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Episode 49: More True von Trapp*

Writer's picture: Kristin LindstromKristin Lindstrom

Updated: Apr 22, 2022

The 1920s and '30s brought dramatic changes to the von Trapp family. Agathe’s mother, Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, died of scarlet fever in 1922, leaving her husband, Captain Georg von Trapp, with seven small children and a shrinking income. Agathe Whitehead was part of a wealthy English family, while Georg was a famous Naval war hero who had commanded one of the first submarines in World War I.

Georg and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead.



When Maria, also called Gustl, came to the family as a teacher for young Maria, who was suffering from the aftereffects of scarlet fever, she was 21. Agatha was 13. While the general assumption is that Maria introduced the von Trapp children to music, this is not the case. The von Trapps had been musical for a long time, attending retreats to collect more folk songs and share those they had acquired, and perfecting a capella classical music. They had frequent musical evenings at home. Several of the children played instruments. It would not be long before they had to sing to make money.

Gustl, at 22, married George, 48, in 1927. There would be adjustments for every family member, especially when three new siblings were born to the couple.

In 1933, the bank that held the remaining funds of Georg’s first wife failed. There was no more money. Everything would now be different. Georg proved himself inventive and resourceful. He found a cheaper house in Aigen, outside Salzburg. The house was so big, the Captain did indeed call his children with a boatswain’s whistle as shown in the SoM, but for a different reason. The children’s bedrooms were spread around the second floor and they would not hear him if he shouted. He had individual calls for each child, plus a general one for all hands-on deck.

A young Agathe tends the chickens. Notice how large

her dress is and how thin her arms.



Georg installed American beehives in the garden and began raising chickens. Young Agathe took charge of the beehives. The family took in boarders who lived on the third floor. The von Trapps began singing for money and soon enough were in demand.

The Nazis invaded Austria in March of 1938, on the eve of Agathe’s 25th birthday. The Nazis wanted very much to bring Captain von Trapp on board, and essentially stalked him. When asked to fly the Nazi flag on his house, he refused, offering instead to hang Oriental carpets from the windows. He turned down a commission in Hitler’s navy to command a new submarine. Agathe’s eldest brother, Rupert, , a doctor, was pressured to serve in a Viennese hospital now short of staff since Jewish doctors had fled or been arrested. He declined. Hans, the von Trapp butler, came to the captain and told him he had joined the Nazi Party and advised him not to say anything in front of him that could be reported back to the invaders, or ‘liberators’ as the Nazis called themselves.

People began vanishing and stories circulated about concentration camps.

Sometime after the invasion, Georg and Maria went to Munich to see an art exhibit. They stopped at the museum’s restaurant for lunch. Once they were seated, they could see the men at the next table were boisterous and rude. Imagine their surprise when they recognized Adolph Hitler and his followers behaving without restraint, cracking cruel jokes and laughing loudly and crudely.

The window of opportunity for escape was closing. Soon the Austrian borders would be blockaded. And just as time was running out, the von Trapps refused to sing for Hitler’s birthday.

How would the von Trapp family get out?


*Information and photos drawn from Agathe von Trapps's memoir, Memories Before and After The Sound of Music, available at Amazon.



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