Adolf Dassler

Adolf Dassler, known as Adi (3 November 1900 to 6 September 1978), was a German cobbler, inventor and businessman who founded the sportswear company Adidas. He began by making and repairing shoes in Herzogenaurach in Bavaria, and from 1924 he worked with his older brother Rudolf in the Gebrüder Dassler shoe factory. Adi concentrated on specialised sports footwear, experimenting with materials and spiked designs, and he built close ties with athletes and coaches, including the American sprinter Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. After a feud that followed the Second World War the brothers separated in 1948, and Rudolf founded the rival firm Puma while Adi registered his own company in 1949 and trademarked the three stripe mark. He is noted as one of the early promoters of athlete endorsements as a way to drive sales. At his death Adidas had 17 factories and annual sales of one billion Deutschmarks, and his wife and son took over its management. His business conduct under the Nazi regime is discussed in the source.