Georg von Trapp

Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp was born in Zara in the Kingdom of Dalmatia, then a crown land of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now in Croatia. His father, Fregattenkapitän August Johann Trapp (1836-1884), was a naval officer, and his mother, Hedwig Wepler (1855-1911) had immigrated to the Adriatic Coast from the Grand Duchy of Hesse.{{Cite web |title=G&A {{!}} Georg & Agathe |url=https://www.georgandagathe.org/history--georg---agathe.html |access-date=2025-03-16 |website=Georg & Agathe Foundation |language=en}} His father had been raised to the Austrian nobility with the hereditary title of Ritter, upon being made a member of the Order of the Iron Crown; he died of typhoid fever in 1884 (aged forty-eight), when Georg was four.{{cite web |title=G&A - Children/Parents/Grandparents |url=http://georgandagathe.org/children-parents-grandparents.html |website=Georg & Agathe Foundation}} Trapp’s older sister was the Austrian artist Hede von Trapp, and his brother Werner died in 1915 during World War I.

In 1894, aged fourteen, Trapp followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Austro-Hungarian Navy, entering the Imperial and Royal Naval Academy at Fiume. As part of their required education, all naval cadets were taught to play a musical instrument; Georg von Trapp 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 friar 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 China, 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 transfer 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 {{ship|SM|U-6|Austria-Hungary|6}}.{{Cite news|first=Joan|last=Gearin|url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/winter/von-trapps.html|title=The Real Story of the von Trapp Family|access-date=5 January 2009|quote=Maria Kutschera and Georg von Trapp married in 1927. They had three children together: Rosmarie (born 1928 or 1929) , Eleonore (born 1931), and Johannes (born 1939).|publisher=National Archives and Records Administration }} He commanded U-6 until 1913.{{Cite web |title=G&A {{!}} Georg's Naval Career |url=http://www.georgandagathe.org/history--georg-s-naval-career.html |access-date=2022-07-12 |website=Georg & Agathe Foundation |language=en}}

On 17 April 1915, Trapp took command of {{ship|SM|U-5|Austria-Hungary|6}}. He conducted nine combat patrols in U-5, and sank two enemy warships. One was the French armored cruiser {{ship|French cruiser|Léon Gambetta||2}}, sunk at {{Coord|39|30|N|18|15|E}} on 27 April 1915, {{convert|25|km|nmi mi|abbr=off}} south of Cape Santa Maria di Leuca. In hunting and sinking Gambetta, Trapp achieved a notable success as commander of the first-ever underwater nighttime (and only the second) submarine attack on a vessel in the Adriatic. Just over three months later, he sank the Italian submarine {{ship|Italian submarine|Nereide|1913|2}} at {{Coord|42|23|N|16|16|E}} on 5 August 1915, {{convert|250|m|yd}} off Pelagosa (Palagruža) Island.von Trapp, p. 41. He also captured the Greek steamer Cefalonia off Durazzo on 29 August 1915. Some sources incorrectly credit Trapp with sinking the Italian troop transport and armed merchant cruiser {{SS|Principe Umberto||2}},{{cite book |last1=Cummins |first1=C. Lyle |title=Diesels for the first stealth weapon : submarine power 1902-1945 |date=2007 |publisher=Carnot Press |location=Wilsonville, Oregon |isbn=9780917308062 |page=105 |quote=George Ritter von Trapp, of von Trapp Family Singers fame ... was also skipper when she torpedoed ... the loaded Italian troop transport Principe Umberto ...}} which resulted in the greatest loss of life in any submarine attack in World War I, but the ship was actually sunk by U-5, commanded by Friedrich Schlosser.{{cite web |title=Linenschiffleutnant Friedrich Schlosser |url=https://www.uboat.net/wwi/men/commanders/533.html |website=uboat.net}}

Trapp was transferred to the {{ship|SM|U-14|Austria-Hungary|6}}, the former French submarine Curie, which had been sunk and salvaged by the Austro-Hungarian Navy.{{harvnb|von Trapp|2007|p=67}} He conducted ten more war patrols in the much larger submarine, attacking merchant ships instead of warships. Between April 1917 and October 1917, U-14 sank 11 Allied merchant ships under Trapp's command.

In May 1918, he was promoted to Korvettenkapitän (equal to lieutenant commander) and given command of the submarine base at Cattaro in the Gulf of Kotor. However, Austria-Hungary's defeat in World War I led to the empire's collapse. The territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was divided among seven countries, with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes keeping most of the seacoast. The Republic of German-Austria was landlocked and no longer had a navy, putting an end to Trapp's naval career.

