Hitler Youth Shirts: Color--Brown

Figure 1.--Here we see a color image of Hitler Youth boys raising the flag at camp. Germany had the most advanced chemical industry and was a leader in color photography. Thus there are color images of the Hitler Youth. Here we see the brown shirts and black shorts.

The most obvious uniform item was a brown shirt. The NAZI SA was known as the "Brown Shirts". The Hitler Youth in fact began as a unit of the SA or Storm Troopers. The shirts were acquired by the NAZIs after World War I. The German Army had a substantial surplus stock of brown shirts. The Germany Army had grey uniforms, but these uniforms were purchased for anticipated desert warfare. Only small numbers of German advisers were deployed with the Turks in the Middle East during World War I. Thus the Army had a large stock of uneeded brown shorts on their hands. The SA after purchasing the army stocks at minimal cost became known as the Brown Shirts because of these destincrive shirts. The Hitler Youth was founded as a youth auxilery of the SA and thus the same brown shirt was used by the HJ uniform.