Figure 1.--The unidentified German family snapshot looks to have been taken in the 1930s. We are not entirely sure if this is a farm family or an urban family on vacation. The children show the different color of long stockings worn in the 1930s. The two middle children wear neutral, probably tan or beige shade commonly worn for casual wear. The older boys wears dark stockings, probably to match his sailor suit. The older girls who was probably a little more fashion concious than the younger children wears white stockings. An interesting question is if the stocking choices were made by the children or if mother layed out what the children were to wear. This is not a winter scene, but the sweaters suggest it was a cool day.

Beige and both light and dark tan stockings were common in Germany during the 1930s. By the 1930s, dark long stockings were much less common than had been the case during the early-20th century. We see dark stockings primarily for formal events when the children were dressed up. We see one rather touching example of an unidentified 7- or 8-year old boy in a sailor suit being read to by his father about 1930. Here the long stockings appear to be dark tan or light brown. There was no attempt here to match the stockings with the suit as was often done before World War I. A photo probably taken about 1930-31 shows a group of boys sitting cross-legged on the ground, one boy pretty clearly wearing beige stockings with sandals and another with a slightly darker shade of tan. But variety in school hosiery is notable by the fact that the third boy in the frame has bare knees, apparently with his tan stockings worn as knee socks. Beige hosiery shows up in the case of another German boy in a sailor suit (1931) who apparently wears long underwear underneath his hosiery. Interestingly the photo shows him outdoors, probably on an autumn or early spring day. Another unidentified boy in a sailor suit, seen on a garden path during the 1930s, wears dark tan or light brown stockings. Tan and beige long stockings were fairly common as school wear. Note a primary school boy in 1933 sitting crossed-legged on the right in the first row (in beige) and classmates center and left (in dark tan). One notable aspect of tan stockings in Germany, unlike America, older boys as well as the yhounger boys wore them. We see some of the older boys, in the present case about 11 or 12 years old, in a German school class wearing tan stockings (1933-34). Look at the two on the left An unidentified boy of at least 14 years wears a tweed suit with short trousers and what looks like matching long stockings. These could be gray, but the likelihood of their being tan is fairly great. Even when German schoolboys attended class in their Hitler Youth uniforms, where knee socks were the normal practice, we occasionally see the dark tan long stockings as an exception, as in this 1937 photo of the Blackenburg Gymnasium. Since the uniforms were tan or brown, the long stockings, if worn, probably were chosen as a coordinating color. A 1938 primary school photo shows two boys in the front row wearing beige and tan long stockings, although we also see black stockings, knee socks, and long trousers in the same class. In more relaxed settings we see two boys playing with their model train in long stockings (note that the younger of the two wears beige) at some point during the 1930s. We also see an unidentified boy of about 10 or 11 at Christmas proudly holding his new skis (1937). Note that he wears light tan or beige long stockings, clearly supported by a Strapsleibchen, with his halter shorts.

Created: 11:53 PM 10/7/2010
Last updated: 11:53 PM 10/7/2010