I can withdraw my consent at any time in the future by sending an e-mail to catchup puma. For almost a century, the little German town where PUMA was founded and where our headquarters still are, was characterized by its shoe factories. Dassler Schuhfabrik , which the eventual PUMA founder Rudolf Dassler founded with his brother in , almost 30 other factories were scattered throughout the town.
Many did not manage to survive past the s. Rudolf Dassler, however, maneuvered his company out of Herzogenaurach into the big business and laid the foundation for the successful global sports brand PUMA is today. Adolf and Rudolf Dassler were born into a poor family at the turn of the 19th century. Their father, Christoph Dassler, was a worker at a shoe factory, while their mother, Pauline Dassler, ran a small laundry business. At age 15 Rudolf Dassler started working at the same shoe factory as his father and soon showed the qualities of an entrepreneur.
He was energetic, persistent, and ambitious, and he saved his hard-earned money instead of spending it right away. However, it was not until after World War I that he had a opportunity to prove himself in business. After the war, Rudolf Dassler took his first positions in business management, first at a porcelain factory and later in a leather wholesale business in Nuremberg.
In the early s Rudolf Dassler decided to go back to Herzogenaurach and team up with his brother Adolf in a business partnership.
Rudolf Dassler ran the business, while Adolf took care of the technical operations and production. Soon they realized that there was not a particularly promising market for their shoes and so switched their focus to the manufacture of track shoes and football boots, a market that was just getting started at that time.
With a great deal of luck the company acquired its first major client, the sports club in Herzogenaurach, which ordered no fewer than 10, pairs of athletic shoes in Thus, despite the ongoing worldwide economic depression in the late s, the Dassler company took off and gained a reputation among athletes and sporting goods companies. Half of all athletes at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in wore Dassler shoes. In , African-American track star Jesse Owens brought the company into the public eye when he won four gold medals at the Olympic Games in Berlin wearing Dassler shoes.
Three years later World War II broke out. Although the brothers could have given up for a number of reasons during the war, it was not this world-shattering event that led to the Dassler company's sudden end, but a homemade war of a different kind.
In , the two brothers had a serious falling-out, and they stopped talking to each other. Their company was split into two new companies: Adolf Dassler formed his own business named adidas, combining his nickname Adi with the first three letters of his last name; Rudolf Dassler set up his own shop called Puma Schuhfabrik Rudolf Dassler. The two brothers had become competitors. A number of world-class athletes, especially runners and soccer players, helped the young Puma brand gain acceptance.
The Olympic Games in in Helsinki were a spectacular success for Puma and opened the British market to the young company. The American Olympic Committee made Puma its official shoe supplier in and again In the American women's meter relay team won the Olympic gold medal in Puma running shoes. After some early difficulty, the company's export business began to thrive. Puma shoes were shipped to 55 countries on five continents.
The first licensed production line was opened in Austria. In Rudolf Dassler's firm was transformed into Puma Sportschuhfabriken Rudolf Dassler Kommanditgesellschaft, as Dassler's wife and his two sons, Armin and Gerd, became part owners of the firm.
By Puma shoes were exported to almost countries around the world. Another Puma hallmark was product innovation. In Puma introduced a new technology for soccer shoes, using a vulcanization process to join the soles to the uppers.
Soon 80 percent of all soccer shoes were manufactured with this technology. In the early s Puma also developed running shoes with a uniquely shaped sole that supported the natural movement of the foot, based on the latest medical research of the time. Little did the brothers know that their rivalry would change the sporting goods industry forever, nor that it would still be profoundly shaping the small town of Herzogenaurach, where both companies are based, to this day.
To mark the 70th anniversary of the Dassler dispute and the founding of Puma, Business Insider visited the "cradle of the sporting goods industry" as historians call the town, to see how the two brands still dominate and divide the landscape today. Brothers Rudolf and Adolf Dassler sewed their first sneakers in the laundry room of their parents' Herzogenaurach home.
Their big breakthrough came at the Olympic Games in Berlin: the athletes they equipped received seven gold medals and five silver and bronze medals between them. During the Second World War, Geda was converted into an weaponry factory and Rudolf was drafted while Adolf stayed at home. After Rudolf returned from the war following one year of imprisonment, shoe production started again — but in January , a rift formed between the brothers that would remain until their deaths.
To this day nobody knows what caused of the dispute. Not even their grandchildren know, although there are many theories. One theory is that, because Rudolf had fled the front in and was arrested on his way back, Adolf gave the US occupiers information about his brother to get him out of the way.
According to another theory, Adolf was jealous of his brother — something was rumoured to have happened between Rudolf and his brother's wife, and he was known as a womaniser. For years there was an Adidas soccer club and another for Puma: 1. The athletes didn't have to worry about anything — from shoes and bags to jerseys, everything was provided. With the withdrawal of Dassler's heirs from Puma and Adidas in the s, the companies' involvement in the town also declined.
It's said that the Dassler family quarrels were so divisive that the Puma and Adidas families went to separate bakeries, had their own separate butchers, as well as their own separate pubs. His childhood was marked by the Dassler dispute — the contact between his grandfather Rudolf and his brother was non-existent.
Outside the Dassler family, other families either identified with Puma or Adidas — neither both. Married couples, both of whom worked for different brands, were virtually non-existent. The two camps didn't mollify until the death of the Dassler brothers at the end of the s.
Dassler now runs a winery on the market square, visited by both Puma and Adidas employees alike. There are still Puma and Adidas families in Herzogenaurach today, although the friction has eased into a less aggressive rivalry — the companies have become more international and only a fraction of the workforce has grown up in the town. PUMA views sport as a philosophy on life — one that emphasizes fitness, wellness and simply living an active life.
Since Sport can be different things to different people, PUMA approaches it in a greater-lifestyle context, while not compromising performance. Zeitz has Spearheaded and held primary responsibility for the worldwide restructuring of PUMA, which was in financial difficulties at the time.
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