Georg Johannes Von Trapp - Later Life

Later Life

In 1935, von Trapp's money, inherited from his first wife, was invested in a bank in England. At that time, however, Austria was under economic pressure from a hostile Germany, and Austrian banks were in a precarious position. To help a friend in the banking business, Auguste Caroline Lammer (1885–1937), von Trapp withdrew most of his money from London and deposited it in an Austrian bank; unfortunately, it failed, wiping out most of the family's fortune. As Maria further indicates in her book, von Trapp was thoroughly demoralized and depressed at this turn of events, but was unable to engage in other gainful activities, believing that it was beneath the dignity of the family to sing in public or otherwise work for a living. Prior to the loss of the family fortune, the family had engaged in singing as a hobby.

Faced with an impossible situation of little or no money and a husband incapable of providing for her or for the family, Maria 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. Maria also entrusted the priest with management of the family's finances as treasurer of the Trapp Family Austrian Relief fund.

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.

According to Maria von Trapp's memoirs, Captain von Trapp found himself in an awkward situation in 1936. He had been offered a prestigious commission in Germany's naval forces. Already anti-Nazi, he chanced to observe Adolf Hitler and other Nazi luminaries behaving crudely in a Munich restaurant, which sealed his decision to turn down the offer. Contrary to the plot of The Sound of Music, von Trapp was in no danger of being forced to join the Navy of the Third Reich as Austria was not yet under German control. The incident still drew the Trapps' attention to the growing political situation and they decided to leave Austria.

In another separation of real life and drama, since the Captain had been born into what later became the Italian territory of Zara, the family were all Italian citizens as a result. Therefore, the family left Austria for Italy by train in broad daylight, rather than by hiking 300km over the mountains outside Salzburg to Switzerland in the middle of the night as in the The Sound of Music.

The family then sailed to the United States for their first concert tour, then went back to Europe to tour Scandinavia in 1939. 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.

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 (2.7 km2) farm in 1942 and converted it into the Trapp Family Lodge. They built a home which they named Cor Unum (One Heart).

In January 1947, Major General Harry J. Collins turned to the von Trapp family in the USA pleading for help for the Austrian people, having seen 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.

Von Trapp died of lung cancer on May 30, 1947, in Stowe, Vermont.