The Dasslers Become Internationally Popular
The fact that Jesse Owens wore Dassler shoes for the Olympics was an enormous boost for the brothers and their company. Suddenly, everyone was talking about the Dassler brothers and huge orders were coming in, giving Adi and Rudolf a lot of money and room for expansion.
Summer Olympics in Berlin in August 1936. Owens winning the 100m sprint. Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images
Interestingly, this story also had an amazingly positive effect years later, during the war; American troops were in the Herzogenaurach area and had planned to destroy the shoe factory, but when they learned it was the place where Jesse Owens’ shoes had been made, they decided to leave it alone and even bought shoes from there themselves.