Figure 1.--Here we see a grouop of German teenagers in the 1930s. Most of the boys are wearing short pants with knee socks. It seems to be a school setting.

Short pants continued to be very common for boys in the 1930s. They were almost universally worn. Many boys wore them all year round. This included the Winter, but often with long stockings during the cold weather. Mothers often had aate in mind when they switched from knee socks to long stockings. They were worn for both dress and casual occassions. Almost all boys and younger teenagers had short pants rather than long pants suits. And school portraits show almost all the boys wearing shorts. Boys in the 1930s still did not tend to have large wardrobes. We dp not see many mothers buying casual clothes. Generally boys wore their older clothes as casual wear than rather than having aot of purpse bouhght play wear. Age was a factor as to when boys switched to knickers and long pants. This varied somewhat from family to family, but was about age 15 years. Often a boy's first long pants were a suit and he continued to wear shorts for casual wear or school for a time. Shorts tended to be very long in the early-1930s, but were commonly worn at shorter lengths by the end of the decade. Here we think the Hitler Youth program was a factor. We see some HJ boys wearing longish shorts in the early years (1933-34), but by 1936 we begin to see shorter cut, more trim fitting shorts. We are not at all sure how this came about. But the HJ organization must have submitted specifications to manufacturers. The black corduroy shorts became very common. Lederhosen began to become popular outside of Bavaria and southern Germany. I have never seem this subject addressed in the voluminous literature about the HJ. What ever the reason that was a clear trend toward shorter cut short pants during the decade. Shorts began to look like the more modern garments. We see fewer boys wearing suspenders. Suspebnder shorts and H-bar shorts were worn by younger boys, older boys increasing were wearing belts. Often we see boys with their HJ belt buckles even when not wearing the uniform.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Return to the Main country short pants page]
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Glossaries] [Images] [Registration] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]

Created: 7:58 PM 1/20/2012
Last updated: 7:58 PM 1/20/2012