Figure 1.--Here we see two Gerrman boys in nan unidentified German city. It is undated, but looks like the 1940s to us. We are just sure just when, but we woud gues after the War even though we don' see bomb damage in the background. the boys are wearing short pants with knee socks. Notice how the one boy has rolled down his knee sovs or long stockings. We are not sure why he has fone this as it s clearly not a warm summer day.

The 1940s decade was domimated by World War II (1939-45) and its aftermath. The War was mostly fought outside of Germany, but the Allied bombing began to bring the War home to Germany (1942). German boys continued to commonly wear short pants in the 1940s. School portraits show almost all of the pre-teen boys wearing shorts as well as most younger teens. We see more boys wearing knickers or even long pants in cold weather. We see some older teens wearing knickers as was the case in the 1930s. In America, knickers were largely phased out during the War to conserve on fabric. We do not know if this occurred in Germany. We see more boys wearing long pants in the winter, but short pants were still dominant. We think the Hitler Youth was a factor here as the winter uniform was ski-ants like knickers. We see very few boys wearing long pants during the summer. We also see shorter cut shorts. The longer-cut shorts still very common in the early-30s largely disappeared. We are not sure if this was a fashion-driven development or Government imposed economy measures. Germany was devastated by World War II, primarily by the Allied bombing. The economy was virtually destroyed, especially German industry. As a result we see many teenagers wearing short pants. Many families did not have the money for children's clothes, thus boys in many cases wore what ever was available and long pants for older teens were often delayed more than was common before the War. Economic conditions did not begin to improve until the end of the decade, but it was not until the 1950s that the German Economic Miracle began to kick in.

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Created: 4:41 PM 8/21/2025
Last updated: 4:42 PM 8/21/2025