Figure 1.-- This photograph of a group of mid-level Gymnasium boys was taken in 1926 during the Weimar Republic period. We don't know the name of the school or the exact location. The boys look almost like they are wearing a school uniform, but in fact their suits are different. It ws common for boys to wear short pants and knee pants. Some what less common here is the uniformity in hosiery which was usually more varied. Often we see German boys during the 1920s wearing a mixture of knee socks and long stockings. There also tended to be variations in the colors.

This photograph of a group of mid-level Gymnasium boys was taken in 1926 during the Weimar Republic period. We don't know the name of the school or the exact location. The boys look almost like they are wearing a school uniform, but in fact their suits are different. It ws common for boys to wear short pants and knee pants. Some what less common here is the uniformity in hosiery which was usually more varied. Often we see German boys during the 1920s wearing a mixture of knee socks and long stockings. There also tended to be variations in the colors. We are not sure just what the group pictured here is, it is too small to be a class.

Chronology

The one thing we know about the photograph here is that it was taken in 1926 during the Weimar era.

Location

We have no idea where in Germany the photohraph was taken.

School Type

The boys are clearly schoolmates in a secondary school. It could have been a gymasium, but there were other types of secondary schools at the time. Gymnasiums in Germany were fairly elite schools with high academic standards and prepared boys to go on to university. A reader writes, "I agree that school uniforms were unusual in German schools. Could this have been a private school with special rules about dress code (even if the boys aren't wearing a uniform exactly)? They seem to have less individuality of dress than most schoolboys of the period, and this seems to me especially unusual in boys this old. Some of the boys look almost 17 or 18 years old. Boys this age would probably be more individual in their clothes if they were allowed to be. I think there must have been a strict dress code in this school in 1926. I know that some private scools for girls had a dress code. Could this not also be true for boys?" A dress code is a possibiklity at German schools, but our German readers ghave not addressed this topic to any degree. One important thing to remember is that generally German private schools were not stricter and did not require unifirms like British private schools. In fact discipline and standards were commonly more relaxed than at the state schools.

Group

We are unsure here, just what the group here is. The caps I think show that they are from the same schools. German school caps wre similar, but not identical. These caps are all the same. Even the colored band looks the same. But itids not a class group. There are only 9 boys here. Just what there connection is we are unsure. Being photographed together suggests to us that they are in the same class. Areader writes, "I'm not sure that the boys standing in back are actually part of the class, which may explain why they are dressed a bit differently (except for the school cap, which even the teacher wears). [HBC does not think the indivdual at the right back is a teacher, although he does look older,]

Age

I am not at all sure about the age of the boys here. I would guess something tlike 15 years of age, some may be 16 years old. Actually we are not sure just what the group here is. It is too small to be aclass group. A reader writes, "In the back row we see the schoolmaster and a few additional boys who may have served as prefects or in some leadership capacity. The boys standing, however, do not wear the school uniform although they have the same kind of caps. They may have had some sort of teaching role in the school. Even the schoolmaster wears the school cap." We think that all of the individuals here are students. A teacher would not have orn the school cap, only the students. And I do not think that German schools had prefects like English schools, although here I am unure.

Uniform

The HBC reader who forwarded the photograph here writes, "The boys here wear a school uniform, which was unusual in German schools. These are older boys about 15 or even 16 years old. We don't often see boys of this age still wearinrg short trousers with long stockings, but the style is explainable if we note that the style was required as part of the school uniform. Many German families were quite conservative in their attitudes toward children's clothing, and insisted on short trousers for boys until they were nearly adults by modern standards. Schools reflected this conservatisim in many places." On first glance the boys do look o be wearing a school uniform. They all certainly wear thir school cap. There suits are, however, different, especially if we look at the boys in the back row. But even in the front row there are differebces. The black and white photography obscures color diferences. One looks to be double breasted suit. Some appear to have the ornamental buttons on their pants. Also two of the boys in the back wear ties. We wonder though id the school did not have some sort of dress code which would explain why the boys here all wear short pants and black long stockings. But such regulations would have been unusual. We have not found German accounts where schools required boys to wear short pants and prescribed hosiery. Perhaps this was an exception, but it also may be mere chance.

Garments

We note a variety of garments here.

Cap

The boys all wear the standard peaked caps that designate them as schoolboys. These caps were worn by both primary and secondary schoolboys in Germany. The basic style was similar througout Germany, but often the color of the band destinguished the school or class.

Suits

The boys mostly wear single breasted suits. One boy, however, has a collar buttoning jacket and another a doublr-breasted jacket. Notice that the boys button all three of the front buttons on their suit jackets rather than just buttoning the middle button or letting the jackets hang open.

Shirts

The boys mostly wear open-necked white shirts with their suits rather than ties, although in other respects they are dressed quite formally.

Short pants

The boys in the front row wear short trousers although the trousers are similar to knee pants in that some seem to have the old-fashioned ornamental buttons at the hem of the shorts. The shorts however seem to be too short (above the knees) to qualify as "knee pants," and 1926 was a year when short trousers for boys had become well established in Germany. We can not tell what kind of pants the boys in the back row wear.

Hosiery

The boys at least those in the front row all wear long black stockings complete the uniform. The stockings are clearly held up tautly by "strumpfhalter" (= hose supporters), but German boys of teenage years no longer wore the Leibchen (a sleeveless shirt with garters attached). Instead they normally wore a "strapsgurtel" or garter belt (similar in construction to a modern hockey garter belt) with four supporters (two for each stocking) in front and in back. cap.

Footwear

All the boys in the front row wear hightop leather shoes.

Related Style Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[Main school uniform page]
[Main country page]
[Long pants suits] [Short pants suits] [Socks] [Eton suits]
[Jacket and trousers] [Blazer [School sandals]

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing School Uniform Pages
[Return to the Main infdividual German school chronology]
[Return to the Main German 1920s school garment chronology page]
[Return to the Main German headwear page]
[Return to the Main national school cap page ]
[Australia] [England] [France] [Germany] [Italy] [Japan] [New Zealand] [Scotland]
[United States]

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Page
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Glossaries] [Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]

Created: 10:09 PM 5/13/2007
Last updated: 4:55 PM 5/14/2007