DASSLER BROTHERS

 

ADOLF DASSLER

German cobbler, inventor and entrepreneur who founded the German sportswear company ADIDAS.

 

                                        Born                      3 November 1900 Herzogenaurach, Germany

                                        Died                      6 September 1978 (aged 77)  Herzogenaurach, West Germany

                                        Occupation        Founder of Adidas

 

 

Adolf Dassler was an innovator in athletic shoe design and one of the early promoters who got lots of endorsements from athletes to drive sale of his products. Because of his concepts, he built the largest manufacturer of sportswear and equipment.

In 1913, Adi completed his formal education and was apprenticed to be a baker. He was not at all interested in becoming a baker and used to spend lot of his free time in sport events like football, boxing, ice hockey, skiing and ski jumping. 

Adi completed his apprenticeship but decided against becoming a baker. Instead, he began learning stitching from his father. He also began thinking about how changes in shoe design could improve athletic performance. 

 

In June 1918, Adi was recruited as a soldier in WW1 during the last days of the war. He remained in the army for over a year until October 1919. When Adi returned, he found that the economic devastation of the war caused their mother to give up the laundry business. Adi then decided to pursue his concepts of innovative athletic footwear design and use the laundry shed to begin a small shoe production business.

His father, Christoph, who worked in a shoe factory, and the brother Zehlein, who produced the handmade spikes for track shoes in their blacksmith’s shop, supported Adolf in starting his own business.

In 1920s, Adi Dassler and Rudolf Dassler started with the company “Dassler brothers Sports shoe company”.

At the time of his death Adidas had 17 factories and annual sales of one billion marks.

In 1973, Adolf Dassler’s son Horst Dassler founded Arena, a producer of swimming equipment.

After Adolf Dassler’s death from heart failure in 1978, Horst and his wife Käthe took over the management.

Käthe also died on December 31, 1984, and then Horst died on April 11, 1987.

The last of the family members who worked for Adidas was Frank Dassler (the grandson of Rudolf), head of the legal department since 2004, who resigned in January 2018.

In 2006, a sculpture of Dassler was unveiled in the Adi Dassler Stadium in Herzogenaurach. 

 

RUDOLF DASSLER

GERMAN FOUNDER OF THE SPORTSWEAR COMPANY PUMA.

                        Born             26 March 1898 Herzogenaurach, Germany

                        Died             27 October 1974 (aged 76) Herzogenaurach,West Germany

                        Nationality    German

                        Occupation   Founder of Puma

 

Dassler brothers were partners in a shoe company Adi started with name Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory. In 1924, Rudolf joined the business.

Rudolf was affectionately known as ‘Bobby’ because this was the only sound that he could make for the first three years of his life.

With the rise of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, both Dassler brothers joined the Nazi Party.

The brothers became rivals following World War II and started their own companies in 1948.

Initially calling the new company “Ruda” (Rudolf Dassler), it was soon changed to its present name of Puma. 

Puma is the native Quechua word for COUGAR ( A large American wild cat), from there it went into German as well as other languages.

Under Rudolf’s direction, Puma remained a small provincial company.

Only under the direction of his son, Armin Dassler, did it become the worldwide known company as it is today.

Rudi Dassler died on 27 October 1974 of lung cancer at the age of 76.

 

WATCH THE FOLLOWING VIDEOS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv8CvDZSWKo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4hs0r3yGV8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCzB7ou6Rig