Figure 1.--These German boys in 1968 are wearing Lederhosen as casual shorts for a game of minature golf. |
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HBC is not sure why the popularity of lederhosen began to decline. Some have sugested an association with NAZIs. There are images showing Hitler and other NAZIs wearing lederhosen. A HBC reader writes, However, ."There is no association in Germany with the Nazis whatsoever. The Hitlerjugend has been known to discourage the wearing of lederhosen with the uniform. Lederhosen were a popular folk costume for both boys and men in Southern Germany , Austria and South Tyrol long before the NAZIs came to power." HBC tends to believe the declining popularity was part of a genereral decline in the popularity of short pants, especially among teenagers. There is also of course the influence of the American fashion industry. A HBC reader comments, "I don't understand what happened. From my research using Google image search (a wonderful tool!), the period in which you were most likely to see a German boy in lederhosen was from the late 40s to the early 60s. This was certainly after the NAZI era. By the late 50s, lederhosen were so popular that even French boys were wearing them. Then during the 60s German boys exchanged the
colorful ethnic dress of their own land for the colorful ethnic dress of my
land - blue jeans. By the 70s it was only the rare German boy who would
consider lederhosen for everyday wear. Increasingly, lederhosen were worn only
by the youngest boys - boys who were too young to have much choice in what
they wore. Lederhosen for schoolage boys is now limited to fancy styles for
special ocassions. Ask a younger German today about lederhosen and he'll look
at you funny. He'll admit that he had a pair when he was 3 years old, but not
since. He'll say that they're only worn in the south, not in his part of
Germany. He has little idea how popular they were 40 years ago." If anyone else has any insights into what happened to lederhosen, please share your thoughts with HBC.
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