Corvette Captain Georg Johannes Freiherr von Trapp (4 April 1880 - 30 May 1947), 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, von Trapp returned to his family but lost his first wife to scarlet fever, in 1922. Five years later, von Trapp married his children's tutor Maria Augusta Kutschera. Most of the family's wealth was wiped out during the Great Depression, after von 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 von Trapp refused to serve in the German Navy due to his opposition to Nazi ideology. Fearing arrest, von 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 Broadway stage musical, The Sound of Music (1959), and the hugely successful 1965 film, in which he was portrayed by Canadian actor Christopher Plummer.
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Early life
Georg Johannes 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 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. 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 (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.
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In 1894, aged fourteen, the young von Trapp followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Navy, entering the naval academy at Fiume (now Rijeka). As part of their required education, all naval cadets were taught to play a musical instrument; Georg selected the violin. He graduated four years later and completed two years of follow-on training voyages, including one to Australia, as a cadet aboard the sail training corvette SMS Saida II. 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, von 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 which he participated in the assault on the Taku forts. In 1902 he passed the final officer's examination, and was commissioned a Fregattenleutnant (frigate lieutenant, equivalent to sub-lieutenant) in May 1903. 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, receiving promotion to Linienschiffsleutnant (ship-of-the-line lieutenant, or lieutenant) that November. 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, von Trapp took command of SM U-5 and conducted nine combat patrols. While in command of SM U-5 he sank two enemy warships, including the French armored cruiser Léon Gambetta at 39°30?N 18°15?E on 27 April 1915, 25 kilometres (13 nautical miles; 16 miles) south of Cape Santa Maria di Leuca. In hunting and sinking the Gambetta, von Trapp achieved a notable success as commander of the first submarine to execute the first-ever underwater nighttime (and only the second nighttime) submarine attack on a vessel in the Adriatic. Just over three monts later, he sank the Italian submarine Nereide at 42°23?N 16°16?E on 5 August 1915, 250 metres (270 yd) off Pelagosa (Palagru?a) Island. He also captured the Greek steamer Cefalonia off Durazzo on 29 August 1915. Now lionised as a hero across the Austro-Hungarian Empire, von Trapp was decorated with the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa for sinking the Gambetta, elevating him to being a 'knight' (Ritter) in his own right.
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 von 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.
Captain von 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, von 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. 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 von Trapp without a vocation or employment.
Italian citizenship
The von Trapps traveled to Italy, not Switzerland. Georg was born in Zadar (now in Croatia), which at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Zadar became part of Italy in 1920, and Georg was thus an Italian citizen, and his wife and children as well. The family had a contract with an American booking agent when they left Austria. They contacted the agent from Italy and requested fare to America.
First marriage and inherited wealth
Georg von 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 in Aigen, a suburb of Salzburg, and moved his family there in 1924.
During this period, Georg delivered several lectures and conducted interviews on his distinguished naval career. Recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Maria Theresa Order were entitled to petition the Austro-Hungarian monarchical council for a grant of hereditary nobility in the rank of Freiherr (Baron); on 21 April 1924, after submitting the necessary paperwork, von Trapp was officially granted the title of "Baron von Trapp.".
Second marriage
About 1926, Maria Franziska was recovering from an illness and was unable to go to school, so von Trapp hired Maria Augusta Kutschera, from the nearby Nonnberg Abbey, as a tutor.
At the age of 47, von Trapp married Maria Kutschera, then aged 22, on 26 November 1927. They had three children: Rosmarie, born on 8 February, 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 von Trapp children to ten.
Departure from Austria and later life
In 1935, von 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. von 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, von 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 US pleading for help for the Austrian people, having seen firsthand the residents of Salzburg suffer when he had arrived there with the 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
- Austro-Hungarian Empire's Knight's Cross
- Baron of the Military Order of Maria Theresa
- Knight of the Order of Leopold
- Military Merit Cross
- 1898 Jubilee Medal
- 1908 Jubilee Cross
- War Medal 1914-1918 with swords
- Long Service Cross (18 years)
- Iron Cross First Class (German Empire)
Portrayals
The Captain 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.The Captain was portrayed in a more negative light in many adaptations though. 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. This change occurred in order to try and convince audiences that having an ideal American family is best due to women beginning to get an education and employment as a result of the introduction of the birth control pill in 1960.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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