Hitler Youth Uniforms: Hosiery--Age Trends

Figure 1.--These boys look to be newy minted DJ members meaning that they are about 10 years old, perhaops friends that joined about the same time. Their uniforms look brand new. Children were often enducted on Hitler's birthday (April 20). Both wear long stockings as it is still chilly. .

Age affected hosiery to an extent. Boys of all ages wore both knee socks and ankle socks, often on a seasonal basis. Germn children joined the HJ at age 10 years so the yiunger boys woud have been 10-year olds. We see the boys during warm summer weather wearing ankle socks or rolling their knee socks down. While younger boys might wear knee socks and ankle socks, we also see them wearing long stockings up to about 12-13 years of age. This was also about the age tha boys made the transition from the DJ to the HJ proper. We rarely see boys more than about 13 years of age wearing long stockings. This vried from family to family. Different mothers had differing ideas about the age appropriateness of long stockings. Here the major concern was warmth for the yunger boys during the winter. As is the case generally, mothers are most concened about dressing the younger children warmly. Long stockings were also worn for formality, at least when dressing up in a suit for various occassions. As far as we know this was not the case for the Hitler youth. The boys wore knee socks for formality, in some cases white knee socks.