Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy who became the patriarch of the Trapp Family Singers.
Georg von Trapp
On duty aboard SM U-5
Lieutenant Georg Ritter von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead about 1910
The two eldest Trapp sons, Rupert (right) and Werner, in U.S. Army uniforms, reading sheet music on 24 January 1946
The Trapp Family was a singing group formed from the family of former Austrian naval commander Georg von Trapp. The family achieved fame in their original singing career in their native Austria during the interwar period. They also performed in the United States before emigrating there permanently to escape the deteriorating situation in Austria leading up to World War II. In the United States, they became well known as the "Trapp Family Singers" until they ceased to perform as a unit in 1957. The family's story later served as the basis for a memoir, two German films, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical The Sound of Music. The last surviving of the original seven, Maria Franziska, died in 2014 at the age of 99. The youngest and last surviving member of the Trapp Family Singers is Johannes von Trapp.
The Trapp Family in January 1946. Photograph by Conrad Poirier.
The Trapp Family rehearsing before a concert, near Boston, 27 September 1941.
Cor Unum (later the "Trapp Family Lodge"), home of the Trapp Family Singers in the U.S., in 1954
Baroness Maria von Trapp (front) and five of her ten singing children (back row, left to right) Agatha, Hedwig and Johanna; (center, left to right) Marie and Martina.
