Clark? Don't forget British Knights.
7:50 Speaker 02 Oh, the BKs?
7:51 Josh Clark? Yep. So, Chuck?
7:55 Speaker 02 Yes.
7:55 Josh Clark? Let's, let's start the story, shall we? We're gonna have to get in the Wayback Machine for this one.
7:59 Speaker 02 Okay.
8:06 Speaker 02 And this is also full of urine.
8:07 Josh Clark? So, that was you, though. Let's, let's let everybody know. We're gonna go back to the end of World War I in Germany, and we're going to go to a little town that I'm going to let you pronounce, because I've been trying and I cannot do it.
8:23 Speaker 02 And I thought it was interesting that we're recording this now, because we just acknowledged and recognized the 100 years removed from World War I.
8:33 Josh Clark? The end of World War I.
8:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
8:35 Josh Clark? And the beginning of the Spanish Flu that killed like three times as many people right after it.
8:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's another celebration.
8:41 Josh Clark? Right. So, so we're going back there. We're just going back 100 days almost to the day.
8:46 Speaker 02 Yeah, and so the, the name of that town is Herzogenerach.
8:54 Josh Clark? Well, I could have done at least that good.
8:56 Speaker 02 Yeah, Herzog and Ohrach.
8:57 Josh Clark? It's not exactly said that like that. Here, let's play this. Herzogen Ohrach. That's how it's said.
9:05 Speaker 02 Okay.
9:06 Josh Clark? Okay, so maybe we should just have that voice say it for us, but we're not going to. It turns out the locals just call the town Herzog.
9:13 Speaker 02 Sure.
9:14 Josh Clark? So that's all we'll call it. But it's a little tiny village in Bavaria.
9:16 Speaker 02 They can't even pronounce it.
9:17 Josh Clark? No, they're like, we're not even gonna try. And we were born here. Don't be too hard on yourself, Josh, is what they're saying. So in Herzog, it's a little town in Bavaria, a little village. There's a river running through it.
9:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, significantly.
9:31 Josh Clark? Yes, and in around 1918, one of the villagers who was born there, a guy named Adolf Dassler, takes a seat in his mother's laundry. His mother ran the laundry out of their house. And he starts cobbling athletic shoes, specifically track shoes, I think, to begin with. And he had a knack for it. He started making shoes that athletes actually wanted pretty early on, pretty much out of the gate. And he started doing so well, so quickly, that within a year or two, he asked his older brother, who is by far the more outgoing, extrovert, salesman-y type of the two brothers,
10:14 Josh Clark? his older brother Rudolf, to start selling his shoes, start kind of creating a business operation out of it. And I think within just a few years, they had 12 employees. And they founded a company called Sportsfabrik Gebrueder-Dassler, which they called GEDDA for short.
10:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, so Gebrueder is, you know, for brother. So Gebrueder-Dassler is the Dassler Brothers Shoe Company. And people were like, wow, so I don't have to wear my high-heeled leather sport boot any longer on the pitch?
10:48 Josh Clark? I don't have to tie some sharp rocks to the bottom of my feet?
10:51 Speaker 02 So their nicknames, you'll probably hear refer to them as Adi and Rudy, R-U-D-I. And if you kind of put your head to it, you can see where this is headed.
11:03 Josh Clark? This is exciting.
11:05 Speaker 02 So the laundry business wasn't going well. So like you said, little Oddi started making these shoes and things started going great. And it turns out they made a pretty good team at first because they complemented one another in what they were in what they were good at.
11:20 Josh Clark? Mm hmm.
11:20 Speaker 02 So Oddi was creative and he was the brains and Rudy was a little more extroverted and he was a really good salesperson.
11:27 Josh Clark? Right. So they they start to do a pretty good, pretty good business. And it's if you're like, well, it's a weird thing to start doing as a younger man to start making support shoes. It turns out that Herzog is like a shoemaking town. It has a long tradition of shoemaking. And in 1922, for example, their population was 3,500, but they had 112 shoemakers.
11:52 Speaker 02 That's amazing.
