Figure 1.-- His school portrait is not identified. We believe it is a class at a Catholic scondary school, orobably in the early-1930s. We think this is probably a class preparing for Konformation. That would mean the boys are about13-years old. The boys are all wearing either long pants or knickers. We think it is probably a Konfirmation class because so many boysare wearing long pants. We suspect that this was less common for everyday schoolwear.

We see German boys wearing knickers-style pants in the 19h century, but these seem to be more bloomer knickes worn by younger boys than proper knickers with buckle or button closures like American boys wore. We have not yet worked out the chronlgy. We do not see many boys wearing knickers to school in the early-20th century. This may in part be due to our limited archive. We see some older German boys wearing knickers commonly in the 1920s as short pants became standard for yonger boys. Knickers became a kind of transition between short and long pants. This varied from family to family, both the choice of trousers and the age conventions involved. Knickers seem mot common for boys around 13-16 years of age. This was affected somewhat when the Hitler Youth adopted a kinfs if skipants winter uniform. Some boys went right from short pants to knickers. This seems to have varied somewhat seasonally. There also seems to have been some regional variation. We note some secondary schools with only a few boys wearing knickers. In a few schools they are much more common, at least during the winter. We see boys wearing them with both long stockings and knee socks. Some boys wore knee socks over the bottom of their knickers. By the 1930s, knee socks were standard, espcially with the older boys. We do not see the loud patterened knee socks like American boys wore. Some younger boys wore them during the cold winter weather. Knickers generally went out of style in the 1940s, but we see a few boys in the 50s wearing them.

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Created: 4:52 AM 10/18/2012
Last updated: 4:52 AM 10/18/2012