Figure 1.--Here we see an unidentified woman with four boys during summer 1942. The booys look to be about 4-8 years old, but given the variety of clothing and age range, they are probably not all brothers--perhaps cousins. Two the boys wear romper outfits. They are probably brothers. We believe that rompers like these were primarily worn by boys from fashionable city families, but this looks to be a rural area--presumably a small village. Th Germans began moving children out of the cities as early as 1941. Some of this was done through the a KLV Program. Some families stayed with relatives in the country, although workers (mostly male) not drafted had to stay in the cities at their jobs. This may be the case here. The Lederhosen the one boys is wearing suggests that they are in Bavaria or somewhere else in southern Germany.

The most prevalent period for rompers in Germany seems to have been the World War II era. This is difficultvto assess with any certainty, but this is the impression that seems to be emerging. A reader writes, "I have not noted rompers in the photographs of German boys clothes before World War II (1939-45), but this may be due to HBC's still limited information on Germany. We have noted a boy wearing a romper at a beach resort during the War in the early 1940s. They were widely worn in France and Italy." Here I think our reader is referring to the fasionally cut French-style rompers and not the babby knee-length rompers we note in the 1920s and 30s. Romper wwee not by ahny measure the primary style for pre-school boys, but we do see a number of boys wearing, mostly for play and casual activities. We do not many examples of boys being dressed up in fancy romper outfits. Nor do we see boys wearing them to school.

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Created: 10:34 AM 4/2/2013
Last updated: 10:34 AM 4/2/2013