Adidas vs Puma: The Family Feud That Built Two Empires

Two brothers built one company together. Then they became enemies. In the 1920s, Adi and Rudolf Dassler began making sports shoes in Herzogenaurach, a small town in northern Bavaria. Adi was the craftsman, Rudolf the salesman. In 1928 Lina Radke won Olympic gold in Dassler shoes, and at the 1936 Berlin Games Adi is reported to have offered his spikes to Jesse Owens. Then came the Nazi years, the war, an arrest and suspicion inside one crowded family house. In 1948 the brothers split the business: Rudolf's side became PUMA, Adi's became adidas. This archival documentary follows the feud from one workshop to two global brands: a town divided into two camps, the 1954 World Cup final in Bern, the race for the world's best athletes – and the question no one has fully answered: what really broke the brothers apart? CHAPTERS 0:00 Two brothers, one company 0:25 The workshop in Herzogenaurach 1:37 Olympic history 2:47 War and the breaking point 4:45 The split: RUDA, PUMA and adidas 5:50 A town divided 6:49 The rivalry goes global 8:11 Legacy ARCHIVE Film: Official film of the 1954 FIFA World Cup (FIFA) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum · Universal Newsreel and U.S. Army Signal Corps (U.S. National Archives) · Beeld en Geluid / Open Beelden (Haghefilm, c. 1920) · Prelinger Archives (George T. Fonda, 1947) · PUMA (headquarters footage) Photographs and documents: Adi & Käthe Dassler Memorial Foundation · adidas Archive · PUMA Archive · Bundesarchiv · U.S. National Archives · Library of Congress · Nationaal Archief (Spaarnestad, Anefo) · ETH-Bibliothek Zürich (Comet Photo) · Bildarchiv Foto Marburg (Lala Aufsberg) · Stadtmuseum Herzogenaurach · Archiv des Erzbistums Bamberg · Landesarchiv NRW (Hansa Luftbild) · Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg · Deutsche Fotothek · Deutsches Sport & Olympia Museum · 1. FC Herzogenaurach 1916 e.V. · German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) · Historisches Lexikon Bayerns · Daily Sketch · dpa/picture alliance, Mondadori, ddp/AFP and Peace One Day via Getty Images · Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo via Alamy · Luftbild Verlag Strähle · NASA Earth Observatory and Scientific Visualization Studio · David Rumsey Map Collection · Wikimedia Commons contributors Maps and titles: Behind Billions (map data: Natural Earth) SOURCES · Barbara Smit, "Pitch Invasion: Adidas, Puma and the Making of Modern Sport" (2006; US edition "Sneaker Wars", 2008) · Adi & Käthe Dassler Memorial Foundation – Chronicle (adidassler.org) · adidas – company history and archive articles (adidas-group.com) · PUMA – corporate timeline (about.puma.com) and "PUMA's Founding Story" (PUMA CATch up) · Deutsche Biographie (NDB-online) – Rudolf Dassler · DPMAregister – German trademark no. 606372 · U.S. National Archives – RG 242, NSDAP membership records · City of Herzogenaurach – Stadtmuseum online exhibition · 1. FC Herzogenaurach – club history · Olympedia – Olympic results Full list of every archival item with links: [LINK TO FULL SOURCE LIST] NOTES Footage of a Dutch shoe factory (c. 1920) and some wartime images are illustrative and labelled on screen; they do not show the Dassler premises. Several popular stories about the feud have never been proven, and the film says so where that applies. Behind Billions is independent and is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by adidas or PUMA. Brand names appear for identification and historical reference. #adidas #puma #documentary