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We have relatively limited information on the hair syles worn by German boy, but we have begun to collect some information. BC notices numerous photographs of German boys with shaved heads or very short hair. HBC has noted that this style continued into the early 20th century, especially in the era during and before World War I (1914-18) often wore closely cropped hair. This was a very common fashion for younger boys. I'm not sure why this was so common in Germny. The long hair styles worn by some French and American boys do not seem to have been as popular in Germany, although our information is quite limited. We notice very few images of boys with ringlet curls, but some German boy did wear them. HBC has noted German boys wearing bangs, but we do not yet know how common this hair style was and how it has varied over time in Germany. We note German boys wearing bangs in both the 19th and 20th century. In the early 20th century, Dutch boy bangs (probably called page boy cuts) were popular for through their early teens. The Germans use "pony" or "ponies" terms of course derived from English. According to a dictionary, the word is used for the hair cut, because a pony has a similar fringed mane.
HBC has noted German boys wearing bangs, but we do not yet know how common this hair style was and how it has varied over time in Germany. We note German boys wearing bangs in both the 19th and 20th century. In the early 20th century, Dutch boy bangs (probably called page boy cuts) were popular for through their early teens. The Germans use "pony" or "ponies" terms of course derived from English. According to a dictionary, the word is used for the hair cut, because a pony has a similar fringed mane. This would explain its British word "fringe". An older form for "pony" (a juvenile horse) is "powny", Old French "poulenet", French "poulain" is from Latin "pullanus": "pullus" meaning "foal". Both terms were introduced in German during the 19th century. This of course would be confused in English where a "pony tail" hair cut is a girl's hair style where the hair is shaped into one or two stands that are worn behind the head, much like a "quque" that men wore in the 18th century. A good example of German boys wearing bangs is information developed on two Desseldorf brothers. Bangs were worn by both boys and irls. Many 19th century images are not identified and children with the bangs hair style are difficult to assess unless other clues are provided in the portrait. This style appeared again in the 1970s--perhaps one of the many cultural impacts of the Beatles. The bangs worn in the 1970s were generally worn with longer haie at the sides and back than was the case in early 20th century bangs.
Bowl cuts were an almost universal hair cut for boys. I am not sure what the German term is. Cutting hair is a little tricky. It takes some skill to get it just right. Every counry had bowls. And a right sized bowl place over a boy's head provided the perfect foil for a neat trim. We see many American boys on the frontie with these cuts. We also see quite a number of German boys with bowl cuts through the 1920s. It was most common with working-class and rural boys. They began to be less common in the 1930s.
We note long brush-style cuts. The stles were often combed straight back. A good example is an unidentified German boy in the early 60s.
Manu boys wore bangs. As they cot older they wanted to part their hair and comb the front over to the side. We note one boy with a wavy front.
HBC notices numerous photographs of German boys with cropped or very short hair. HBC has noted that this style continued into the early 20th century, especially in the era during and before World War I (1914-18) often wore closely cropped hair. This was a very common fashion for younger boys. I'm not sure why this was so common in Germny. Sanitary factors were involved. The style looks very militaristic today, I am not sure that was how Germans at the time viewed it. This fashion virtually disappeared in the 1930s. This style continued somewhat into the 1920s, but was little seen by the 1930s. Apparently this rather military-inspired style was not of intetest to the NAZIs. Perhaps for the same reason that they did not introduce school uniforms. Many photos of the Hitler Youth show boys with rather short hair on side and back, but fairly long on top. We have not noted photographs of Hitler Youth boys with cropped heads.
Americans associate bangs with the Dutch. Bangs in America are even reffered to as "Dutch boy bangs" if they have long hair at the side. This is also called a Prince Valliant cut. The Dutch tend to call it a "pony", although pagekopje or "page" is also used. I'm not sure how the Germans refer to these cuts. Bangs were very common for German boys, although the Dutch boy bangs with long hair at the sides were much less common. Cropped hair was much more more common for German boys, but longer styles behan to become more popular in the 1920s. . We see some younger boys from well-to-do families with Dutch boy bangs in the 1930s. These were almost always pre-school boys. We also see Dutch boy bangs even with older boys when longer styles began to vecome popular in the 1970s. They were less common by the end of the cebntury when shortrt styles began to be more popular.
I have noted a few examples of boys during the 1920s wearing a kind of front hair tuft, usually cut like bangs. This was not a common style, but we noticed it often enough to know that it was not an aberant style. A number of boys, mostly younger primasry schoo boys, had their hasir cut this way. We do not know what the proper name for this style was, either in German or English. We have only noticed this style in Germany. Most of the images we have found are from the 1920s. It appears to have been a transitional style between the cropped hair commonly worn in the 1910s and the combed hair styles of the 1930s.
We have very limited informaion on Germany. The practice may have been less
common in Germany than elsewhere, but I believe that the fashion did exist. We have seen a few German boys wearing hairbows. The fashion may have been more common in Bavaria where Frencg fashions seem more influential tham elsewhere in Germany. We have also seen a few Berlin boys wearing hair bows. Other than the few photographs, we have no information from published sources about German boys wearing hairbows. We have seen them with both ringlet curls and straiht hair as well as on breeched and unbrreched boys.
The long hair styles worn by some French and American boys do not seem to have been as popular in Germany, although our information is quite limited. This is not to say, however, that no German boys had long hair in the late 19th and eraly 20th centuty. We have few details at this time as to just how the German boys with long hair had their hair styles. This would not have been favored by the NAZIs and even younger boys during the NAZI era had short hair. Germans boys wore generally short hair in the post-War era. As with the rest of Europe quite long hair was popular uin the 1970s, especially with teenagers.
Ringlet curls were a fashionable hair style for boys in the late 19th century in America, Britain, and many European countries. We notice very few images of boys with ringlet curls, but some German boy did wear them. We have no means of quantifying this, except the prevalence in the availble photographic record. We are not sure why German hair style trends were different in this regard. We suspect that German parents prefered more masculine hair styles for boys than in many other European countries.
We note short-back-and-sides hair cuts in the early 20th century, especially after World War I. I the early part of the century, boys commonly had very short cropped hair cuts. After World War I this changed. We begin to see boys with these cuts. They were still very short at the side, but the hair was allowed to grow out on top. A good example is an unidentified German boy in 1933. It was a very popular cut for Hitler Youth boys. We are unsure what the German term for this cut was.
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