11:53 Josh Clark? That's a high shoemaker to regular population ratio. So it's not the weirdest thing ever. But they're plodding along. They're making really high quality shoes. Like right out of the gate, Oddi had a real, like I said, a talent for making high quality athletic shoes. And one of the first things they made were a track shoe that that one of these articles says looks like a ballet slipper with some nails coming out of the front of it, the front bottom, the foresole. And it was, it just changed everything. It was a genuinely great track shoe. At the time, they, the people who were running sprinters who were running track, they didn't have any traction when they were taking off.
12:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:37 Josh Clark? This gave them traction and just gave them an immediate leg up over the the competition. And so the athletes like really, really liked the shoes that they were putting out. And the company started to grow and grow and grow. And then I think the 1928 Olympics in Los Angeles is where they really debuted their shoes. And a German sprinter was wearing a pair of their track shoes. And all he won was a bronze medal, but he won a bronze medal wearing the Dassler Brothers shoes.
13:07 Speaker 02 And as a German sprinter.
13:09 Josh Clark? Exactly.
13:10 Speaker 02 So that should say it all.
13:11 Josh Clark? It does.
13:12 Speaker 02 So he was wearing these track spikes and this this helped and this got him a little bit of notoriety. But it was really in 1936 in Berlin, at that very, very famous Olympic Games, where a young athlete named Jesse Owens.
13:28 Speaker 02 Dominated and literally tore up the track wearing those Geburte Dassler track spikes. With Hitler in the stands. And people are like, those shoes are amazing. And Jesse Owens is like, it's kind of me, but yeah, sure. The shoes are great. I'm also a vastly superior athlete to the rest of these chumps out here.
13:51 Josh Clark? Yep. So that was the Olympics that Jesse Owens famously finished in first place, won the gold and did another lap around the track, went up into the stands and slapped Hitler right in the face.
14:02 Speaker 02 Oh, man. Slapped his little stash right off that lip.
14:05 Josh Clark? So the fact that Jesse Owens was wearing these shoes immediately brought international attention to GEDDA, the Geburte Dassler Company. So they, I saw one article that said, had World War II not happened, this, this business would have just gone global immediately. And it started to. But then when World War II broke out, and that was the 1936 Olympics. I think I said the 1928 Olympics. It was, I think, the 1932 Olympics that I talked about first. But at the 1936 Olympics, within just a couple of years, the Nazis invaded Poland and were running Germany. And World War II kicked off in earnest.
14:49 Josh Clark? And the, the, the time for sports apparel kind of got derailed a little bit.
14:55 Speaker 02 Yeah. So just like in the United States and, and actually in countries all over the world, the war effort was, it's not like they were just like, all right, we have a few companies that manufacture military needs for our military. And that's going to be good enough. It's like, no, we need to really co-opt kind of any manufacturing that we want to, to go toward the war effort. And certainly Germany did that along with the US and, and kind of everyone else. And everything from Hugo Boss to Lufthansa, to these little shoe makers in this small town in Bavaria.
15:33 Josh Clark? Yeah, their factories were co-opted for the war effort, basically. And what the Dassler Brothers factory ended up making are something called the Ponzer Schreck.
15:46 Josh Clark? Which means the tank terror. And it was modeled after the American Bazooka, which was one of the first shoulder-mounted recoilless rocket launchers that had enough power to punch right through a tank and blow up everybody inside. They were nasty little buggers. And the Panzer Schreck was the German version of the Bazooka. And the German version of the Bazooka was created in the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory.
16:13 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's December 1943 is when they kind of made the full switch. And these, these little, you know, German ladies who were sewing shoes the week before were now manufacturing German Bazookas. The good news is by this time, because these things were really effective, actually. And had they been, had they been brought into the war sooner, things might have really changed. But thankfully, by this time, even though they were doing the job, it was too late. The tides had turned and the Allies were steaming toward victory. And even though they started pumping out these Bazookas, it was sort of too little, too late.
16:55 Josh Clark? Yeah. Have you ever wondered about the name Bazooka?
16:59 Speaker 02 Not until just now.
17:01 Josh Clark? Okay, well, I did. And I was like, what does a Bazooka mean? Apparently, there was an entertainer, I think he might have been Vaudeville, kind of a country act.
17:09 Speaker 02 Okay.
17:10 Josh Clark? And he-
17:11 Speaker 02 Bazooka Joe?
17:12 Josh Clark? I can't remember his name. Doesn't matter. He created a musical instrument out of brass called a Bazooka. And it was kind of like a trumpet and a trombone together. It was a weird little instrument. But he was popular enough that, and the Bazooka looked like his instrument enough that it became called the Bazooka, this shoulder-mounted rocket launcher.
