Shankar Vedantam

And so it triggered this decades-long feud between these two brothers.

You know, they ended up breaking up their company and creating two shoe companies in the same town.

And that might have been the end of it, right?

But what happened is it infected the psychology of all the townspeople.

And so people on one side of the river of the town identified with Addie and the other side identified with the shoe company run by Rudy.

And it became known as the town of bent necks because people would walk around town looking down at the ground to see what shoes people were wearing.

And if you were wearing the shoes from the other company, you wouldn't date them.

You wouldn't be able to go in those stores.

Marriage was discouraged with people for the wrong shoes.

In fact, this feud went right to the grave.

So these two brothers are literally buried at opposite ends of the town cemetery.

And...

You know, this might seem like this is a small story.

It's just a little town in Germany.

But these companies, the two shoe companies that were launched by them are now known as Adidas, which was founded by Addy, and Puma, which was founded by Rudy.

These are two of the biggest companies in the world.

And this feud affected the psychology of everybody because these shoes became a signal about group membership and led to discrimination.

The Dassler brothers demonstrate something really deep about human nature, how easily we form groups and coalitions.

And this has been observed in every culture on earth that's ever been studied.

And to these people in this town, this doesn't seem absurd.