Boot black wears off very quickly in cold and wet weather. So a black pair of boots for all intents and purposes would appear brown. If you look at pictures of existing items as used, they are often very worn and very brown. That is the reality of use seen when handling the real thing.

I only have to look in the closet at my favorite pair of issue boots.

Boot black is a charcoal derivative. It's been around as long as man has had fire.

Shining boots was just not a priority on the Eastern Front in 1941. Also the boot black wears off in snow within hours. Soldiers could brush it on in the morning and it would be all worn off by lunchtime. And then the Russians are shooting at you and you stepped in a mud puddles from melting snow, hold on, got to get the wax out to shine the boots...


Look at Bill Maudlin 's filth covered Willy and Joe. No brush touched their boots and the polish got thrown out to make way for another can of food or a carton of smokes.

The short boots issued after 1942 often were brown and never blackened for just those practical reasons.

Boot black wears off very quickly in cold and wet weather. So a black pair of boots for all intents and purposes would appear brown. If you look at pictures of existing items as used, they are often very worn and very brown. That is the reality of use seen when handling the real thing.

I only have to look in the closet at my favorite pair of issue boots.

Maybe Bravo 1102 was referring to the ankle boots issued to Germans from 1943? Of course, Jack Boots continued to be worn till the end of the war.

Thank you everyone for the feedback; I checked color pictures from the era and many show early war boots as black but some show fading and/or discoloring; I wanted to be sure I could be accurate if a couple of the figures had boots that weren't quite black or were worn enough to appear brown; thanks again; got a good thread going

Having worn black colored boots for my entire service career I think I have a little reliability in my opinion. Heheheh.
The leather is actually dyed and the polish just protects that dye. I can't imagine the German tanning process was much different than ours was in the 70s. I wore jump boots,issue boots of three different kinds and also jungle boots (mostly) while in the 82nd. After the wax in the polish wears off,then the dye is affected and as it wears,the leather color shows through more and more,but only in the areas affected by friction. So the toe area and the back lower part of the heel will get brown first,etc and also the high areas of the creases on the sides of the boot. The overall boot does not wear the same,get it? That pic of the dusty boots is just that,boots in one color,uniformly covered in dust. I have found the best way to paint worn boots is to cover the whole boot in dark grey,then give it a wash of black for the low areas. This is followed by dry brushing Valajo flesh color in the worn areas.Any earth tone weathering is then applied. You can get more complicated but that is the basic method.
Hope this coffee fueled comment was not too boring.
J