17:34 Speaker 02 Interesting.
17:35 Josh Clark? I thought so, too.
17:36 Speaker 02 Sure, why not?
17:37 Josh Clark? But the point is, is that all of a sudden, the Germans, who had been totally helpless against the American tank divisions, were messing the American tank divisions up. And the source of their power was the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory. And you mentioned their seamstresses welding Bazookas together.
17:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
17:57 Josh Clark? They're also in their factory, there was forced- Labor of French POWs.
18:02 Speaker 02 Sure.
18:03 Josh Clark? So they had slaves and seamstresses working together to create bazookas to take out the American tank divisions or the Allied tank divisions, thanks to the companies that would eventually become Adidas and Puma.
18:15 Speaker 02 All right, that's a great setup.
18:17 Josh Clark? Thank you.
18:17 Speaker 02 That's only part one into what is a very interesting story.
18:21 Josh Clark? Yeah.
18:21 Speaker 02 So we're gonna take a little break and we'll come back and talk about what went wrong with these two brothers right after this.
18:39 Speaker 03 First thought is like, wow, how are we gonna do all this?
18:42 Josh Clark? Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.
18:45 Speaker 02 That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fan's experience, and Alan's master plan made it all possible.
19:01 Speaker 03 It was good arrival, anything that was already built, and that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.
19:08 Josh Clark? That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.
19:14 Speaker 04 Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.
19:20 Speaker 02 And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.
19:24 Speaker 04 To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.
19:28 Speaker 03 What the fans experience, incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.
19:31 Josh Clark? AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.
19:35 Speaker 05 Connecting changes everything. AT&T.
19:41 Speaker 02 Hey, everybody, the holidays are coming up, so let us throw this out there. Are you prepared to host friends or family, like, really prepared? Because there's a difference between having people stay at your house and properly hosting them.
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20:44 Josh Clark? Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of VivGart, VivGart is also known as its generic name, Fgartigimod Alpha F-Cab, you'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.
21:07 Speaker 02 Join host Andra Stratten as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis. You'll hear how each guest worked with her care team on their treatment plan, as well as their personal challenges, setbacks, progress, and moments of connection.
21:20 Josh Clark? These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of VivGart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
21:47 Speaker 02 We gotta, we gotta go back in time a little bit because we sped right up to World War II.
21:52 Josh Clark? It was just too interesting to wait to talk about any longer.
21:56 Speaker 02 But we need to go back to about 1933 because these brothers ended up fracturing in a big, big way. And there have been, you know, some legendary sibling rivalries through the years, but this is, this is really one of the greats. And I believe even Rudy wrote as an older man, "The relation to my brother was ideal from 1924 till 1933. Then his young wife tried to interfere with business matters, although she with her 16 years had no experience at all and the warfare began."
22:30 Josh Clark? Yeah.
22:31 Speaker 02 So here's how the story goes. Is that in 1933, Adi was indeed married to a 16-year-old, which seems very creepy now, but back then it was not the strangest thing in the world.
22:44 Josh Clark? Slightly less creepy.
22:46 Speaker 02 Slightly less creepy. Well, they just, it was a different time.
22:49 Josh Clark? Okay.
22:49 Speaker 02 So he was married to a 16-year-old and tried to get involved in the business. Rudy was not happy about this. And they all lived together, the two brothers and their wives all lived together in the same townhouse.
23:02 Josh Clark? Yeah.
23:03 Speaker 02 Which is not a great recipe for success anyway.
23:06 Josh Clark? Right.
23:06 Speaker 02 You know, you need to have your own place.
23:08 Josh Clark? So you can imagine that all the little bickering and snide remarks and just all the stuff that if you have two couples that don't really, really, really like and love each other, living together will accumulate, if you translate that to a business relationship, it's going to be hard on the business and it was.
23:28 Speaker 02 For sure.
23:29 Josh Clark? So there is apparently a series of just little things like that, but as far as the family legend goes, the real break happened during World War II when the Allies were bombing the. The village of Herzog. And Rudy and his wife made their way to the bunker, the bomb shelter. And shortly after that, Adi and his wife, I think her name was Kata, they made their way into the bomb shelter. And when they entered, he said, oh, it looks like the bastards are here again. And Adi apparently went to his grave, saying that he was referring to the Allied bombers. But Rudy took it that Adi was talking about Rudy and his wife.
24:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:14 Josh Clark? And apparently that was the final straw.
24:16 Speaker 02 Yeah, this was true evidence that things were really bad. If something as simple possibly as just a little misunderstanding of whether or not the bastards were the Allies bombing, or you, my brother and my sister-in-law.
24:32 Josh Clark? Right.
24:33 Speaker 02 So, I mean, things were pretty bad if this is what did it.
24:36 Josh Clark? Right. So, that's, World War II is still going on. And at some point Rudy gets called to go fight for the Nazis. He gets drafted. So Rudy has to go to war. And the whole time he's away, he's, so this rift has already happened. So he's suspecting, one, that his brother and his brother's wife plotted to get him drafted. And he can't get that idea out of his head. So much so that apparently multiple times he deserted his post.
25:03 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:03 Josh Clark? To go home to make sure that he wasn't being ousted from the business he'd built with his brother. And then he gets arrested for desertion. And he's sure that his little brother ratted him out for desertion.
25:15 Speaker 02 Which he may have.
25:16 Josh Clark? And so he's arrested, he's held for a while. And as he's making his way back after the war to Herzog, he gets picked up by the Allies for under suspicion of being a Gestapo agent.
25:29 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:30 Josh Clark? He's sure again that his little brother Adi, who got him, this time landed in a POW camp, that he stays in for a little while. And it turns out he was right. There is documentary evidence from an American officer who took the accusation down. And apparently it was Adi who went to the Americans and said, my brother is a Gestapo agent, you may want to arrest him.
25:54 Speaker 02 What a jerk.
25:55 Josh Clark? This is the level of stuff these brothers are doing to one another. And the rift just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. There's one other thing we have to say because the wife, the younger wife, the 16-year-old Kata, gets historically blamed for creating this rift, to think in a lot of ways unfairly.
26:15 Speaker 02 Sure.
26:15 Josh Clark? She's also the one who saved the family business, single-handedly.
26:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, so in April 1945, the Americans march into Herzog. Those tanks pull up in front of that factory. And the soldiers, the American soldiers are out there like kind of going over what they should do. Should we destroy this building or not?
26:36 Josh Clark? This is the place where the Ponzers' Shreks were made.
26:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, so Adi's wife, Kata, comes out. And she basically walks right up to these enemy soldiers and says, "We only want to make shoes."
26:51 Speaker 02 "We only desire to make shoes."
26:53 Josh Clark? And they're like, "Why are you talking like Colonel Clink?"
26:56 Speaker 02 And she said, "We all do."
26:58 Josh Clark? Oh, okay.
26:59 Speaker 02 And that's basically, like, she convinced them to spare the factory. They did so. And not only that, the Air Force, the US Air Force, set up operations there, at their airbase, and realized that they really liked these shoes.
27:14 Josh Clark? Well, they found out that this was the company that made Jesse Owens' famous track shoes.
27:18 Speaker 02 Yeah, and so they went off the charts. They started getting these huge orders for sports teams, American sports teams, because of this.
27:26 Josh Clark? So, this is all going on, or it's all starting while Rudy's off in a POW camp because his brother ratted him out. And the business, all of a sudden, is starting to turn international. Like, like you said, people around the world are taking notice of this, thanks to the American GIs who are coming back with this Geta sportswear. And when Rudy comes back, it's done. His brothers ratted him out, there was the whole thing in the bomb shelter, and the brothers split the company that they built together. They split Gebreder Dassler, or Dassler, and they go off and found their own companies.
28:06 Speaker 02 Yeah, 15 years after that bunker incident.
28:09 Josh Clark? Yep.
28:10 Speaker 02 So, it was, it took a long time to finally boil over.
28:13 Josh Clark? Right.
28:13 Speaker 02 And in between, there was another war. They were not good Nazis, we should point out. Kind of, you know, they were members of the Nazi Party, and Rudy did get drafted, but, like you said, he deserted his post a lot. And they, you know, they really did just want to sell shoes.
28:29 Josh Clark? Right, he's like Dwight Schrute's uncle.
28:33 Josh Clark? Or grandfather who spent a lot of the war in an allied POW camp.
