Shoe-jimbo
Feuding German town produces worldwide kicks
"There was an Adidas butcher and a Puma butcher. If there was a chance to avoid being in the same class as another Adidas person, from the Puma perspective, then we certainly tried to avoid this. Certainly, the restaurants were split, so there was a typical Adidas hotel or Adidas restaurant and the other guys didn't want to go there."
Talk about a family feud writ large -- you and your brother run into so many differences running your hugely successful shoe business that you leave and start your own, which becomes hugely successful. The companies are Adidas and Puma, respectively, and the medium-sized Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach gets torn apart.
That's 60 years ago. Now Puma AG is making a subdued €643 million a year from international sales, and Adidas -- well, Adidas is outfiiting the World Cup this year. And urban America is way into both brands, though the number one market is still America. And will eventually be Asia. Seems sort of petty, but is this success mostly due to the competitive feuding between Adolf and Rudolf, and the catalyst of WWII (Adolf's Nazi sympathies)?
It's all coming to me too easily. A Belgian loner (I have to go low-budget on this one with Jean-Claude Van Damme, I remember Desert Heat) wanders through post-war Bavaria and, after a scuffle with fancy-shoes thugs, finds himself peddling his services from a small tavern on the river called Von Die Wühlmaus. As he switches back and forth from Adolf to Rudolf, following what at first seems like money and personal interest but eventually proves to be inscrutable logic, he catches the attention of Adolf's charming daughter (Kristy Swanson), who just wants the feud to end. Be careful what you wish for: in the climax, Van Damme finishes Adolf off with a coup de grace from his own innovative removable-spike football boots, which helped Germany win the 1954 World Cup.