Georg von Trapp

Corvette Captain Georg Johannes Ritter (Knight) von Trapp (4 April 1880 – 30 May 1947), often incorrectly referred to as Baron (Freiherr) von Trapp, was an Austro-Hungarian Navy officer. His naval exploits during World War I earned him numerous decorations, including the prestigious Military Order of Maria Theresa. Under his command, the submarines SM U-5 and SM U-14 sank 13 Allied ships totaling about 45,669 gross register tons (GRT).

Following Austria-Hungary's defeat and subsequent collapse, Trapp returned to his family but lost his first wife to scarlet fever, in 1922. Five years later, Trapp married his children's tutor Maria Augusta Kutschera. Most of the family's wealth was wiped out during the Great Depression, after Trapp transferred his savings from a bank in London into an Austrian bank. Maria then trained the children to perform at various events as a way of earning a livelihood. The family came under increasing persecution from the Nazis after the Anschluss, when Trapp refused to serve in the German Navy due to his opposition to Nazi ideology. Fearing arrest, Trapp fled with his family to Italy and then to the United States, where he set up a farm and lived the remainder of his life there until his death in 1947.

Maria later wrote of their time together in her book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. The story of his family served as the inspiration for the musical The Sound of Music (1959), and the hugely successful 1965 film, in which he was portrayed by Canadian actor Christopher Plummer.

Early life

Georg Johannes Ritter von Trapp (4 April 1880 – 30 May 1947) was born in Zara, Dalmatia, then a Crown Land of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Zadar, Croatia). His father, Fregattenkapitän August Trapp, was a naval officer who had been elevated to the Austrian nobility in 1876, which entitled him and his descendants to the style of "Ritter von Trapp" for sons and "von Trapp" for daughters. (A Ritter (knight) is a hereditary title of nobility roughly equivalent to a British baronetcy, which is a hereditary knighthood but does not confer nobility. In the Austrian order of precedence Ritter ranked above the lowest rank of the nobility, Edler (nobleman), and below a Freiherr (baron), a Graf (count), and "Fürst," (prince) – Herzog, or duke, was reserved for agnates of the imperial family).

Georg's mother was Hedwig Wepler. His older sister was the Austrian artist Hede von Trapp, and his brother Werner died in 1915 during the First World War.

August Ritter von Trapp died in 1884, when Georg was four.

Naval career

In 1894, aged fourteen, the young Trapp followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Navy, entering the naval academy at Fiume (now Rijeka). He graduated four years later and completed two years of follow-on training voyages, including one to Australia. On the voyage home he visited the Holy Land where he met a Franciscan monk who took him on a tour of all the Biblical sites he wanted to see. Among other things, Trapp bought seven bottles of water from the Jordan River which were later used to baptize his first seven children. In 1900 he was assigned to the protected cruiser SMS Zenta and was decorated for his performance during the Boxer Rebellion. In 1902 he passed the final officer's examination. He was fascinated by submarines, and in 1908 seized the opportunity to be transferred to the navy's newly formed submarine arm, or U-boot-Waffe. In 1910 he was given command of the newly constructed SM U-6, which was launched by his wife, the former Agatha Whitehead. He commanded U-6 until 1913.

On 17 April 1915, Trapp took command of SM U-5 and conducted nine combat patrols. While in command of SM U-5 he sank two enemy warships:

• the French armored cruiser Léon Gambetta at 39°30′N 18°15′E / 39.500°N 18.250°E / 39.500; 18.250 on 27 April 1915, 25 kilometres (13 nautical miles; 16 miles) south of Cape Santa Maria di Leuca,
• the Italian submarine Nereide at 42°23′N 16°16′E / 42.383°N 16.267°E / 42.383; 16.267 on 5 August 1915, 250 metres (270 yd) off Pelagosa (Palagruža) Island.

He also captured the Greek steamer Cefalonia off Durazzo on 29 August 1915.

Georg Johannes von Trapp has sometimes incorrectly been credited with sinking the Italian troop transport Principe Umberto. In reality, this was sunk by U-5 under Trapp's successor, Friedrich Schlosser (1885–1959), on 8 June 1916, after Trapp was transferred to SM U-14 which had previously been the French submarine Curie, before it was sunk and salvaged by the Austrian Navy.