28:38 Speaker 02 That's right. So like you said, they split up the company and we mentioned earlier that this river ran through the center of town and I said, significant. And it is significant because it literally divided the town and they set up their business. It's not like one of them said, well, I'm going off to Berlin.
28:55 Josh Clark? Right.
28:56 Speaker 02 They just set up camp on opposite sides of that river. Adi Dassler said, I will name my company Adidas.
29:06 Josh Clark? Actually, at first they named it Adas.
29:08 Speaker 02 Well, yeah, but everyone said that stinks.
29:11 Josh Clark? Well, no, that was a different one. That one, there was a children's footwear line already called Adas. So he added the I and turned it into Adidas.
29:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, Rudy went with Ruda.
29:22 Josh Clark? Which is terrible.
29:23 Speaker 02 Everyone said that no one's gonna buy shoes named Ruda, especially in the United States. And he said, I don't understand. And they said, don't worry about it. So somehow he got Puma out of Ruda.
29:35 Josh Clark? Right.
29:36 Speaker 02 Which I don't get, but it's a name that stuck.
29:38 Josh Clark? Yeah, and it works. Puma's definitely better than Ruda for sure.
29:42 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
29:43 Josh Clark? So these two go off and form directly competing companies that split from the same company that the brothers had founded together. And Adidas and Puma started making pretty good headway out of the gate. At first Rudy had the sales team, had the marketing team, had the, the ability to move some product. But Adi had the technical know-how, the dedication to making high-quality footwear that athletes, like professional athletes wanted to wear. And so he could get his shoes onto athletes who would wear them on the world stage. And eventually his, his.
30:25 Josh Clark? I guess his tack won out over his brothers. And from a very early stage on Adidas has always led Puma, at least as far as like, sales revenue goes.
30:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, and you know, there were mistakes from both of them along the way, business-wise. One of the big ones for Puma, early on, was that Rudolph got into a spat with the coach of the German national soccer team. And of course, all that did was open the door for his brother, Adidas, to go in there and say, "What about these shoes?" Which is exactly what happened. And so, at the 1954 World Cup, Germany wears Adidas with those signature stripes. And even though they were not favored at all, West Germany actually won against, who? Hungary, I believe.
31:16 Josh Clark? Yes.
31:17 Speaker 02 And that was a huge, huge deal on a national, international stage.
31:20 Josh Clark? It was like the miracle on ice on grass.
31:24 Speaker 02 You mean, they were stoned?
31:25 Josh Clark? They were all stoned out of their gourds.
31:29 Speaker 02 The miracle on ice on grass. That might have legs, my friend.
31:32 Josh Clark? I think it might, too.
31:33 Speaker 02 You need to trademark that.
31:35 Josh Clark? Well, I do officially, right now, trademarked.
31:38 Speaker 02 I love it. So, that was one mistake. Adidas would, of course, go on to make some mistakes later. I know that you sent that one article where they talked about how, they said, you know, at one point, that like, jogging, no one's gonna do that, so we're not gonna make jogging shoes.
31:56 Josh Clark? Right.
31:57 Speaker 02 And aerobics, that's a...
31:59 Josh Clark? It's a flash in the pan.
32:00 Speaker 02 Sure.
32:01 Josh Clark? Who cares about physical fitness?
32:02 Speaker 02 And so, you mentioned Reebok earlier. It's hard for the young folk out there who are listening to know this, but there was a time when Reebok was the name in sports apparel.
32:15 Josh Clark? Well, plus all, yeah, and Reebok, this article says that they lost their way at some point, but the way that Reebok kinda... Took the lead for a little while, was saying, no, we'll get into jogging. We'll get into aerobics and we'll make this stuff. At a time when Adidas and Puma were ignoring it. One of the other mistakes that both Adidas and Puma made was that they were so focused on beating one another.
32:38 Speaker 02 Oh, man.
32:38 Josh Clark? They just completely dropped the ball, as it were, on the rise of Nike.
32:44 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:44 Josh Clark? And Nike was able to take over and apparently right out of the gate. And since then, Nike's always been the leader in sports apparel.
32:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, and Adidas is two and Puma's three, right?
32:55 Josh Clark? Yeah.
32:55 Speaker 02 Amazing.
