Figure 1.--Here we see a Germany family portrait. It is not dated, but e would guess was taken in the early 1930s. We believe it is a wealthy extended family. The building in the background appears to be awealthy family home. They may have even been of aristicratic background. Note the number of children that eith wear sandals or strap shoes, both with and without socks. We believe that sandals and strap shoes would have been less common among working-class families. Put your cursor on the image to see the rest of the family.

We have not been able to find any written information about sandals in Germany. Of course here language is a problem for us. Hopefully our German readers will know more. Our assessment is this entirely based on the photographic record. We get the impression that social class affected the wearing of sandals. They seem to be most common among affluent and middle-class children and much less common working-class children. Sandals often seem less common in rural areas. Of course this requires a rather subjective assessment of the photographs as we often have little information about the children in the available photographs. This same dynamic appears to be the case for both strap shoes and sandals. These social class factors appear to have changed afyer World War II. We think this is in part the destruction of the old rather strong class structure in German by both the NAZIs and the impact of World War II. After the War, especially by the 1960s sandals became more widely worn abd syles shifted from closed toe to open toe sandals.

Created: 2:16 PM 5/14/2007
Last updated: 2:16 PM 5/14/2007