75
years
ago...

Happy anniversary! Exactly 75 years ago, our founder Rudolf Dassler registered the “Rudolf Dassler Sportschuhfabrik ” (RUDA) with the local Trade Licensing Office. Just a few months later, the brand name was changed to PUMA. Learn more about our beginnings!

After the last work meeting of the Dassler Brothers Sports Shoe Factory in December 1947, Rudolf, Adolf and Käthe Dassler decided to dissolve their company, which had existed since 1924, on January 1, 1948.

On January 23, 1948, Rudolf Dassler then registered his company RUDA (Rudolf Dassler Sportschuhfabrik) in Herzogenaurach. At the time of the separation, he took over the buildings that had been vacant since 1939. Back in the day, the hall had once been a cloth factory but had stood empty since the severe wave of unemployment that resulted from the First World War. In the 1930s, the Dassler brothers bought the factory as Plant II and used it as a warehouse. After the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, the building was again empty. It was later used as a grain store and as a carpenter’s workshop.

“Without passion there is no quality!”

Rudolf Dassler in January 1948

In 1948, it was a real challenge for Rudolf Dassler and his first 15 employees to build up the premises into a functioning shoe factory. 💪🏽

The 15 employees at the time dared to make a completely new start with Rudolf Dassler in the post-war years. It took until the beginning of June 1948 for the first RUDA shoes to be manufactured in the factory.

Rudolf Dassler commissioned an advertising agency in Nuremberg to design a logo for his company. The result was the “shoe with wings” logo. The same local advertising agency had previously designed the 1927 and 1936 logos for the Dassler brothers sports shoe factory.

On June 30, 1948, the “Gebrüder Dassler Sportschuhfabrik” was officially cancelled. From July 1, 1948 Rudolf Dassler and his employees could finally really take off. However, the company name RUDA did not last long. In early October, 1948, Rudolf Dassler had the name changed to PUMA – Sportschuhfabrik Rudolf Dassler.

CHECK OUT HOW THE BRAND AND THE LOGO EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS