Figure 1.--Here we see a German girl wearing rompers, probably at a school gym class. Here we are not positive as most secondary schools were single gender schools. Another possibility is some kind of sports club. The photograph is undated, but probably taken in the 1930s.

There seem to have been two usages for rompers in Germany. The first usage was younger pre-school children wore them for play. We have not yet found any indication tht there were dressy rompers as in Germany. The second usage was a kind of sporty outfit for school-age girls. Here they were both worn at summer camp and for school gym classes. Quite a few youth groups organized summer camps and of course the NAZI Hitler Youth program had a extensive summer camp program. Girls may have also been used as bathing suits. We note quite a few schools using rompers as a girl's gym uniform. Germany was not the only country wear girls wore rompers as a gym uniform, although we do not just which countries where this was common. German girls at first wore long-length rompers with long stockings. The girl here wears short rompers without long stockings (figure 1). We note boys in a few schools in places like Sweden wearing romper pants for gym. As far as we know, however, German boys did not wear romper pants for gym. Another possibility is some kind of sports club. Here we do not have much information, especially for sports clubs involving girls. The images we have found seem to be mostly inter-war era photographs during the 1920s and 30s. We are not sure if girls wore them after World War II. This is very similar to the pattern in the United States, although American girls did wear them for gym after World War II into the 1960s.

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Created: 11:09 PM 6/3/2009
Last updated: 11:09 PM 6/3/2009