Adi Dassler: Craftsmanship, Athletes, and a Brothers' Feud

Why Adi Dassler is instructive for owners

The story of adidas and Puma is often told as a family feud: two brothers, a small town, two global corporations on opposite sides of a river. That is part of the truth. For owners of small and mid-sized businesses, however, Adi Dassler's path contains two lessons that go beyond the anecdote. The first concerns how he developed products: close to those who used them. The second concerns what happens when partners do not settle their conflicts.

This portrait therefore pursues one question: What does Adi Dassler's path show about developing products with customers and about the consequences of unresolved conflicts between founders? It relies only on publicly documented information, above all the timeline of the Adi and Käthe Dassler Memorial Foundation, company accounts, and encyclopedia entries. Where sources differ or information is not established, I say so.

To answer it, I first trace the milestones, present the lead user model as a mental model, put the brothers' feud into context, and finally ask what owners can conclude. The Nazi era is part of the history and is not left out.

The milestones: from the washroom to two global brands

Adolf Dassler, known as Adi, was born on November 3, 1900, in Herzogenaurach. He first trained as a baker but was more interested in sport and shoemaking. In 1920, together with Karl Zech, he began making shoes in his mother's washroom and developed a first running shoe. On July 1, 1924, he and his older brother Rudolf had the “Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik” (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory) entered in the commercial register.

1. 1925: studs and spikes

   The first football boots with leather studs and running shoes with hand-forged spikes are made.

2. 1928: the first Olympic Games

   In Amsterdam, athletes wear Dassler shoes for the first time. Lina Radke wins gold in the 800 meters.

3. 1930: working with the coach

   Adi Dassler begins developing competition shoes with the national athletics coach Josef Waitzer.

4. 1936: Jesse Owens

   At the Olympic Games in Berlin, Jesse Owens wins four gold medals in Dassler shoes. According to adidas, how the contact came about is poorly documented.

5. 1948 and 1949: split and new start

   The brothers become irreconcilably estranged and divide the business. On August 18, 1949, Adi founds the “Adolf Dassler adidas Sportschuhfabrik” with 47 employees and registers the name and the three stripes as a trademark. Rudolf founds his own company, which becomes known as Puma.

6. 1954: Bern

   The German national team wins the final against Hungary 3–2 in Switzerland, wearing, among other things, adidas shoes with screw-in studs. The tournament is regarded as the company's breakthrough.

Adi Dassler died on September 6, 1978, shortly before his 78th birthday. His wife Käthe, to whom he had been married since 1934 and who had helped shape the company for decades, took over its leadership, followed after her death in 1984 by their son Horst. It is often stated that Adi Dassler held more than 700 patents and similar rights. This figure could not be confirmed from a primary source for this portrait.

The Nazi era: what is documented

An honest portrait includes the National Socialist period. According to publicly available accounts, both brothers joined the NSDAP in 1933. Adi Dassler was drafted into the Wehrmacht and returned to the business after about a year. Toward the end of the war, the factory produced the Panzerschreck anti-tank weapon, using forced laborers. In the denazification proceedings, Adi Dassler was first classified as “minderbelastet” (lesser offender) and later as “Mitläufer” (follower).

This information comes from encyclopedia entries based on secondary literature. The sources used here provide no reliable information on personal motives, the situation of the forced laborers in the factory, or the individual responsibility of the two brothers. I therefore do not judge beyond what is documented. What must be noted is this: the company's success story contains a chapter that does not fit the legend, and it belongs to it nonetheless.

The mental model: developing with lead users

In the 1980s, the innovation researcher Eric von Hippel coined a term that describes Adi Dassler's approach well. Lead users are users who have a need significantly earlier than the broad market and who benefit greatly when it is met. Because they stand to gain so much, they often develop solutions themselves or push manufacturers to do so. A company that works with them deliberately sees tomorrow's needs today.

Lüthje and Herstatt (2004) summarized the findings on the method. They describe how companies such as 3M or Hilti work with lead users to reduce the risk that every new development entails. The method deliberately looks for people at the leading edge of a trend and involves them in cross-functional development teams. At the same time, the authors note that the method, although frequently cited, is only partly underpinned theoretically and empirically.