Trapp's patrols in U-5 and U-14 made him 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 a total of 12,641 tons.{{efn|name=hudecek|Some sources incorrectly credit Zdenko Hudeček with being the most successful Austro-Hungarian submarine commander of the war.{{cite book |last1=O'Hara |first1=Vincent P. |title=To Crown the Waves: The Great Navies of the First World War |date=2013 |publisher=Naval Institute Press |location=Annapolis, Maryland |isbn=9781612512693 |quote=Overall, Austro-Hungarian submarines in the Adiratic and Mediterranean sank 196,093 GRT of enemy and neutral merchant ships. The top aces were Lieutenant Commander Zdenko Hudecek and Georg von Trapp, who accounted for 47,788 and 44,595 GRT, respectively.}}{{cite book |last1=Pergl |first1=G. E. |title=Historical Abstracts: Twentieth century abstracts, 1914-. Part B. |date=1973 |publisher=American Bibliographical Center of ABC-Clio |page=14 |quote=... show clearly that the Austrian submarine ace of the period was not George von Trapp, but Zdenko Hudeček, who with his submarine U-28, sank 12 enemy ships, totaling 48,000 tons gross weight.}} Trapp is ahead of Hudeček when warship displacement is added to merchant tonnage, giving him over 60,000 tons of enemy ships sunk.{{cite book |last1=Sondhaus |first1=Lawrence |title=The Great War at Sea: A Naval History of the First World War |date=2014 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, England |isbn=9781107036901 |page=275 |quote=The leading commanders in terms of tonnage sunk were Germany's Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière ... and for Austria-Hungary's much smaller effort, Georg von Trapp, who sank 60,294 tons ...}} Hudeček is competitive on merchant ship tonnage sunk, but only when he is credited with sinking the British tanker Mitra, which was actually damaged but not sunk.{{cite web |title=Tanker Mitra |url=https://www.uboat.net/wwi/ships_hit/4185.html |website=uboat.net}}{{cite book |last1=Sárhida |first1=Gyula |title=Tengerek szürke farkasai |date=1989 |publisher=Maecenas |location=Budapest |isbn=9789637425158 |page=98 |quote=1. von Trapp, U-14, 11- 44 595 BRT* 2. Hudecek, U-17, U-28, 11- 39 727 BRT}} When Mitra is removed from Hudeček's list, Trapp is ahead even on merchant shipping.{{cite web |title=Linenschiffleutnant Zdenko Hudecek|url=https://www.uboat.net/wwi/men/commanders/513.html |website=uboat.net}}}}

• Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa (1924)
• Knight's Cross of the Imperial Order of Leopold
• Knight 2nd Class of the Order of the Iron Crown (1917)
• Bronze Military Merit Medal ("Signum Laudis")
• Military Merit Cross{{cite web|url=https://uboat.net/wwi/men/commanders/542.html|title=Korvettenkapitän Georg Ritter von Trapp - German and Austrian U-boats of World War One - Kaiserliche Marine - uboat.net|website=uboat.net}}
• 1898 Jubilee Medal
• 1908 Jubilee Cross
• War Medal 1914–1918 with swords
• Long Service Cross (18 years)
• Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class (German Empire)
• Liakat Medal (Ottoman Empire)
• Order of St. Stanislaus 3rd Class (Russian Empire)

File:Whitehead-Agather 1909circa.jpg

Trapp married Agathe Gobertina Whitehead,[https://www.georgandagathe.org/history--georg---agathe.html Georg & Agathe FOUNDATION Honoring the von Trapp and Whitehead Heritage] 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 (not, as frequently stated, a niece of the British Government minister St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton). The British government rejected Whitehead's invention, but Austrian Emperor Franz Josef invited him to open a torpedo factory in Fiume.{{Cite book|last= von Trapp|first=Georg |title=To the Last Salute: Memories of an Austrian U-Boat Commander|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dOHuFPfh4uwC&q=January+10,+1911+von+trapp&pg=PR14|isbn=978-0-8032-4667-6|date=1 December 2007|publisher=U of Nebraska Press }} Trapp's first command was the U-boat U-6 which was launched by Agathe.Sources conflict on whether the marriage took place in January 1911 or January 1912.

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,Social Security Death Index as "Rupert Vontrapp" 1 November 1911 – 22 February 1992; 05672 (Stowe, Lamoille, VT); 127-14-1082; Social Security issued in New York born on 1 November 1911 at Pula while the couple were living at Pina Budicina 11.The Villa Trapp is at Pina Budicina 11 at {{Coord|44|52|10.40|N|13|50|29.43|E|display=inline}} Their other children were: Agathe, also born in Pula; Maria Franziska, Werner;{{Cite news|title=Susan Hoyt, Teacher, Sets July Wedding|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1980/03/23/archives/susan-hoyt-teacher-sets-july-wedding.html|work=The New York Times|date=23 March 1980|access-date=21 July 2007}} Hedwig, and Johanna, all born at the family home the Erlhof in Zell am See;The Erlhof is at {{Coord|47|18|46.88|N|12|48|59.53|E|display=inline}} and Martina, born at the Martinsschlössel at Klosterneuburg, for which she was named.The Martinsschlössel is at {{Coord|48|18|48.04|N|16|19|10.47|E|display=inline}}

On 3 September 1922, Agathe 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.The family villa in Aigen is at {{Coord|47|47|19.59|N|13|4|53.00|E|display=inline}} During this period, he delivered several lectures and conducted interviews on his naval career.

