Figure 1.--Here we see a German boy about 1960 weith a great cowboy hat. He is wearing very German Lederhosen with his cowboy outfit. Notice the leopard skin belt and holster. That is something you never would have seen an American boy wearing.

We also see German boys dressed up like cowboys to play. We suspect that many boys played cowsboys with just the toy guns. It is a little difficult to tell, but the photographic record seems to suggest that German boys were more interested in the Indians than the cowboys. We are not sure why this was, but ir seems to have been something geberated by the boys themselves and not something generated by parents. Of course getting good costumes was dependant on convincing mom and dad to but them. As far as we can tell, there were no real definitive parental objections. We do not know if any German authors have seriously addressed this phemomenon. One interesting question is why German boys did not want tp play other history based games such as defearing the Romans, thed Crudases, Thirty Year War soldiers, or fightung Napoleon. We note scenes of boys playing war, but dressing up like cowboys ir Indians is interesting because it has nothing to do with Germany. We suspect that authors like Karl May was part of the reason as were Hollywood movies. German cowboys were almpst entirely boys. The girls seen above the fray and seem more interested in domestic themes in the kitchen or with their baby dolls.

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Created: 3:56 AM 10/1/2009
Last updated: 3:56 AM 10/1/2009