32:56 Josh Clark? So you have an option these days. You can buy your sports apparel from a company that's been known to use child labor.
33:04 Speaker 02 Uh huh.
33:04 Josh Clark? Or a company that used forced French labor under the auspices of the Nazi Party in World War II.
33:11 Speaker 02 Hooray.
33:13 Josh Clark? Let's take a break.
33:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, we'll take a break and we'll talk about how this rift still oddly carries over in that town today and Run DMC.
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36:48 Speaker 02 All right, so back in the day when they first split off this company and that river's running through this town, it was a really big deal. It wasn't just a sibling rivalry. It became a town-wide rivalry in that you worked for one company or the other as a family. Like, husband and wife didn't work, they didn't split up and one worked at Puma and one worked at Adidas.
37:13 Josh Clark? And plus, I mean, if you fell in love with somebody from a family across the river, like, that was sorry. You got a Romeo and Juliet thing going on that ain't gonna work out.
37:22 Speaker 02 Isn't that crazy?
37:23 Josh Clark? It is. And I was glad that one of the local historians who was interviewed for one of these articles said, "It wasn't like bloody or anything, like, no one lost their lives over this. It was just, you know, if you worked for Puma, you stayed on the Puma side of the river. If you worked for Adidas, you stayed on the Adidas side of the river." And each group kept to themselves. That was all.
37:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, and it still carries over to this day, some of those recent interviews that we both read. I mean, it's certainly, now it's a little more good-natured ribbing, but they say when you walk around this town, walk through a playground and you will see kids kitted out in all Adidas or all Puma, and this is carried down from generations where they were Adidas or Puma families. And it was a really big deal and still remains so to this day, such that the mayor, who actually came from a Puma family-
38:15 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
38:16 Speaker 02 But to be mayor, you can't, you know-
38:18 Josh Clark? You gotta be a politician.
38:19 Speaker 02 Sure. So, he will wear to some events, casual events, Puma gear and sometimes Adidas gear. Eventually, in 2009, they had a friendly soccer match between the official Puma-sponsored team and Adidas team, and he wore one Puma shoe and one Adidas shoe, just to remain neutral, I guess.
38:38 Josh Clark? And to look like a total jackass.
38:40 Speaker 02 Probably so. Then it showed him rubbing like his Adidas foot later on. They caught him on camera.
38:46 Josh Clark? So, this was, like you said, there was a soccer game that was played between Adidas and Puma, kind of a reconciliation thing, on International Peace Day, back in, I think, 2009?
38:58 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:58 Josh Clark? That happened, think about this. The Rudy and Adi Dassler died in the seventies, within four years of each other. This was 2009 before the companies finally kind of had this reconciliation game.
39:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
39:16 Josh Clark? And yeah, today, still, it's like you kind of, well, you'll gently, you know, make fun of somebody wearing Adidas if you're a Puma family or whatever. But while the brothers were alive, you just steered clear of everybody who was on the, on the other side. So much so that Herzog was known as the town of the lowered gaze. Because if you came upon somebody on the street, you would look at their shoes to see what shoes they were wearing before you decided whether you're gonna talk to them or not.
39:43 Speaker 02 Isn't that so funny?
39:43 Josh Clark? It was that, it was that established. This, these brothers' hatred and rivalry of one another, they didn't speak for decades, spread out into the town that was divided by this river. And the town itself took sides because of this rift between these brothers that all started supposedly in this bomb shelter during World War II.
40:06 Speaker 02 Yeah, and the Mayor Hacker, his first name is German. Could that be right? German the German?
40:14 Josh Clark? Maybe the journalist, the German, or the journalist is really lazy and didn't, they're just like, it's a, he's a German, we're just gonna call him that.
40:21 Speaker 02 I wonder if he pronounces it German. That's what I would say.
40:25 Josh Clark? Or Herrmann?
40:26 Speaker 02 Cause they don't say Germany over there, anyway.
40:28 Josh Clark? But, yeah, they say Deutschland.
40:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
40:30 Josh Clark? But, but would, would it be Herrmann? Or, no, I guess they spell their Herrmanns with an H.
40:35 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think it would be Mayor German Hacker.
40:39 Josh Clark? Right, oh yeah, there is an H right there.
40:40 Speaker 02 German Haki Saka.
40:43 Josh Clark? Who's on grass.
