"Georg Ludwig Ritter[a] von Trapp (4 April 1880 – 30 May 1947) was an Austro-Hungarian Navy officer and the patriarch of the Trapp Family Singers, whose lives were the inspiration for the musical play and movie The Sound of Music. His naval exploits during World War I earned him numerous decorations, including the 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 collapse after the war, Trapp returned to his family, but lost his wife to scarlet fever in 1922. Five years later, he married his children´s governess Maria Augusta Kutschera. Most of the family´s wealth was wiped out during the Great Depression, after Trapp had transferred his savings from a bank in London into an Austrian bank. Maria later trained the children to perform at various events, as a way of earning a livelihood. The family came under increasing threats of persecution from the Nazis after the Anschluss when Trapp refused to serve in the German Navy, due to his opposition to Nazi ideology. He fled with his family to Italy and later to the United States, where he set up a farm and lived until his death in 1947." - (en.wikipedia.org 29.01.2020)
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