shoe distributor it would become. First was the interest showed by former Olympian and then coach of the German Olympic track-and-field team, Josef Waitzer. On learning of the plant and Adi's experiments, Waitzer travelled from Munich to Herzogenaurach to see for himself. A long friendship developed between the two, based on interest in improving athletic performance with improved footwear, and Waitzer became something of a consultant to the company. The relationship would prove extremely valuable in giving Adi access to the athletes (German and foreign) at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. As early as the 1928 Amsterdam games, however, the Dasslers' footwear was being used in international competitions. Lina Radke, for example, the German middle distance runner who won gold in 1928, wore Dassler track shoes. Likewise, a German gold medal runner wore Dassler shoes at the 1932 Los Angeles games. The second key factor for the shoe firm in the early 1930s was the role sport played in the racial-nationalist philosophy of Hitler. With the rise of the National Socialist German Workers Party, athletic teamwork was prioritized. The Dassler brothers did not fail to see how their economic interest would benefit from politics; all three Dassler brothers joined the Nazi Party on 1 May 1933—three months after Hitler was appointed Chancellor. Rudolf was said to be most ardent believer of the three. But it was Adi who decided that becoming a coach of and supplier to clubs in the Hitler Youth movement was essential to expanded production, and he joined in 1935. (In his denazification proceedings after the war, Adi pointed out that he confined himself to coaching and avoided political rallies. He also testified that he was involved in clubs of other political affiliations, such as a liberal gymnastic club, Herzogenaurach's conservative KHC football club and a workers' sports club named "The Union".) Both Adi and Rudolf were members of the National Socialist Motor Corps, and in their correspondence both used the complimentary closing, "Heil Hitler." In the early 1930s Adi Dassler enrolled in the Schuhfachschule (the Footwear Technical College) in Pirmasens. One of the instructors was Franz Martz, a master producer of lasts. Dassler became a frequent house guest of Martz, who permitted Dassler's attentions to his fifteen-year-old daughter, Käthe Martz. On 17 March 1934, the two wed. Unlike Rudolf's wife Friedl (née Strasser), Käthe was somewhat self-assertive and suspicious of the brusque ways of Franconians. She would