The mapping is my interpretation. Dassler did not work according to a method that was only described decades later. But the pattern is clear: his most important developments arose in exchange with people working at the limit of the possible. The Memorial Foundation's timeline records that from 1948 onward, Adi and Käthe Dassler shared what little they had with customers, coaches, and athletes and cultivated lifelong friendships.

Whoever discusses their products only with the average customer learns what is needed today. Whoever discusses them with the most demanding learns what will be needed tomorrow.

The brothers' feud: two readings

Why the brothers split in 1948 has not been conclusively established. The Memorial Foundation's timeline speaks only of an irreconcilable estrangement. The first reading looks for the cause in the people. Many accounts describe Adi as a quiet tinkerer and Rudolf as a salesman with a loud manner. From this perspective, two characters clashed, and personal slights from the war and postwar period did the rest. This reading is popular but relies heavily on stories that cannot be verified.

The second reading sees a structure that favors such conflicts. Two brothers ran a company together without it being publicly known how responsibilities, decisions, and a possible exit were arranged. Add to this the families living in the same house and a time of great uncertainty. Conflict research distinguishes task, process, and relationship conflicts. The article conflicts between partners describes how unresolved process questions come to feel like personal slights over time, and how, according to Friedrich Glasl, conflicts escalate in nine stages until both sides accept damage to themselves.

I consider the second reading the more useful one, without ruling out the first. Personal differences exist in every founding team. Whether they lead to a split also depends on whether there are rules that absorb a conflict before it becomes personal. Which topics partners should settle early is described in the article what partners should settle early.

What the split cost and what it brought

At first glance, the case refutes the thesis that conflicts between partners are harmful. One business became two global brands. An everyday analogy shows why this conclusion falls short. Whoever builds two new houses after a house fire has not proven that the fire was good. They have proven that they can build. Whether a joint company with regulated disputes would have been even more successful cannot be said.

What is visible, by contrast, are the costs that fit the picture of an escalated conflict. According to consistent accounts, the brothers did not speak to each other again for the rest of their lives, and the split ran through workforces and families. For family businesses today, this is the real warning: not every dispute ends in two successful companies. More often it ends in one weakened one. How family and business are cleanly separated is described in the article leading a family business.

What owners can transfer today

Two groups of principles can be derived from Adi Dassler's path: one for developing products and services, one for how partners work together.

• Name three customers who already have requirements today that others will only have in a few years.
• Develop the next improvement of your offering together with these customers, not just for them.
• Regularly invite demanding customers to a conversation about their problems, for example in a small customer advisory board.
• Record in writing with your co-partners who is responsible for what and how decisions are made in case of disagreement.
• Settle the exit while you still get along well.
• Address process questions before they come to feel like personal slights.

How regular customers can sharpen a business's strategy is described in the guide setting up a customer advisory board. Another portrait of a business founded out of a craft is the one on Margarete Steiff.

Limits of this portrait

Three caveats apply. First, much of the information comes from a foundation that preserves the memory of Adi and Käthe Dassler, and from the company itself. Independent sources are mainly encyclopedia entries. Second, the reasons for the brothers' feud and some details, for example concerning Jesse Owens or the number of patents, are not established. Third, the mapping onto the lead user model is an interpretation from outside. As far as is known, Dassler did not describe his way of working in these terms himself.

Conclusion: what does Adi Dassler's path teach?

The question at the start was
Adi Dassler's path shows about developing products with customers and about unresolved conflicts between founders. On the first question, the answer is clear. His most important developments arose in close exchange with athletes and coaches whose needs emerged earlier than the market's. The lead user model describes this approach aptly, and it is just as usable for small businesses today as it was then.

On the second question, the answer is less comfortable. The dispute with his brother led to two successful companies, but also to a split that shaped families and workforces for decades. That it turned out well is no argument for unregulated conflicts. It is an exceptional case that confirms the rule: founders who settle their cooperation early do not have to hope that a dispute will produce two winners in the end.