German Boys' Clothes: Personal Experiences Max (1930s)


Figure 1.--

A HBC reader interviewed a German man named Max in the city of Schwerin. Max recalls that he and hi brothers wore identical short pants sailor suits for chruch and special occassions. His mother insisted that he and his brothers wear long dark stockings with their sailor suits. Our German reader has made many valuable contributions to HBC and is also submitting valuable interview such as this one. The following are Max's responses with comments in brackets.

Max

I was born in 1928 in Erfurth.

Erfurth

Erfurth in the inter-war period had about 100,000 inhabitants. Erfurth is a highly industrialized and a highly cultural town and the capital of Thüringen.

Max's Family

I had an older brother and two younger brothers, no sisters. My father was wounded in World War I and as a result could not work. My parents were what we would call old fashioned now adays. As a result, they dressed us boy very traditionally. [Interviewer comment: Max´s family must have been an extremely old-fashioned family. I have been born only 4 years after Max and in my town (Hameln) I remember only very few families where at the end of the 1930s the boys were clad like Max. In my class there was only one and later when we were 15, another boy on Sundays. So in his family this kind of clothing was perhaps considered to look more of good style. But there were great social and geographical differences in Germany.]

Church

My parents were dutiful catholics. Every Sunday our whole family always went to church.

Sailor Suits

We boys for church and special occassions wore dark, blue or black sailor suits with short pants. Our shorts for church were rathe long, almost down to our knees. We wore these sailor suits and long stockings not only for Church, but also for other special occassions when we had to dress up.

Long Stockings

For formal occassions, especially for church, we always wore black long stockings with suspenders. The stockings were fixed with a white button at the suspender (only one) which was attached to a "Leibchen" (bodice). All of our stockings were homeknit made with perhaps untreated wool. I remember destinctly how the wool itched enormously on my thighs. This was the torture of my childhood. We wore the same outfit both during the winter as well as the warm summer months. The long wool stockings were of course especially uncomfortable in warm weather. Sometimes we could hardly walk because of the itching was so painful. We had to wear this kind of dress throughout the whole year at special occasions. In his family even in hot summer, bare knees were not considered proper in church. [HBC note: Readers may want to look at the German long stockings page for background information.]

Age

I wore sailor suits and long stocking until about 1940 when I was 13-14 years old. This was rather old, most boys by 1940 stoped wearing sailor suits and long stockings at a younger age. Most boys my age were wearing black trousers. I never had cotton stockings although I asked his mother for them. From this time onwards I could never wear long stockings whatsoever material, such a painful remembrance.

Stocking Suporters

Max and his brothers wore stocking supporters to keep their long stockings all the way up. I didn't like those stocking supporters at all. We boys had an uneasy feeling because we considered them rather girlish. While few older boys wore long stockings, girls and women did wear them. Thus we older boy looked on hem as not proper boys' clothes.

The NAZIs

Hitler and the NAZIs seized power in 1933. They had very definite ideas of how boys should be raised and this came to be reflected in boys' fashions. Hitler´s ideology saw a need for hard and manly boys. This soon was reflected in German society. We boys accepted the view without question. It was important not to look girlish and there were consequences for those boys who did not follow the widely accepted, but un-written conventions.

Teasing

Therefore it often happened that children teased other boys. Older boys who wore long stockings might be teased. Boys with white (and sometimes pink) stocking supporters suspenders were teased. Another object of this teasing was stocking supporters with white buttons. One could never avoid that once in a while the hem of the stocking and the suspenders showed, especially boys with shorter cut shorts. This happend especially when the stockings sagged a little downward. Boys would also playfully lift the short's hem of the boys wearing long stockings to have a look or show the stocking suporters to others. We called The effect of sagging is also called the "strap effect" or the "half moon".







Christopher Wagner






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Created: January 21, 2002
Last updated: January 21, 2002