The roots of the shoemaking dynasty can be found in 1774 when the Johannes Birkenstock is mentioned. He later even became 'master craftsmen in shoemaking.'

The Birkenstock brothers lived the simple life of rural craftsmen, hand-making shoes from start to finish: producing leather, fitting it to the last and attaching an insole. Life in the German countryside was characterized by harsh weather conditions, which meant that clothing and footwear had to be functional and robust. At that time, the average person would own one pair of shoes their entire life, which would be repaired over the years by a local cobbler. Among poorer communities, shoes would even be handed down from generation to generation. It's no surprise, then, that people formed a close bond with their footwear. The fast that the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe dedicated his 1776 work Hans Sachsens Poetische Sendung to a shoemaker, speaks volumes about the reverence in which the shoemaking craft was held.