Figure 1.--For many Germans life went on without serious deprivations for the first years of the War. This cheerful teenager attended a party, looking rather like a wedding banquet, in the summer of 1942 dressed in his Hitler Youth uniform. At the time this snapshot was taken, German Panzers were racing toward Stalingrad in Russia and Suez in North Africa.

German children were well dressed in the early years of World War II. In fact for many German families, except that their fathers and older brothers were away at the front or in other military duties, life went on quite normally at first. Hitler was convinced that rationing at deprivation had undermined civilian moral in World War II and wanted to limit rationing and impacts on the domestic economy. NAZI policy was to not divert the entire economy to military production. Thus production of clothes, including children's clothes, was not at first affected by the War. This was in sharp contrast to other countries, including both occupied countries like France and Britain which was battered by the Germans. The NAZIs increadibly canceled many war orders in 1940 thinking that the War had essentially been won. In addition, the production of occupied countries was diverted to supporting the War effort or supplying the German market.

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Created: December 19, 2002
Last updated: December 19, 2002