Georg von Trapp

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Georg Johannes von Trapp
Georg Johannes von Trapp.jpg
Born (1880-04-04)4 April 1880
Zara, Kingdom of Dalmatia, Austria-Hungary (present-day Zadar, Croatia)
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Stowe, Vermont, U.S
Nationality Austrian; Italian
Spouse(s) Agatha Whitehead (1891–1922) (m. 1911–22) (7 children)
Maria Augusta Kutschera (1905–1987) (m. 1927–47) (3 children)
Children Rupert von Trapp (1911–1992)
Agathe von Trapp (1913–2010)
Maria Franziska von Trapp (1914–2014)
Werner von Trapp (1915–2007)
Hedwig von Trapp (1917–1972)
Johanna von Trapp (1919–1994)
Martina von Trapp (1921–1951)
Rosmarie von Trapp (b. 1928 or 1929)
Eleonore von Trapp (b. 1931)
Johannes von Trapp (b. 1939)
Military career
Allegiance Austria-Hungary Austro-Hungarian Empire (to 1918)
Service/branch  Austro-Hungarian Navy
Years of service 1898–1918
Rank Corvette Captain (Lieutenant-Commander)
Commands held SM U-6 (July 1910 – July 1913)
Torpedo Boat 52 (1913–1914)
SM U-5 (April–October 1915)
SM U-14 (captured French submarine Curie) (October 1915 – May 1918)
Submarine base commander at Cattaro (May–November 1918)
Battles/wars Wars:
Awards Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa (1915)
File:Whitehead-Agather 1909circa.jpg
Lieutenant Georg von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead about 1910
On duty aboard SMU-5

Corvette Captain Georg Johannes, Ritter[1] von Trapp (4 April 1880 – 30 May 1947), often incorrectly referred to as Baron (Freiherr) von Trapp, was an Austro-Hungarian Navy officer.[2][3] 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, who trained the children to perform at various events as a way of earning a livelihood after most of the family's wealth was wiped out in a failed banking venture. 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. The story of his family served as the inspiration for the musical The Sound of Music (1959) and the 1965 film.[3]

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.[citation needed] A Ritter (knight) is a hereditary title of nobility roughly equivalent to a British baronetcy, which is an hereditary knighthood but does not confer nobility.[4] 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 "Furst," (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.[5]

August Ritter von Trapp died in 1884, when Georg was four.[5]

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).[5] 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.[5] In 1900 he was assigned to the armored cruiser SMS Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia 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.[6] He commanded U-6 until 1913.[citation needed]

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 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. on 27 April 1915, 25 kilometres (13 nautical miles; 16 miles) south of Cape Santa Maria di Leuca,
  • the Italian submarine Nereide at Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. on 5 August 1915, 250 metres off Pelagosa (Palagruža) Island.[7]

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 the SM U-14 which had previously been the French submarine Curie, before it was sunk and salvaged by the Austrian Navy.[8]

Vessels Sunk While In Command of U-14
Date Vessel Nationality Location
28 April 1917 Teakwood  United Kingdom Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
3 May 1917 Antonio Sciesa  Kingdom of Italy Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
5 July 1917 Marionga Goulandris  Greece Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
23 August 1917 Constance  France Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
24 August 1917 Kilwinning  United Kingdom Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
26 August 1917 Titian  United Kingdom Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
28 August 1917 Nairn  United Kingdom Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
29 August 1917 Milazzo  Kingdom of Italy Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
18 October 1917 Good Hope  United Kingdom Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
18 October 1917 Elsiston  United Kingdom Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
23 October 1917 Capo Di Monte  Kingdom of Italy Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

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 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 the 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.[5]

Italian citizenship

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

First marriage

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).[5] Trapp's first command, the U-boat U-6, was launched by Agatha.[5][9]

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,[10] was born on 1 November 1911, at Pola, Istria, while the couple was living at Pina Budicina 11.[Map 1] The marriage produced six more children: Agathe, also born at Pola; Maria Franziska; Werner;[11] Hedwig; and Johanna; all born at Zell am See, at the family home, the Erlhof.[Map 2] and Martina, born at Klosterneuburg at the family home, the Martinsschlössel, for which she was named.[Map 3]

On 3 September 1922, Agatha von Trapp died of scarlet fever contracted from her daughter Agathe.[5] Trapp then acquired a villa in Aigen, a suburb of Salzburg, and moved his family there in 1924.[5][Map 4]

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.[12]

At the age of 47, Trapp married Maria Augusta Kutschera, then aged 22, on 26 November 1927.[5][13] They had three children: Rosemarie, born on 8 February, either 1928 or 1929,[5][6] 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.[6][14]

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.[6]

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.[2] 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.[15]

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.[16] 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.[6]

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.[17] 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.[18]

Children

Name Mother Birth Death Notes
Rupert Agatha von Trapp (née Whitehead) 1 November 1911[5] Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.[10] He married Henriette Lajoie (1927) in 1947 and had two sons and four daughters; they later divorced. He later married Janice Tyre (1920–1994), and had no children with her.[14] He was a physician.[6][19]
Agathe 12 March 1913 Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.[20] 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.[3][14]
Maria Franziska 28 September 1914[21][22] Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.[14][23][24][25][26] She worked as a singer and missionary in Papua New Guinea, no children. In 2008 she visited the ancestral home.[14][27]
Werner 21 December 1915 Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.[19][28][29] He married Erika Klambauer in 1948 and had four sons and two daughters, including Elisabeth von Trapp.[11][14][30]
Hedwig 28 July 1917 Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.[3][28] She worked as a teacher, lived in Hawaii, and died of asthma, no children.
Johanna 7 September 1919 Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. She married Ernst Florian Winter in 1948 and had three sons, one died, and four daughters. She lived in Vienna and died there.[14]
Martina 17 February 1921 Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.[28] In 1949, she married Jean Dupiere (died before 1998). She died of complications during childbirth and had a stillborn daughter.
Rosmarie Maria von Trapp (née Kutschera) (1928-02-08) 8 February 1928 (age 96) or (1929-02-08) 8 February 1929 (age 95) Rosmarie worked as a singer and missionary in Papua New Guinea. She most recently lived in Pittsburgh, and had no children.[14]
Eleonore (1931-05-14) 14 May 1931 (age 92)[13] She married Hugh David Campbell in 1954 and has seven daughters. She lives with her family in Waitsfield, Vermont.[3][14]
Johannes (1939-01-17) 17 January 1939 (age 85)[13] Married 1969 to Lynne Peterson and has one son, Sam von Trapp, and one daughter, Kristina von Trapp-Frame. Johannes managed the family resort in Stowe, Vermont, with his son Sam.[14][31]

Orders, decorations and medals

References

  1. ↑ Regarding personal names: Ritter is a title, translated approximately as Sir (denoting a Knight), not a first or middle name. There is no equivalent female form.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Peerages in the United Kingdom
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ von Trapp, p. 41.
  8. ↑ von Trapp 2007, p. 67
  9. ↑ Sources conflict on whether the marriage took place in January 1911 or January 1912.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 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
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 14.6 14.7 14.8 14.9 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "obit" defined multiple times with different content
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ In The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (1949), Maria points 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. Maria also acknowledges in her book that, like most men of the period, the Captain was a heavy smoker.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Social Security Death Index as "Janice T. Vontrapp" – 26 June 1920; 21 December 1994 (V) 05672 (Stowe, Lamoille, VT); 05672 (Stowe, Lamoille, VT) 169-14-4569; Social Security issued in Pennsylvania Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "ssdiwerner" defined multiple times with different content
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Electronic mail from Carla Campbell von Trapp Hunter from August 2010
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Map locations

  1. ↑ The Villa Trapp is at Pina Budicina 11 at Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ The Erlhof is at Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ The Martinsschlössel is at Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ The family villa in Aigen is at Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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