HITLER AND THE AMERICAN
By any sane person’s view, Hitler was not controversial, just mad and evil. Maybe some Germans in Berlin in the 1930s were on the fence, but I bet a lot saw him for what he was — insane. There was no escaping it. That place. That time.
At the apex of Adolf’s power he was so disillusioned, he believed his perfect Aryan athletes would sweep the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Enter the American, Jesse Owens, son of a sharecropper, grandson of a slave. He didn’t look like a superhero. Didn’t act like one.
In front of Mr. Sunshine and his rage mongers, Jesse earned four gold medals and shattered sweet Adolf’s paradigm of Aryan racial supremacy, whatever the fuck that was.
We all know that story, but many don’t know this. There were two brothers who lived under Hitler’s rage named Rudolf and Adolf Dassler. Their father had a shoe business. Leather shoes, traditional cobbler stuff. The boys liked the shoe business but were interested in athletics.
Two new ventures spun off from the original family shoe business. Rudolf, known as Rudi, and Adolf, who went by Adi for good reason, started Puma and Adidas, respectively. Adidas is the first name (Adi) and last three letters of his last name (Das, from Dassler), which makes Adi-Das, or Adidas.
Both men were under pressure from Hitler and his shitty thug reign to go along with the program. Many in Germany and its surrounds found themselves in the same position, such as Ferdinand Porsche and Rudolf Steiner. Some went all in like Porsche, becoming an SS Oberfuhrer, and others managed to resist and lived to see angry little Adolf’s dream fail and the sun come out again. No one got out of that shit in one piece. Everyone paid a heavy price.
Rudi and Adi ultimately suffered a lot of business and personal costs during and after the war. It took a heavy toll on their families. In the end, after the war, they never spoke again.
During the war, when happy little Hitler was still living in his own private Idaho, Adi was on the DL slinging his shoes to a lot of athletes. He started Adidas in 1924 and wanted to use the 1936 Olympic games to showcase his shoes like he tried previously in 1928 and 1932.
We know Adi, and his business partner Jo Waitzer (the German track coach), gave Jesse at least one pair of Adidas track spikes. They were hand made by Adi. Jesse was rumored to say that he would either try them or go barefoot. They worked just fine.
(Note: In all the photographs I have seen of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, he is wearing either solid white or solid black track shoes, not what is pictured above. I am researching this anomaly.)
Jesse ended up winning the 100 meter, 200 meter, long jump, and 4 x 100-meter relay. Count ’em Adolf — four gold medals. He was the most successful athlete at the Games and, as a black man, was credited with “single-handedly crushing Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy…” (Wikipedia 2019).
Jesse schooled him proper in front of 100,000 spectators at one of the first globally televised international sporting events. The comedian Bill Burr jokes about the quiet ride home in Hitler’s car after the games.
Adi and Jo took a huge risk for their business and lives. By providing Jesse, a black American, German-made shoes (that were used to beat Hitler’s superior white jocks) there could have been severe repercussions from the Nazis.
Interestingly, Jesse endured a lot of crap from Americans for participating in “Hitler’s games.” Not even a thank you or a nice job from our president, FDR. I did read that someone threw him a paper bag during the ticker-tape parade in New York upon his return. He thought it was a sandwich and on his train ride home opened it to find $10,000, which is about $184,574.10 in 2019 money.
In retrospect, I am not sure how much benefit Adidas received by having athletes secretly wear their shoes. Did Adi have to wait until the day after Hitler died for their new sales campaign “Look, everyone, all those athletes who stomped Adolf’s boys wore my shoes!”
MY ADIDAS
At 10-years old I was already totally sprung on Adidas shoes. I remember trying to get my first pair on a summer trip to Madison Wisconsin. I tried on the Superstars. They fit. I had them in the box. In my hands. Even the uniquely blue Adidas box with the stripes was iconic. We stood up and my mother asked the salesman “How much?” “Fourteen ninety-nine, ma'am.”
I’ll never forget it. In one fluid motion, my mother stood, swung her purse under her arm, locked her elbow down on it so money couldn’t fly out, and started walking towards the door. “No way. Let’s go.” That was it. I was so close.
In the 1970s Pele was King and Puma was strong, but in my mind, Adidas was football, my favorite game. They made the best boots. I have easily spent $10,000 just on football cleats since I was a kid, likely a lot more. Across forty years of playing footie, almost all of my boots were Adidas. I have owned hundreds of pairs of Adidas shorts, socks, track pants, tee-shirts, warm-up jackets, and footballs. To this day, I buy Adidas. I like the gear, but the story behind it too. Same reason I support my favorite football club, the history. Winning or losing, a team’s culture remains. Pick a good one.
ADI, der HUND
A friend bought me a dog five years ago. My young sons saw his German Shepard, Axel, at a party and fell in love with him. Axel is a typical German boy’s name and my friend is a car fanatic, so it was a good choice.
My wife proclaimed “If you ever need us to watch him, we will. My boys love him.” He replied, “I’ll buy one for Garrett.” This was a generous gift we couldn’t resist. Axel came from a renown breeder in Nebraska. Solid German lineage. We got a good one too.
Our eight-week-old male German Shepard arrived at the Sacramento airport very late one night. He smelled like a farm animal after multiple flights in a small crate from Nebraska. We got him home and thought about a name.
I like two-syllable names for dogs. I’ve heard trainers agree one is not enough and sometimes get missed among the din of other noise when speaking with a dog. More than two syllables can be hard for the dog to understand and extra work for the owner. Dogs like simple. You can learn a lot from a dog.
I thought a proper German boy’s name would be appropriate for a male Shepard. I smiled when it hit me. Perfect. We’d call him Adi.
Fucking Hitler, my man Jesse Owens, an interesting connection to Nazi racism, Adidas, US History, and a beautiful German Shepard — Adi Vom Springer — have an amusing and interesting connection for me.
I suppose one could hate a lot of cool German stuff, but I decided to find the good in all of this. I don’t think about Hitler when I see a beautiful Porsche, a pair of Adidas, or hang out with my sweet dog Adi. I don’t think of Hitler when I reflect on Jesse’s accomplishments in the face of hate and ignorance, in both Germany and at home. I just smile.
I will continue to buy Adidas apparel. It’s not a perfect company, but I appreciate the gear and history. I like that Adi and Jo were more driven by the desire to succeed in business than hate a black American athlete. They used Jesse, but he used them too. All is fair in love and war.
