Figure 1.--Here we see Hans, the oldest of our German family. He is 12-years old and wears a sailor suit about 1925. Sailor suits were still very popular in Germany during the 1920s. Click on the image for a back view. Drawing by Birte Koch.

Hans is 12 years old. He is a good student and has earned a place in a gynnasium, a selective secondary school like a British grammar school. Hans wears a traditionally styled sailor suit. Note his military-style cap which he wears to school. The sailor suit consists of a white middy blouse. These blouses were also always long sleeves. Note the destinctive way his carfe is tied with white string. Note the three stripe traditional styling on the "V" collar and cuffs. Before World War I (1914-18) we see boys wearing sailor suits with a wide variety of styles. After the War, the sailor suit was still popular, but virtually all were done in the readitional style like the one Hans here wears. Hans wears blue short pants with his white middy blouse. Sailor suits were also done with long pants, but short pants were more common. Sailor suits were normally worn by boys up to about 12-13 years of age. We have noted older boys wearing them, but not as commonly. Hans also wears kneesocks and leather shoes. Hans wears knee socks. During the Winter he may have worn long stockings, although he was getting close to the age that boys stopped wearing long stockings. The knee socks he wears here are brown. Clors varied at the time. For dress occassions, boys sometimes wore white kneesocks, but grey and brwn appear to have been more common. This is a little difficult to tell because one of our primary sources of information is the black and white photography of the day. Boys like Hans mostly wore leather shoes. Closed-toe sandals were worn, but were less common. High-top shoes were prevalent, but we do notice boys wearing low-cut oxfords.

School

Hans is 12 years old. He is a good student and has earned a place in a gynnasium, a selective secondary school like a British grammar school. The Geman school system is a little complivated, but as I understand it, all children for the first 4 years attend a primary school called a Grundschule / Volkschule. Students that do well academically then move to a secondary school like a Gymnasien / Oberschulen. Middle class boys like Hans would have been expected to gain acceptance to a grammar school. While a Gymnasium was a secondary school, boys began at primary age 10 11 years old. Thus Hans woukd gave been in second or third year at his Gymnasium. He was still one of the younger boys as the academic program continued to age 18-19 years.

Garments

We know a good bit about the clothes that Hans would have worn.

Headwear

Common cap styles for boys were sailor-style or a peaked military-style. The peaked military style was commonly used by German schools as a school cap. German boys did not wear school uniforms with only a few exceptions. Many schools did have, however, a standardized school cap. There were variations in styles, but all were a kind of peaked military style. Note his military-style cap which he wears to school. There were also sailor caps like the ones worn by the Germany Navy. These were nore common for younger boys than boys Hans' age. We do not see boys by the 1920s wearing the wide-brimmed hats worn before World War I. Hans' cap has a polisjed letaher peak and looks like a military cap. In various different minor variations, this cap was widely seen as a student's cap. We see boys in both primary and secondary schools wearing them. German schools did not have uniforms, but some schools had a school cap with sandardized styles. The color trim might indicate his class or form year. I am not sure if the boys were required to wear these caps to school or if they even commonly wore them every day. There may have been differences from school to school. They may have been more common for specual occassions. Here we just do not know at this time.

Sailor suit

Sailor suits were enormously popular in German during the early 20th century. Before World War I (1914-18) we see boys wearing sailor suits with a wide variety of styles and not just the traditional styles based on the uniforms of German sailors (which in turn were based on British Royal Navy uniforms). The opularity declined somewhat after World War I (1914-18) in the 1920s, but were still very popular. They were paticularly associated with the middle-class. Hans here wears a traditionally styled sailor suit. The sailor suit consists of a white middy blouse. Rgus was a summer style. Boys in cold weaher might wear a blue suit in a heavier material. These blouses were also always long sleeves. Note the destinctive way his carfe is tied with white string. Note the three stripe traditional styling on the "V" collar and cuffs. Before World War I we see boys wearing sailor suits with a wide variety of styles. After the War, the sailor suit was still popular, but virtually all were done in the readitional style like the one Hans here wears. Hans wears blue short pants with his white middy blouse. Sailor suits were also done with long pants, but short pants were more common. Hans might wear his sailor suit both for dress occassions as well as school. The sailor suit was flexible in that sence. Sailor suits were a popular style for school, but in the 1920s many boys were wearing adult-styled suits (modern suits) to gymnasium. They were wearing suits that had jackets with lapels. Boys Hans' age would have worn short pants suits, or perhaps knickers in the winter. Older boys at the school at about age 15 pr 16 would have had knicker or long pants suits. Sailor suits were normally worn by boys up to about 12-13 years of age. We have noted older boys wearing them, but not as commonly. A boy like Hans might wear his sailor suit both for dress occassions as well as school. The sailor suit was flexible in that sense.

Hosiery

Hans also wears kneesocks and leather shoes. Hans wears knee socks. During the Winter he may have worn long stockings, although he was getting close to the age that boys stopped wearing long stockings. The knee socks he wears here are brown. Colors varied at the time. For dress occassions, boys sometimes wore white kneesocks, but grey and brwn appear to have been more common. This is a little difficult to tell because one of our primary sources of information is the black and white photography of the day. Note the bands on the cuffs of his kneesocks. I believe this is the influence of British schools and Scouting where these stripes or bands were used as part of a uniform style. We see German boys in the 1920s with kneesocks that had these bands. We note kneesocks both with and without these bands. In Germany these bands appear to be purely decorative and not part of any uniform style.

Footwear

Boys like Hans mostly wore leather shoes. Closed-toe sandals were worn by younger boys, but were less common for older boys--especially for schoolwear. High-top shoes were worn in the 1920s. There is a difference among our American and German authors as to how common they were. Our American author believes that they were still prevalent for boys in the 1920s, but we do notice some boys wearing low-cut oxfords. Our German author writes, "High-top shoes were surely very common, but I am not so sure about the "prevalent". There was an age factor as well as a chronological factor. We believe that high-tops were most common for younger boys and low-cuts for older boys. Also as the decade progressed, lpw-cut shoes became more common. Thus low cuts were much more common in 1929 than 1920. Ecen so we still see high-top shoes being worn into the 1940s. We are not sure if the term oxfords were used for low-cut shoes in German. The term was and continues to be widely used for low-cut shoes in America and Britain.

Created: 6:21 PM 9/5/2005
Last updated: 6:21 PM 9/5/2005