Hitler Youth Uniforms: Wearing the Uniform--Family Snap Shots and Play

Figure 1.-- Another photo of two German boys (aged about 11 and 12?) during the NAZI period (probably taken in the mid-1930s). The younger boy is dressed in the uniform of the Hitler Youth movement (brown shirt, leather belt with chest strap, black shorts, white knee socks or long stockings (the photo is not very clear on this point), and hightop shoes. His friend wears ordinary school clothes--a sleeveless sweater over a long-sleeved shirt, dark short pants, dark knee socks with stripes around the top, and hightop shoes. The older boy has short hair but cut in front like bangs. The setting seems to be rural, which may explain the white long stockings. Hitler Youth boys often wore white knee socks with their dress uniforms.

We notice some snapshots at home with the children wearing their HJ uniforms. These appear to be mostly boys who put on their uniforms to have their photographs taken by their parents. Many of the poertraits look to be ones for which the boys clearly dressed up in their uniform for the portraits. Othr photographs look ,ore like family snapshots in which the boys just happened to be wearing their uniforms. Some of the images, however, look more like the boys are plaing in their uniforms. Some may have just returned home from a meeting or other event and and not yet bothered to change. Some boys may have just worn the uniform for the est of the day. Here we are just not real sure what the conventions were.