40:45 Speaker 02 But he says, if someone, if someone comes in through the door, to this day, your gaze still wanders to their shoes. It's just in the DNA of those people that this athletic gear is so important. It's so strange. Such a cool, cool, weird story.
41:02 Josh Clark? It is a great story of sibling rivalry and bitterness and hatred.
41:07 Speaker 02 And like you said, they didn't speak for decades. Apparently, much later in life, there were a couple of times when they were rumored to have spoken. Once, I think they ran into each other at an airport. Once, they saw each other at a hotel. And I believe on the deathbed. Which one tried to get in touch with the other?
41:28 Josh Clark? Rudy was dying.
41:30 Speaker 02 Rudy put out the call, said, "I would like to see my brother Adi one more time." And Adi went, "No, thanks."
41:36 Josh Clark? I'm good.
41:37 Speaker 02 Nine.
41:38 Josh Clark? Can you believe it?
41:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, man, that's, that's tough.
41:42 Josh Clark? So, they died, the family sold the, um, the business in the eighties, late eighties, and they got, um, bought by, um, like, corporate conglomerates.
41:53 Speaker 02 Sure.
41:54 Josh Clark? Ironically, Puma now owns Reebok, and Gucci owns Puma. Adidas is still just Adidas, but again, it's, it's owned by like a mega conglomerate.
42:05 Speaker 02 Right.
42:06 Josh Clark? And they've, they've just gone enormous and make billions of dollars a year. So, the families aren't necessarily involved, but one family member still works in the business. His name is Frank Dossler. I believe he was Rudy's grandson, and he used to work at Puma. He was pretty high up in Puma.
42:25 Speaker 02 Yeah.
42:26 Josh Clark? Now, he works as the head of the legal department for Adidas.
42:30 Speaker 02 Man, talking about switching sides.
42:32 Josh Clark? It's a pretty good indication of how, how much this cold war is kind of thawed between the two companies quite a bit, because the people who are running it have no skin in the game. They don't, they don't care anymore, you know?
42:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, or he's an attorney and he was just after the most money.
42:46 Josh Clark? Right. He's like, "Let me suck your blood."
42:49 Speaker 02 So, we have a fun little postscript on this. Uh, I know we've been talking about Run DMC. Uh, and again, you youngins, it might be second nature now to associate athletic gear and hip hop and rap music and culture, but back in the early 1980s, that was not the case, uh, until Run DMC came along.
43:09 Josh Clark? No, like, uh, your, your rappers probably dressed like a Ghanim King.
43:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
43:14 Josh Clark? Um, or maybe like, uh, the New York Dolls.
43:18 Speaker 02 Yeah, or just like, I mean, uh, sometimes I feel like I've seen just like denim jackets and just sort of like, just sort of streetwear, which is the unhippest thing I've ever said.
43:29 Josh Clark? It was pretty unhip. I didn't want to say anything, but I'm glad you did.
43:33 Speaker 02 Streetwear.
43:34 Josh Clark? So, uh, you know, play clothes.
43:37 Josh Clark? So Run DMC changed everything when they released a single called My Adidas.
43:42 Speaker 02 Yeah.
43:43 Josh Clark? And I saw elsewhere that they released a single My Adidas, kind of in retaliation to a song.
43:50 Josh Clark? A song called Felon Shoes. So have you ever noticed that Run DMC wore their Adidas without laces with the tongues popped out?
43:58 Speaker 02 Oh, I noticed.
43:59 Josh Clark? That was supposedly because that's how people in prison had to wear their shoes. Cause they weren't allowed to have shoelaces and they were kind of saying like, we're down with all of our buddies in prison.
44:08 Speaker 02 Interesting.
44:08 Josh Clark? So this song Felon Shoes basically was making fun of that and basically teaching kids not to emulate prisoners. And Run DMC took issue with that and they ended up releasing My Adidas. The song on Raising Hell in 1986, sorry, Raising Hell.
44:24 Speaker 02 Yes.
44:25 Josh Clark? Which I remember my family was on a bus to Disney World once, I think. And the windows were foggy and I was so into Run DMC, I just wrote Raising Hell in the fog on the window.
44:37 Speaker 02 Dude.
44:37 Josh Clark? People on the bus thought that was really hilarious.
44:40 Speaker 02 That is a great story.
