Sam Leith has narrated this article for you to listen to.
Doc Martens are one of those quintessentially British things that, like the royal family and lorries queuing on the M20, turn out actually to be Germany’s doing. The ancestor of what became the ‘Air Wair’ sole was designed in 1945 by a German army doctor with a sore foot. Amid the postwar hurly-burly, he ‘salvaged’ a cobbler’s last from a shop in Munich and knocked himself up an air-cushioned shoe to relieve his discomfort. Pleased with the success of his invention, he and a pal went into business producing bouncing soles.
The delicate question of what Dr Maerten did in the war, and whether he salvaged his shoe-making kit in the same way Hermann Goering ‘salvaged’ Rembrandts, is not easily resolved by a Google search, but no doubt had he been a raving Nazi we’d have heard about it by now.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in