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Wednesday, April 7, 2021


My guess is that this eclectic group of men were early 20th Century Germans.
I find the fellow standing at right to be especially fetching.

 

5 comments:

  1. What we today would call a micro-bikini was very popular in all-male spaces like gymnasia, and particularly with Germans - who do not generally share the Anglo-Saxon prudishness over the body - until WWI, when the strict barriers between the sexes started to break down and males started to cover up in public. In fact, indoor five-a-side football (soccer) teams wore briefs like these. Men would swim naked. This photo may date from WWI, but it certainly has a whiff of the army about it.

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    1. Does that long shed in the background look like a semi-outdoor changing room? I just notices what looks like clothes hanging under it.

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  2. Yes, I think this must be a training ground. The changing rooms in my school's swimming pool dated from the 1910s. Lining the pool, they had no doors, an in-built bench and wall hooks, and merely a courtesy board at mid-height - which seemed a bit superfluous as most of us swam naked. I have seen similar architecture in images from Scandinavia to Germany and France. British "pavillions" for athletics and cricket were usually built on a square, one room for the home team, one for the visitors. The length of this one would imply numbers and so hints toward a regimental set-up.

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    1. Yes, and maybe the training was one of those German health camps?

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  3. Strangely, that hadn't entered my mind. The Germans in particular had a lot of those. You may well be right.

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