Figure 1.-- This German boy in the 1920s wears a knee pants suit. At this time short pants were gradually replacing knee pants. Note the ornamental buttons at the knee hem. This persisted in Germany longer than some other countries like Fance and Britain. We can't be sure about the age of the boy here, but 17 seems a reasonable guess.

Older German boys wore long pants through most of the 19th century. We are mot entirely sure just when older boys began wearing kneepants. Nor or we sure how common it was. But we do note some older German boys wearing kneepants in the early 20th century. And we note it even after World War I into the 1920s. We note older German teen agers wearing kneepants in the early 20th century. We note boys at St. Stephen's Gymnasium, where we see I think two boys in one of the upper forms (about 17, I think) wearing knee pants. We are not sure, however that this was as common in Germany as it was in America. After the early 20s we no longer commonly notice it as knee pants declined in popularity. Most boys by age 17 wore either knickers or long pants. Some older boys from cobservative families might still wear knee pants or even shorts like the boy here (figure 1). We think, however, that most boys this asge wore long pants.

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Created: 8:06 PM 1/27/2007
Last updated: 8:06 PM 1/27/2007