44:42 Josh Clark? So I was into My Adidas too because of Run DMC, but it wasn't just me. Apparently if you went to a Run DMC show on the Raising Hell tour or the Together Forever tour in 1986 or 87, when they sang My Adidas, everybody would take off their shoes and hold their Adidas in the air.
44:58 Speaker 02 Yeah.
44:59 Josh Clark? That's how, that's how big of an impact this song had.
45:02 Speaker 02 Yeah. And in 1986, a senior employee at Adidas named Angelo Anastasio, went to that tour at Madison Square Garden, saw this happen with the Adidas sneakers and was like, hold on a minute.
45:18 Speaker 02 Wait just a second, we could have something here. Ran back to the headquarters and within just a few days, they signed them to a million dollar endorsement deal. And that was like a sea change forward for hip hop groups getting money in all sorts of ways.
45:36 Josh Clark? Yeah. And apparently it made Adidas' sales just go through the roof.
45:40 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah. And it's like that began the marriage of like, I'm gonna put out a record, I'm gonna get a shoe deal, I might get a vodka sponsor, like, I'll get money flowing in from all kinds of directions and Run DMC started it all.
45:56 Josh Clark? A vodka sponsor, that's hilarious.
45:58 Speaker 02 Sure, I feel like I've seen that, no?
46:00 Josh Clark? Oh yeah, you totally have, like, P. Diddy and Ciroc vodka, I think?
46:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
46:06 Josh Clark? Look, it works. I associate P. Diddy and Ciroc vodka.
46:10 Speaker 02 Andrew's nodding. I mean, you're correct.
46:12 Josh Clark? Awesome, thanks, Andrew.
46:14 Speaker 02 Jerry would've been like, what? My miso's getting cold.
46:17 Josh Clark? Right, can you guys hurry up? We will hurry up, ghost of Jerry. If you wanna know anything else about Adidas and Puma, well, just go start reading up more. There's actually a book by a woman named Barbara Schmidt called Sneaker Wars, appropriately, all about the rift between Adidas and Puma. So if you wanna know more about it, that's a pretty good place to start. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail.
46:46 Speaker 02 Yeah, I'm gonna call this, uh, sponges.
46:49 Josh Clark? Okay.
46:50 Speaker 02 Hey, guys, I was listening to Pando, and I was excited y'all mentioned glass sponges, which are thought to be the oldest animals on Earth. I am a PhD student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, and I study marine sponges because they make all sorts of unique molecules that can be used as new medicines. I think sponges are the coolest animals on Earth, and I'd love to share some of my favorite sponge fun facts. You ready?
47:15 Josh Clark? Oh, yes.
47:16 Speaker 02 Not only are sponges thought to be the oldest living, uh, single living animals on Earth, but some evolutionary biologists even think sponges were the first animals to ever evolve. In other words, our last common animal ancestor could very well have been a sponge.
47:31 Josh Clark? That's so cool.
47:33 Speaker 02 Did you know the first antiviral drug approved by the FDA was developed from a molecule in a sea sponge?
47:38 Josh Clark? I didn't until just now.
47:40 Speaker 02 As a PhD student, I collect and study sponges because they are known to produce thousands of bioactive molecules, many of which have medicinal potential. I think it's pretty incredible that the ocean may hold the cure to some of the most devastating human diseases, and I hope my work might inspire people to protect the world's oceans and the valuable resources within them.
48:00 Josh Clark? That's awesome.
48:01 Speaker 02 Heck, yeah. Thanks for all the hard work you guys put into the show. Y'all have kept me company on many a long night in the lab with my sponges.
48:08 Josh Clark? That's awesome. It makes me want to go chew on a sponge and see what happens.
48:12 Speaker 02 That's right. That's from Kayla Wilson from San Diego.
48:16 Josh Clark? Thanks a lot, Kayla. Thanks for the work you're doing, too. Thank you for saving humanity from grave diseases.
48:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, we'll look into these sponges, as you call them.
48:25 Josh Clark? If you want us to look into anything that we put in scare quotes, well, we want to know about it. You can go onto our website, stuffyoushouldknow.com, follow us on our social links there. You can get in touch with us. You can also send us a good old fashioned email. Wrap it up, spank that thing on the bottom, and send it off to [email protected] .
48:49 Speaker 00 Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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