Trapp conducted ten more war patrols, until, in May 1918, he was promoted to Korvettenkapitän (equal to Lieutenant commander) and given command of the submarine base at Cattoro in the Gulf of Kotor. At the end of the fighting in 1918, Trapp's wartime record stood at 19 war patrols; 11 cargo vessels totalling 45,669 GRT sunk, plus Léon Gambetta and Nereide and 1 cargo vessel captured. Among other honours, he received the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa. The end of the First World War saw the defeat and collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the process, Austria was reduced in size to its land-locked German-speaking heartlands, thus losing its sea-coasts, and had no further need for a navy, leaving Trapp without a vocation or employment.

Italian citizenship

After the First World War, Zara became a part of the Kingdom of Italy: Georg von Trapp, who was born in Zara, obtained Italian citizenship and so when he had to flee from Austria (in 1938), he could go to Italy as an Italian citizen.

First marriage and inherited wealth

Trapp was first married to Agatha Whitehead, a niece of St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton and a granddaughter of Robert Whitehead, who invented the modern torpedo. After the British government had rejected Whitehead's invention, the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef invited him to open a torpedo factory in Fiume (present-day Rijeka, Croatia). Trapp's first command, the U-boat U-6, was launched by Agatha.

Agatha's inherited wealth sustained the couple and permitted them to start a family, and they went on to have seven children; two sons and five daughters, over the next ten years. Their first child, Rupert, was born on 1 November 1911, at Pola, Istria, while the couple was living at Pina Budicina 11. The marriage produced six more children: Agathe, also born at Pola; Maria Franziska; Werner; Hedwig; and Johanna; all born at Zell am See, at the family home, the Erlhof. and Martina, born at Klosterneuburg at the family home, the Martinsschlössel, for which she was named.

On 3 September 1922, Agatha von Trapp died of scarlet fever contracted from her daughter Agathe. Trapp then acquired Villa Trapp (de) in Aigen, a suburb of Salzburg, and moved his family there in 1924.

Second marriage

About 1926, Maria Franziska was recovering from an illness and was unable to go to school, so Trapp hired Maria Augusta Kutschera, from the nearby Nonnberg Abbey, as a tutor.

At the age of 47, Trapp married Maria Kutschera, then aged 22, on 26 November 1927. They had three children: Rosemarie, born on 8 February, either 1928 or 1929, in Salzburg, Austria; Eleonore, born 14 May 1931, in Salzburg; and Johannes, born 17 January 1939, in Philadelphia, bringing the total number of the Trapp children to ten.

Departure from Austria and later life

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.

Faced with an impossible situation of little or no money and a husband incapable of providing for her or for the family, Maria von Trapp took charge and began to make arrangements for the family to sing at various events as a way of earning a livelihood. At about that time, a Catholic priest, Franz Wasner, around Maria's age, came to live with them and became the group's musical director. 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.

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, a tempting proposition for a Captain without a navy, but decided to decline the offer, being opposed to Nazi ideology. Knowing that he could not decline the offer without the threat of arrest, possibly for his entire family, Trapp decided to leave Austria. The family took a train to Italy, then sailed to the United States for their first concert tour, then in 1939 went back 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.

After living for a short time in Merion, Pennsylvania, where they welcomed their youngest child, Johannes, the family settled in Stowe, Vermont, in 1941. They purchased a 660-acre (270 ha) farm in 1942 and converted it into the Trapp Family Lodge. In January 1947, Major General Harry J. Collins turned to the Trapp family in the USA pleading for help for the Austrian people, having seen firsthand the residents of Salzburg suffer when he had arrived there with the famed 42nd Rainbow Division after World War II. The Trapp Family founded the Trapp Family Austrian Relief, Inc., and the priest Franz Wasner, their pre-war friend, became its treasurer.

Death

Georg Johannes von Trapp died of lung cancer on 30 May 1947, in Stowe, Vermont.

Children

Orders, decorations and medals

• Knights Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa
• Knight of the Order of Leopold
• Military Merit Medal
• 1898 Jubilee Medal
• 1908 Jubilee Cross
• War Medal 1914–1918 with swords
• Long Service Cross (18 years)
• Iron Cross First Class (German Empire)

Map locations