Георг фон Трапп: от морского офицера к главе семьи певцов

Trapp family patriarch (1880–1947)

Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp (4 April 1880 – 30 May 1947) was an officer in the Austro Hungarian Navy who became the patriarch of the Trapp Family Singers. Trapp was the most successful Austro Hungarian submarine commander of World War I, sinking 11 Allied merchant ships totaling 47,653 GRT and two Allied warships displacing 12,641 tons. Trapp's accomplishments during World War I earned him numerous decorations, including the Military Order of Maria Theresa. His first wife Agathe Whitehead died of scarlet fever in 1922, leaving behind seven children. Trapp hired Maria Augusta Kutschera to tutor one of his daughters and married her in 1927. He lost most of his wealth in the Great Depression, so the family turned to singing as a way of earning a livelihood. Trapp declined a commission in the German Navy after the Anschluss and emigrated with his family to the United States. After his death in 1947, the family home in Stowe, Vermont, became the Trapp Family Lodge. Maria von Trapp's 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers was adapted into the West German film The Trapp Family (1956), which served as the basis for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music (1959) and the film adaptation directed by Robert Wise (1965).

Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp was born in Zara, Dalmatia, then a Crown Land of the Austro Hungarian Empire (present day Zadar, Croatia). His father, Fregattenkapitän August Johann Trapp, was a naval officer who had been elevated to the Austrian nobility as Ritter von Trapp when he was awarded the Order of the Iron Crown Third Class. Both his sons inherited this hereditary title of Ritter (Knight). August Ritter von Trapp died in 1884, when Georg was four. He commanded U 6 until 1913.

Trapp married Agathe Gobertina Whitehead, the eldest daughter and third child of Countess Agathe Gobertina von Breunner Enckevoirth (1856–1945), Austro Hungarian nobility, and Cavaliere (Knight) John Whitehead (1854–1902), son of Robert Whitehead (1823–1905) who invented the modern torpedo and a partner at the family's Fiume Whitehead Torpedo Factory Trapp's first command was the U boat U 6 which was launched by Agathe. Agathe's inherited wealth sustained the couple and permitted them to start a family, and they had two sons and five daughters over the next ten years. Their first child was Rupert, born on 1 November 1911 at Pula while the couple were living at Pina Budicina 11. Their other children were: Agathe, also born in Pula; Maria Franziska, Werner; Hedwig, and Johanna, all born at the family home the Erlhof in Zell am See; and Martina, born at the Martinsschlössel at Klosterneuburg, for which she was named. On 3 September 1922, Agathe von Trapp died of scarlet fever contracted from her daughter Agathe. During this period, he delivered several lectures and conducted interviews on his naval career. They were married on 26 November 1927 when he was 47 and she was 22. They had three children: Rosmarie, born on 8 February 1929,

In 1935, Trapp's money, inherited from his English first wife, was invested in a bank in England. Austria was under economic pressure from a hostile Germany, and Austrian banks were in a precarious position. Trapp sought to help a friend in the banking business, Auguste Caroline Lammer (1885–1937), so he withdrew most of his money from London and deposited it in an Austrian bank. The bank failed, wiping out most of the family's substantial fortune. Around 1936, Lotte Lehmann heard the family sing, and she suggested they perform paid concerts. When the Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg heard them on the radio, he invited them to perform in Vienna. Father Wasner became the group's musical director.

According to Maria von Trapp's memoirs, Georg von Trapp found himself in a vexing situation after the German takeover of Austria in 1938. He was offered a commission in the German Navy. This was a tempting proposition, particularly when Georg von Trapp saw the technological advances in 1930s U boats unthinkable compared to those he had once commanded in World War I, but Trapp decided to decline the offer out of hostility to Nazi ideology. He also politely declined a request for the family choir to perform at Hitler's birthday concert. After his eldest son also announced his intention to refuse to benefit from anti Semitism and to similarly decline a medical position at a prestigious Vienna hospital that had just fired all Jewish doctors, Georg von Trapp realized that the writing was on the wall. He summoned all his children and warned them that no family could safely refuse three successive offers from a man like Adolf Hitler. After Georg advised them that they must choose between a life of comfort or become refugees and keep their honour, first traveling to London, before sailing to the United States for their first concert tour. In 1939 the family returned to Europe to tour Scandinavia, hoping to continue their concerts in cities beyond the reach of the Third Reich. During this time, they went back to Salzburg for a few months before returning to Sweden to finish the tour. From there, they traveled to Norway to begin the trip back to the United States in September 1939, just after World War II broke out. In The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (1949), Maria von Trapp pointed out that there was a high incidence of lung cancer among World War I U boat crews, due to the diesel and gasoline fumes and poor ventilation, and that his death could be considered service related. She also acknowledged in her book that, like most men of the period, he was a heavy smoker.

Image Name Mother Birth Death Notes Rupert Agathe Gobertina née Whitehead 1 November 1911 He was a physician. Agathe 12 March 1913 Died: 2010 12 28 (aged 97) She worked as a singer and an artist, and lived in Baltimore, Maryland. Agathe ran a kindergarten with her longtime friend of 50 years, Mary Louise Kane, at the Sacred Heart Catholic parish in Glyndon, Maryland. She had no children. Died: 2014 02 18 (aged 99) She worked as a singer and missionary in Papua New Guinea, no children. In 2008 she visited the ancestral home. Werner 21 December 1915 Died: 2007 10 11 (aged 91) He married Erika Klambauer in 1948 and had four sons and two daughters, including Elisabeth von Trapp. Hedwig 28 July 1917 Died: 1972 09 14 (aged 55) Rosmarie worked as a singer and missionary in Papua New Guinea. She most recently lived in Pittsburgh, and had no children. She married Hugh David Campbell in 1954 and had seven daughters. She lived with her family in Waitsfield, Vermont.

Trapp has been portrayed in various adaptations of his family's life such as The Sound of Music, both the 1965 film and the Broadway musical, as well as two German films, The Trapp Family (1956) and The Trapp Family in America (1958). However, these adaptations often altered the portrayal of the Captain. In real life and in the memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, written by his second wife Maria Augusta Trapp, the Captain has been described as being a warm and loving father who was always around. However, the Captain was portrayed in a more negative light in many adaptations. For instance, in the 1965 film, Georg von Trapp was portrayed as a disciplinary man who always went away and did not care for his children or their feelings at the beginning of the film. BBC Radio presented a different account of the family in October, 2009, in a play by Annie Caulfield called The Von Trapps and Me, focused on Princess Yvonne, "the woman Captain Von Trapp jilted in order to marry Maria."