Trapp, Georg von, 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. After their naturalisation as US citizens, the family name was changed to 'Trapp' without the 'von'. 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 1965 film adaptation directed by Robert Wise.