About 1926, Maria Franziska was recovering from an illness and was unable to go to school, so Trapp hired Maria Augusta Kutschera, a novice from the nearby Nonnberg Abbey as a tutor.{{cite news |author=Trapp Family Lodge |url=http://www.trappfamily.com/agathevontrapp |title=The von Trapp Chronology |access-date=2015-04-06 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110830182358/http://www.trappfamily.com/agathevontrapp |archive-date=30 August 2011 }} They were married on 26 November 1927 when he was 47 and she was 22.Petition for Naturalization, Retrieved 5 January 2009{{Better source needed|date=February 2017|reason=WP:CIRCULAR}} They had three children: Rosmarie, born on 8 February 1929,{{better source needed|date=October 2023}} Eleonore (called Lorli), born 14 May 1931, and Johannes, born 17 January 1939 in Pennsylvania.{{cite web |url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/winter/von-trapps-html |title=Movie vs. Reality: The Real Story of the von Trapp Family |website=National Archives |date=15 August 2016 |publisher=Prologue Magazine |access-date=21 December 2022}}

File:Music. Rupert & Werner Von Trapp BAnQ P48S1P13787.jpg (right) and Werner, in U.S. Army uniforms, reading sheet music on 24 January 1946]]

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.

At about that time, a Catholic priest, Franz Wasner, instructed the children in music.{{cite web |title=Franz Wasner |url=https://www.sound-of-music.com/the-real-story/franz-wasner/ |website=The Sound of Music Salzburg |publisher=Panorama Tours |date=14 July 2021}}{{cite book |last1=Ransom |first1=Candice F. |title=Maria von Trapp: Beyond the Sound of Music |date=2002 |publisher=Carolrhoda Books |location=Minneapolis |isbn=9781575054445 |pages=44–45}} 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.{{cite news|title=Family Choir|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,772134,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090415083822/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,772134,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=15 April 2009|work=Time magazine|date=19 December 1938|access-date=7 January 2011}} Father Wasner became the group's musical director.

According to Maria von Trapp's memoirs{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}, 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, the Trapp family decided to emigrate from Nazi Austria.

On leaving Austria, the Trapps traveled by train to Italy (not over the mountains by foot to Switzerland as is depicted in The Sound of Music). The family had a contract with an American booking agent when they left Austria. Once in Italy, they contacted the agent and requested fare to America,{{cite magazine |last=Gearin |first=Joan |date=30 October 2005 |title=Movie vs. Reality: The Real Story of the Von Trapp Family |url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/winter/von-trapps.html |magazine=Prologue |url-status=dead |location=USA |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629040126/http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/winter/von-trapps.html |volume=37 |issue=4 |archive-date=29 June 2011 |access-date=30 December 2017 }}. first traveling to London, before sailing to the United States for their first concert tour.{{cite news|title=Family Life in Vermont|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,794845-1,00.html|work=Time Magazine|date=18 July 1949|access-date=7 January 2011}}

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.

After living for a short time in Merion, Pennsylvania, where their youngest child, Johannes, was born, the family settled in Stowe, Vermont, in 1941. They purchased a {{convert|660|acre|adj=on}} 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 first-hand the suffering of the residents of Salzburg when he had arrived there with the 42nd Infantry Division after World War II. The Trapp Family founded the Trapp Family Austrian Relief, Inc.; the priest Franz Wasner, their pre-war friend, became its treasurer.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}

Trapp died of lung cancer on 30 May 1947 in Stowe, Vermont.Barry Monush: The Sound of Music FAQ: All That's Left to Know About Maria, the Von Trapps, and Our Favorite Things, 2015, p. 20 [https://books.google.com/books?id=-1elCAAAQBAJ&dq=%22cancer%22+%22Georg+von+Trapp%22&pg=PT20] 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.The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (1949)

Trapp has been portrayed in various adaptations of his family's life such as The Sound of Music, both the 1965 film (played by Christopher Plummer) and the Broadway musical, as well as two German films, The Trapp Family (1956) and The Trapp Family in America (1958).{{Cite book|title=The Sound of Music: The Making of America's Favorite Movie|last=Hirsch|first=Julia Antopol|publisher=Contemporary Books|year=1993|location=Lincolnwood, Illinois|pages=6}} 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.{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1998/06/vontrapp199806|title=The Sound of Money|last=Andrews|first=Suzanna|magazine=Vanity Fair|access-date=2017-12-01|language=en}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31658799|title=The truth about the Sound of Music family|last=Hidalgo|first=Louise|date=2015-03-01|work=BBC News|access-date=2017-12-01|language=en-GB}} 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.Wise, Robert. The Sound of Music. Twentieth Century Fox, 1965. 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."{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mz3pq.|title= The "princess" was identified by a London newspaper as Baroness Elsa Schräder.}}{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mandrake/3287089/Now-for-the-story-of-the-Baroness-from-The-Sound-of-Music.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mandrake/3287089/Now-for-the-story-of-the-Baroness-from-The-Sound-of-Music.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Now for the story of the Baroness from The Sound of Music |author=Tim Walker |editor=Richard Eden |date=30 October 2008 |website=Telegraph}}{{cbignore}}

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Georg

Category:U-boat commanders (Austro-Hungarian Navy)