Trapp, Georg von, 1880-1947

Georg von Trapp (4 April 1880 – 30 May 1947) was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy who later became the patriarch of the Trapp Family Singers. Trapp was the most successful Austro-Hungarian submarine commander of World War I. His first wife Agathe Whitehead died in 1922, leaving behind seven children. Trapp hired Maria Augusta Kutschera to tutor one of his daughters and married Maria in 1927. When he lost most of his wealth in the Great Depression, the family turned to singing as a way of earning a livelihood. Trapp declined a commission in the German Navy after the Anschluss and settled in the United States. Maria von Trapp's 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers served as the basis for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music (1959) and the film adaptation directed by Robert Wise (1965).