On the edge of town, in Herzogenaurach's small sunny cemetery, the graves of Adolf and Rudolf Dassler could not be further apart from one another. Even in death, it seems, they couldn't bear to be together.
Born into a family of cobblers, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler were not always at odds. In the 1920s, Adi and Rudi, as they were more commonly known, worked happily side by side at the Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory).
Adolf developed some studs, business boomed under the Nazis and by the 1936 Olympics Jesse Owens was running in Dassler spikes. But by the fall of the Third Reich the fraternal relationship was in tatters. "We will probably never know the real reason why Adi and Rudi fell out," sighs Ernst Dittrich, the head of Herzogenaurach's town archive. "It was like a marriage that goes terribly, terribly sour."
Elderly residents in this 13th century town still gossip that the brothers split because Adi slept with Rudi's wife, that the two wives hated each other, that Rudi fathered Adi's son and that Rudi - the less successful entrepreneur of the pair - had his hands in the petty-cash box.
The most likely snapping point came from a thoughtless comment made one night in 1943 as the two brothers and their wives slept in the family air raid shelter. "There come those pig dogs again!" raved Adi as his brother clambered down the steps. From that moment, no one could convince Rudi that Adi had been talking about the RAF bombers, not about him.
Rudi's bitterness increased as he was shipped off to an American prisoner of war camp and Adi carried on running the family business without him. In 1948 Rudi returned and set up his own factory on the other side of the river, now Puma, taking loyal staff with him.
There were varying successes on both sides as Herzogenaurach's two shoemaking companies grew. Although Puma still claims it invented the removable football boot stud, Adi Dassler and his Adidas company is credited with winning the 1954 World Cup for Germany by providing the team with them.
But Rudi scored points against his brother when Pele won the 1962 World Cup for Brazil - in Puma boots.
The pair threw ludicrous amounts of money at absurd court battles. In 1958, Rudi Dassler and Puma took out an injunction to prevent Adi marketing Adidas stock as "the best sports shoes in the world". The court ruled in Rudi's favour but gave Adi a week to remove all advertising. In the seven days he had left, Adi convinced an Adidas-loyal fishmonger to paste the slogan on his fish van and park it outside Rudi's office window.